http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-labor/key-employment-dispute-leaves-supreme-court-divided-idUSKCN1C71RP

Liberal U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday defended the right of workers to bring class-action claims against companies but their conservative counterparts who are in the majority sounded skeptical in the biggest business case of the court's new term.

A win for employers would give the green-light to an already growing trend in which companies require workers to sign arbitration agreements waiving their right to bring class-action claims either in court or before private arbitrators.

About 25 million workers are already bound by such agreements, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute think tank.

The nine justices heard roughly an hour of arguments in the case on the first day of their new nine-month term. They also heard arguments in an immigration dispute, and have a series of major cases lined up in the coming months regarding voting rights, religious liberty, union funding and other issues. [L2N1M81Y3]

Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer said he was worried that a ruling against the workers would imperil "the entire heart of the New Deal," laws and programs enacted in the 1930s under President Franklin Roosevelt to help workers during the Great Depression.

"I haven't seen a way that you can, in fact, win the case, which you certainly want to do, without undermining and changing radically what has gone back to the New Deal," Breyer told Paul Clement, a lawyer representing the employers.

Employers have increasingly required employees to sign waivers to guard against a rising tide of worker lawsuits seeking unpaid wages. Class-action litigation can result in large damages awards by juries and is harder for businesses to fight than cases brought by individual plaintiffs.

Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the ability of workers to join together to bring claims against an employer was the "driving force" behind a key federal law enacted to regulate labor disputes.

Many cases involve claims that, if brought on their own, would represent such a minor dollar amount that they may not be worth pursuing because of legal bills alone, Ginsburg added.

"That's why this is truly a situation where there is strength in numbers," Ginsburg said.

The court has a 5-4 conservative majority but two of the five conservative justices were silent: Republican President Donald Trump's appointee to the court, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas, who typically does not speak during oral arguments.

'FORGET IT'

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the swing vote in major cases, asked questions that signaled sympathy to employers, as did two fellow conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

Kennedy indicated that a loss for workers would not prevent them from acting in concert because they would still be able to join together to hire the same lawyer to bring claims, even though the claims would be arbitrated individually. That would provide "many of the advantages" of collective action, Kennedy said.

If the workers win, "it seems to me quite rational for many employers to say, 'Forget it, we don't want arbitration at all,'" Kennedy said.

The three consolidated cases that came before the justices involved professional services firm Ernst & Young LLP[ERNY.UL], gas station operator Murphy Oil USA Inc[MOUI.UL] and healthcare software company Epic Systems Corporation.

The Trump administration sided with companies, contending that the agreements are valid. In a rare occurrence, the administration faced off against an independent agency of the federal government, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The Justice Department in June reversed the government's previous position taken in the case under Democratic former President Barack Obama, deciding not to defend the NLRB's stance that these employment agreements were invalid.

None of the justices addressed the flip-flop on Monday.

Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Wall said the NLRB made a "pretty radical move" five years ago when it claimed a worker's legally protected right to act together to improve the workplace included the right to class-action lawsuits.

Federal labor law does not stretch so far that it prevents a court from enforcing an agreement to bring claims against employers in individual arbitration, Wall added.

"You can be protected from dismissal for retaliation when you seek class treatment up to the courthouse doors or the doors of an arbitral forum, but once you're inside, you don't have an entitlement to proceed as a class," Wall said.

The NLRB argues that the waivers violate federal labor law and let companies evade their responsibilities under workplace statutes. Workers have fought back against the waivers, arguing that the cost of pursuing their cases individually in arbitration is prohibitively expensive.

A ruling is expected by the end of June.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Robert Iafolla; Editing by Will Dunham)

TLDR:

It is being argued that the waivers companies get workers to sign to keep them from taking part of class action lawsuits for unpaid wages and the like should not be legal, and that these waivers to against the basic labour rules.

Forcing workers to sign waivers to agree to arbitration instead of resorting to class action lawsuits, which has become a growing trend in the workforce.

The supreme Court is split on this where liberal judges supporting the right for workers to go for class action lawsuits instead of being forced into arbitration. One argument in support is Ginsburg and his arguments are as  stated below:

Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the ability of workers to join together to bring claims against an employer was the "driving force" behind a key federal law enacted to regulate labor disputes.

Many cases involve claims that, if brought on their own, would represent such a minor dollar amount that they may not be worth pursuing because of legal bills alone, Ginsburg added.

While conservative judge have been opppsed and their arguments can be summed with this blurb.

Kennedy indicated that a loss for workers would not prevent them from acting in concert because they would still be able to join together to hire the same lawyer to bring claims, even though the claims would be arbitrated individually. That would provide "many of the advantages" of collective action, Kennedy said.

If the workers win, "it seems to me quite rational for many employers to say, 'Forget it, we don't want arbitration at all,'" Kennedy said.

So after that long TLDR, which side do you agree on?

Knowing how this board is filled with stupid click bait headlines based on the same old topics of race and religion, using the same talking point that have been repeated to death that they make my ears hurt due to the level of basic stupidity in these conversations, I decided to switch the fucking discussion with something at least more worthy of discussion and something new.

"Hack at U.S. market regulator displays persistent government cyber woes" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sec-cyber-government/hack-at-u-s-market-regulator-displays-persistent-government-cyber-woes-idUSKCN1BW2X5

A major computer hack at America's top stock market regulator is the latest sign that data stored in the highest reaches of the U.S. government remains vulnerable to cyber attacks, despite efforts across multiple presidencies to limit high-profile breaches that are so frequent many consider them routine.

In recent years, nation-state and criminal hackers, as well as rogue employees, have stolen data from the Internal Revenue Service, the State Department and intelligence agencies, including millions of government employee files allegedly exfiltrated by the Chinese military, U.S. officials say.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), America's chief stock market regulator, said on Wednesday that cyber criminals may have used data stolen last year to make money in the stock market, making it the latest federal agency to grab headlines for losing control of its data.

At the same time, being only the latest major breach is not special, said Dan Guido, chief executive of Trail of Bits, which does cyber security consulting for the U.S. government.

"It simply reflects the status quo of our digital security," said Guido, who is a former member of the cyber security team at the Federal Reserve, America's central bank.

Central bank officials have detected dozens of cases of cyber breaches, including several in 2012 that were described internally as "espionage."

The U.S. federal government has sharply increased funding dedicated to protecting its own digital systems over the last several years, attempting to counter what is widely viewed as a worsening national security liability.

But as one of the world's largest collectors of sensitive information, America's federal government is a major target for hackers from both the private sector and foreign governments.

"When you have one central repository for all this information - man, that's a target," said Republican Representative Bill Huizenga, chairman of the House subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Investment, which oversees the SEC.

Last year, U.S. federal, state and local government agencies ranked in last place in cyber security when compared against 17 major private industries, including transportation, retail and healthcare, according to benchmarking firm SecurityScorecard.

An update of the rankings in August showed the U.S. government had improved to third worst, ahead of only telecommunications and education.

"We also must recognize - in both the public and private sectors, including the SEC - that there will be intrusions, and that a key component of cyber risk management is resilience and recovery," said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton.

The federal government audits cyber security measures every year at top agencies, producing reports that routinely expose shortfalls and sometimes major breaches. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also looks for hacking attempts and helped spot an alleged intrusion by Chinese military-backed hackers into a major banking regulator between 2010 and 2013.

Weekly scans of government systems by the Department of Homeland Security showed in January that the SEC had critical cyber security weaknesses but that vulnerabilities were worse at three agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration.

Some agencies said they had improved their cyber security posture since that report.

A GSA spokeswoman said the agency has not had any critical vulnerabilities in the past six months, and that the ones identified in January were patched in under 10 days.

A Department of Labor spokesman said all identified vulnerabilities had been fixed and that its systems were not compromised by the identified flaws.

But, he added, "addressing vulnerabilities associated with legacy systems can be challenging."

(Reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington and Jason Lange in New York; additional reporting by Jonathan Spicer in New York and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; editing by Andrea Ricci and Cynthia Osterman)

As the hacks have hit a number of financial institution and at increasing costly damage. It seem many institutions have ignored the threat and are getting away with throwing cyber security under the bus when it comes to funding.

It also seems there has been a disconnect between government security bodies with defense planning with groups like NSA focusing on offensive planning creating gaps and undermining international standards, by purposefully creating backdoors and weakening the ISO standard. This has led to the world pushing back at any future attempts by NSA to propose any future ISO standards.

https://www.wired.com/2013/09/nsa-backdoor


As the cyber space is still free and open, it seems standards are little if not non-existent. This allows for a wild west situation z where multiple nation's and private groups have gone crazy on the internet attacking each other. This has potential of becoming quite a dangerous escalation, with Stuxnext showing how close one can go from virtual to.phsyical damage to an organization, which could in a sense lead to an escalation of war. Not only this, this attempt of arms race has become increasingly dangerous and have backfired against the US and other nations.

This wild west scenario has caused some to call for a code of conduct and a certain guideline to how to approach nefarious activity whether state sponsored or not, and to define what consists an act of war or a sanctionable offense.

Anyway thoughts on this?

It seems that as online groups and boards start to stand out more in the modern age and start overlapping with mainstream, the more it seems that the battle of online anonymity online is being fought and money is being invested to force people to sacrifice their anonymity online.

It seems the bots and certain trolling or toxic community are in pride of their anonymity trying to fish for reactions. But it seems their wins and fun is starting to cause friction with mainstream and certain groups especially the business community. This friction seems to have brought a new issue of online rights to the discussion. After the Arab Spring it was noticeable how certain authoritarian government had started to control the internet watching the flows and targeting traffic and hunting dissenters.

Although the reasoning in Western States are different it seems that issues of toxic and national unrest has caused problems, from foreign organization spreading misinformation and local government trying to keep their nation stable by trying to stiffle discussion that bring headaches to the government and start divisive discourse. It seems the solution is forcing people to put their face out there if they preach any of these ideas or make any of these comments on public boards. Thing comments to their real life person's. Taking away the protection to say what you want without fear of reprecussion. Basically have people self-censor themselves if they do not want people they know to know what thoughts they have.

Just got on a swing after a long time and kind of felt nostalgic. But then tried to remember what were the best playground equipment that I ever came across.

I must say it would have been the playground web pyramid. It was just a tower of strings tied to metal bars on which you climbed to the top of the pyramid.

Anyway what was your favorite playground equipment?

"Saudi to transfer airports to sovereign fund in privatization drive" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-airports-privatisation-idUSKCN1B125O

As everyone talks about the fall of the Saudi with the eventual fall of oil, it seems the Saudi are not deaf to the comment. The Privatization and development of sovereign wealth funds by the Saudi royal family have picked up and not only ARAMCO but also their own airports are being privatized to diversify their incomes generating assets.

A nation with alot of social spending to support their people with free education, free healthcare and the like, with zero taxes, it seems they still plan on running their country the way it always has but with a new source of revenue, one less dependent on oil and more dependent on investment.

It seems there is no company the Saudi are not involved in, as they have partial ownership in multiple industries.

Dud

"Mazda announces breakthrough in long-coveted engine technology" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mazda-strategy-idUSKBN1AO0E7

Basically Mazda designed a new engine which is 20%-30% more efficient than our current combustion engine.

Ignites fuel by compression instead of spark plugs, and as fuel economic as diesel engines without the release of nitrogen oxide and sooty particles.

Plan is to get it rolled out by 2019, with it's new electric car line and autonomous vehicles by 2025.

This comes on the news that Japan's GS Yuasa Corp is going to start producing lithium batteries that will double the range of electric cars.

"EU expresses worry over Poland reviving different retirement age for men and women" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-poland-pensions-idUSKBN1AN1PV

So this might end up becoming an issue for Poland and is drawing the ire of Brussels and Berlin.

Poland is proposing to change the retirement age for Polish people. With males receiving it at age 65 and females at age 60.

Reasoning is based on different roles and expectations for males and females in society. But Brussel consider it discriminatory and anti-equality.


So what do you think?

Now I know what the initial reactiom will be denial by some and others agreeing. But my goal today is not to decide if America is no more the strongest power in the world which it still is, but something else.

 The United States after the fall of the Soviet Union, becames the main power in the world and could spread it's reach everywhere on the glove. But since the Iraq war the supremacy of the United States has been brought into question, with China being mostly touted as the alternative and the eventual new king.

But I disagree with all this. China has grown true, but so has Russia from the ashes, but as the old bear it is, most of it's action is from pride and the gains it gets from it's action are costly and phyrric at best. The capture of Crimea forced it to work with OPEC when oil came crashing, and the sanctions have hurt what remains of the economy, turning it into a resource country. The European Union although still fragmented is starting to form cohesion from the threat of the old bear and is some times touted as the alternative to the US as the leader in the Western world.

But knowing all this,  I feel the US is woefully unprepared for the future, and how it plans to guide it's foreign policy. Most still cling to the era of American Military might in the past, but with old wounds from Vietnam and Iraq, and the assertiveness of foreign powers checking their moves, and loss influence in multiple regions in the world, I feel the US might want to play a different game.

A doctrine to mainly check the other super powers once and for all, those who are starting to get bold. My proposal would be the strengthening and development of smaller nation's to replace the US in certain theaters around the world, giving the US the capability to retreat and tend to old wounds and internal discord.

To the Far East, the ASEAN nation's with their islands and their natural tendency to form navies, can be used to check China's expansion and even that China's claim in the South China Sea. In the middle east, allowing Iran and Saudi Arabia to grow and develop their game, and even if they are hostile, the two strong regional powers will be able to keep the Russians and Chinese from expanding South, especially with a strong India in the mix to counter them at the borders. And like always Afghanistan will end up as the buffer state.

In Africa I feel I need more information.

So how do you think of this idea?
But maybe I am just deluding myself, and this topic should be in the flood forum to be ridiculed.

"Oil subdued on high OPEC supplies, rising U.S. production" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-idUSKBN1AK04P

Although one would assume with falling prices that production would stall, in fact the opposite, US production has grown as demand has still grown, but OPEC production has also grown with increase in supply from African countries.

This raises questions on how long can OPEC maintain the cuts in production, and if they may attempt to crash the market again to hamper alot of investment in the oil industry in the US.

On another point, is US production tied to existing Wells or to newly explored Wells. Is exploration and installment of new infrastructure growing or are US suppliers trying to survive in their existing infrastructure.

First I was yes, then I was no, but now I don't know.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/08/daily-chart?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/

Seems to be the issue is higher up the chain than it is lower, and number of people of different genders applying to certain jobs.

Apparently the idea of alpha and beta was popularized by the researcher who discovered it but later found out he was wrong. Tried to take down his book and disprove it but was unsuccessful in getting it out there.

So anyone know any such myths that have been popularized as fact?

http://www.sketchyscience.com/2014/08/the-alpha-myth-real-science-of-wolf.html?m=1

"China factory activity accelerates in July on strong export orders: Caixin PMI" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-pmi-factory-caixin-idUSKBN1AH2SR

It seems that China export numbers continue to grow meeting expectations in opposition to the failure of talks between China and the US on trade agreement. While this also occurs there has also been a growth in the economy tied to an increase in government led construction.

But with this growth there is an expectation that the economy is planning to slow down from it's two year high and contract, in anticipation the Chinese government has passed stronger regulation to decrease risk taking in the economy. Even with these rules being tightened and profits being squeezed it is still expected that growth will occur.

On another note while growth occurs there has been a noted decrease in employment, which might start raising question on China's quest to build a service economy to rival that of the US.

So when did it?

But can anyone explain the Minecraft Parodi channel on YouTube?

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