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Submission + - IMF sounds alarm on ballooning US national debt: 'Something will have to give

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes:

Under current policies, public debt in the U.S. is projected to nearly double by 2053. The IMF identified “large fiscal slippages” in the U.S. in 2023, with government spending surpassing revenue by 8.8% of GDP – a 4.1% increase from the previous year, despite strong economic growth.

If this trend continues, the Congressional Budget Office anticipates the national debt will grow to an astonishing $54 trillion in the next decade. Higher interest rates are also compounding the pain of higher debt.

Should that debt materialize, it could risk America’s economic standing in the world.

The IMF is talking down to Washington like we’re a Third World country because that’s the direction Washington is taking us.

Interest payments alone on the current debt is $1.6T/year.

Submission + - FBI says Chinese hackers preparing to attack US infrastructure (reuters.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Chinese government-linked hackers have burrowed into U.S. critical infrastructure and are waiting "for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow," FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Thursday.

An ongoing Chinese hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon has successfully gained access to numerous American companies in telecommunications, energy, water and other critical sectors, with 23 pipeline operators targeted, Wray said in a speech at
Vanderbilt University.

China is developing the "ability to physically wreak havoc on our critical infrastructure at a time of its choosing," Wray said at the 2024 Vanderbilt Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats. "Its plan is to land low blows against civilian infrastructure to try to induce panic."

Wray said it was difficult to determine the intent of this cyber pre-positioning which was aligned with China's broader intent to deter the U.S. from defending Taiwan.

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan strongly objects to China's sovereignty claims and says only the island's people can decide their future.

Submission + - Top Astronomers Confront Possibility They Were Very Wrong About The Universe (futurism.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: “We have great data, but the theoretical basis is past its sell-by date,” he added. “More and more people are saying the same thing and these are respected astronomers.”

A number of researchers have found evidence that the universe may be expanding more quickly in some areas compared to others, raising the tantalizing possibility that megastructures could be influencing the universe’s growth in significant ways.

Sarkar and his colleagues, for instance, are suggesting that the universe is “lopsided” after studying over a million quasars, which are the active nuclei of galaxies where gas and dust are being gobbled up by a supermassive black hole.

The team found that one hemisphere actually hosted slightly more of these quasars, suggesting one area of the night sky was more massive than the other, undermining our conception of dark energy, a hypothetical form of energy used to explain why the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate.

“It would mean that two-thirds of the universe has just disappeared,” Sarkar told The Guardian.

Other researchers have suggested that the cosmological constant, which has been used for decades as a way to denote the rate of the universe’s expansion, actually varies across space, which would contradict the standard model of physics.

Submission + - Tesla lays off 'more than 10%' of its global workforce (electrek.co)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: “We don’t know which specific teams will be most or least affected by Tesla’s layoffs, but two well-known Tesla executives are now missing the “Tesla-affiliated” badge on twitter – Drew Baglino and Rohan Patel.”

Submission + - Textbook Prices Have Increased by 1401% Over Last 50 Years (myelearningworld.com) 1

Submitted by LookMan
LookMan writes: Over the last 50 years, the cost of college textbooks has soared by a jaw-dropping 1401%, transforming what was once a manageable expense into a significant financial burden for students across the United States.

This staggering increase, which has seen textbook prices grow at nearly 3 times the rate of inflation, is more than just a statistic—it’s a barrier to education and a source of stress for millions of students trying to pay the already exorbitant costs of higher education.

Submission + - Oregon shutting down small farms to protect the environment

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Small Farms in Oregon Suffer as New CAFO Definitions Threaten Livelihoods
In Oregon, the landscape of small-scale farming is undergoing a seismic shift due to recent regulatory changes affecting water rights and farm operations. These changes are casting a shadow over the future of family farms and local agriculture, invoking a series of legal challenges and widespread concern among the farming community.

At the core of the upheaval are two contentious issues: the expanded definition of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and stringent water usage restrictions. These regulations have placed an undue burden on small farmers, many of whom are now facing the threat of closure due to what they view as overreaching government intervention.

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