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President Joe Biden on Friday called out and mocked conservative Republicans who slammed his infrastructure program as socialist and voted against it but have since asked his administration for grants from it.

I didnt know there were that many socialist Republicans, Biden deadpanned during a speech at a Volvo plant in Hagerstown, Maryland.

Biden, citing a CNN report, noted how Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) were among numerous Republicans to have lambasted the program in public but were now asking for cash from it to fund projects in their districts.

Folks, look, you cant make this stuff up. You gotta say, and I gotta say, I was surprised to see so many socialists in the Republican caucus, Biden cracked.

He then warned: If Republicans take control of the Congress, these historic victories we just won for the American people will be taken away.

Republicans have previously attempted to take credit for funding theyve voted against, such as the COVID-19 relief legislation. Biden has in the past mocked them for having no shame.

See the rest here:
Joe Biden Ribs Republicans With Deadpan Response To 'Socialism' Slam - HuffPost

At the height of the pandemic, there was hope that lessons learned from this period would provide the foundations for a healthier society. No longer would snotty commuters swap germs on packed trains; if people were ill, they would stay home or at least wear masks to protect others.

Now few people are masking, and I have lost track of the number of friends with colds who have happily coughed on me in recent weeks. Rather than building back better, the country seems to have reverted to business as usual, circa 2019.

It did not have to be this way, psychologists stress. And we may have missed the perfect opportunity to boost the nations health and productivity.

Being sick with flu or endless colds is not good for individuals, for families, or for a productive workforce, said Prof Susan Michie, the director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London.

Having adopted these new behaviours, we could have been encouraged to say: Actually, this is worth thinking about to protect you and others from numerous other illnesses. There hasnt been a sense of learning from the past or from elsewhere.

Asia could have provided a good starting point. Although surgical masks were in use before the 2002-04 Sars epidemic, the outbreak embedded the habit of wearing one to protect others from infection. Three months after the epidemic was declared over in Hong Kong, 60%-70% of people said they would wear a mask in public spaces or the workplace if they had cold- or flu-like symptoms, while 94% reported still frequently washing their hands.

Michie said: Some of it is about social norms, but interpersonal trust is also much higher in many south-east Asian countries than it is here and we know that trust is really important in terms of adherence to protective measures.

Western countries such as the UK also tend to be more individualistic: Theres more of a Do I fancy it, or not [attitude] in the UK, rather than a sense of societal obligation and responsibility.

Even so, psychologists dispute the notion that widespread behavioural change could not happen here. Before the introduction of an indoor smoking ban, many derided the idea that people would move their habit outdoors to protect others health.

Michie also remembers the furore when legislation was brought in to make the wearing of seatbelts compulsory: People said, No one will do this and Its a terrible infringement of individual freedoms. But the combination of legislation, backed up by clear and coherent messaging, meant that everybody took it on board.

A key problem is that many of the healthy behaviours enacted at the peak of the pandemic regular hand-washing, social distancing, mask-wearing, working from home, and self-isolating when sick were inseparable from the Covid rules, which chopped and changed according to the level of infection.

Stephen Reicher, a professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews, said: It was never argued that measures like ventilation arent just about Covid. They arent even just about infectious disease. There is a whole literature showing that poorly ventilated spaces impact cognitive performance, leading to declines in task performance and complex decision-making. So, for schools and universities, which are about learning, and offices, where people are taking important decisions, good ventilation is a good idea.

The problem is, we never posed things in those terms. It was just about Covid. So, if you forget about Covid then you forget about those measures, as opposed to thinking about: how do we produce a healthier society?

Being ill is not just a miserable inconvenience, it can also be expensive. According to a recent report by the National Engineering Policy Centre, even outside a pandemic, the lives lost and sick days caused by seasonal influenza cost roughly 8bn a year.

As the UK faces a potential twindemic of Covid and influenza in the coming months not to mention an abundance of everyday colds and stomach bugs this failure to build back better may yet come back to bite us.

Already, health leaders are urging a return to mask-wearing with the number of people testing positive for Covid in England rising. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, the number of people testing positive for Covid rose by 29% between the weeks ending 17 September and 24 September. All UK hospitals are under significant pressure and a new Covid surge is a very heavy straw on the camels back, the leaders said.

Politicians were warned about the risks of reverting to business as usual once Covid restrictions were lifted. In its final report, the governments Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviour (SPI-B) of which Michie and Reicher were members outlined strategies for embedding Covid-safe behaviours into peoples everyday routines.

Having commissioned the report, the government did absolutely nothing with it, Michie said.

Central to SPI-Bs recommendations was the need for a coordinated programme to shape the financial, physical and social infrastructure in the United Kingdom, the report said. Education, regulation, communications, social marketing and provision of resources will be required to ensure that all sections of society have the capability, opportunity and motivation to enact the behaviours long term.

Staying home when unwell, or wearing a good-quality mask is not always practical without adequate support, Reicher explained: When Boris Johnson announced the lifting of all measures, he was asked: Shouldnt people stay at home if theyre infected? He said: I wish we were more like Germany, where when people are sick they stay at home. What he failed to mention was that in Germany sick pay is 100% of peoples income, whereas the UK has one of the lowest rates in the OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development].

Now we have a cost of living crisis, the odds of people being able to lose out on income and stay at home if theyre ill is even more fanciful. The same goes for buying Covid tests if youve got symptoms.

In the absence of state support, the onus is on those who can afford to protect others, to do their bit. This includes employers and educational organisations. Nobody questions the fact that we have clean drinking water at work, but were still getting unsafe air, said Michie. It doesnt make sense.

Spreading the message that seasonal coughs, colds and other everyday infections are not inevitable, and there are ways to reduce the risks, is a good first step.

Do: Keep your distance from other people if you are unwell, and ideally stay at home.

Do: Wear a good quality FFP3 mask if you have cold-like symptoms and cannot stay at home or if you are in close contact with someone who has symptoms.

Do: Regularly wash your hands with soap and water, or use hand gel if this is impractical.

Do: Ventilate shared spaces by opening windows and doors.

Do: Sterilise frequently touched surfaces, such as handrails and doorknobs.

Do: Close the toilet seat before you flush, as small amounts of what you are flushing become aerosolised, meaning you can breathe them in. And many people with Covid shed the virus in their poo.

Dont: Shrug off symptoms such as a sore throat, runny nose or fever as just a cold. If you can afford a Covid test, do one.

Dont: Assume that if you tested negative for Covid yesterday, you do not have it today.

Dont: Leave used tissues or Covid swabs lying around.

Dont: Assume that other people will be fine if you give them Covid. Even with vaccines, some people remain vulnerable to serious disease or long Covid.

More:
Hand-washing and mask-wearing: Covid rules we would be wise to keep - The Guardian

Illustration by Ben Konkol

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About the author: Seong-Hyon Lee is a senior fellow at the George H.W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations and a visiting scholar at Harvard Universitys Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

Will Chinese leader Xi Jinping tone down his boldness once he clinches his third term? By now, those who were initially skeptical are accepting the force of reality in China: Xi will almost certainly be granted a renewal of his power. And during his third term, we are likely to see the same Xi, with more or less the same policy mandate that he has marshaled so far, only more self-confident.

The enduring features of Xis third term are likely to be as follows. In politics, the Communist Partys grip over all sectors of Chinese society will be strengthened in the name of comprehensive leadership. As Xi puts it, East, west, south, north and centerthe Communist Party leads everything. In economics, the dual circulation strategy to fortify Chinas domestic demand will be implemented with more vigor. Some misinterpret dual as meaning domestic and international, in the sense of expanding production for exports and for domestic consumption. In reality, it means the worlds second-largest economy is withdrawing to its domestic market and shying away from the world, in order to become a more self-sustaining economy, less dependent on foreign trade and foreign supply chains.

Semantics should be put aside when analyzing Chinas slogan politics. In society, the term common prosperity will be front and center again. This slogan refers broadly to economic inequality and was used to justify crackdowns on the technology sector, among other policies. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it was briefly relegated to the back burner.

In Chinas foreign policy, a new type of great power relations will be the dominant theme, to place China on an equal footing with the U.S. Xi first raised the idea with President Barack Obama in 2013. The Pacific Ocean is big enough to hold both the United States and China, Xi explained at the moment. It took a while for Obamas aides to realize Xis actual meaning. He was asking America to make concessions by renouncing the Western Pacific. In his third term, Xi will not give up on his vision of establishing a new type of relationship with the U.S.

On Taiwan, realizing national reunification will remain an enduring focus of Chinas national mandate. Amid deepening U.S.-China tensions over the Taiwan Strait, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently reiterated the importance of Taiwan by describing it as core of core interests. Whenever China wants to identify the issues considered important enough to go to war over, it uses the term core interests. In the case of Taiwan, Wang used the word core twice.

If one looks closely, these platforms are all internal and external policies promoted by the Xi administration over the past decade. Xis policies are all long-term goals, and he will stick to them in his new term.

Those who study Xis disposition call him an ideological purist. That is, Xi is a person who truly believes in socialism. Xi is also a believer in Chinas historic sense of rejuvenation. As he put it in 2019, Our world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century. Xi senses a once-in-a-century historic opportunity and believes that the Communist Party is destined for victory.

Xi has shown, time and time again, that he differs from his recent predecessors in that he does not hesitate to enter into conflict with the U.S. In a September 2021 speech at the Central Party School, an institution comparable to the Harvard Kennedy School that grooms midcareer officials, Xi diagnosed that the great revival of the Chinese nation had entered a critical period and said, Not wanting to fight is unrealistic. You must abandon the illusion and fight bravely. Xi has also said, The East is rising, and the West is declining. In Chinas political discourse, the East refers to China, while the West is often a euphemism for the U.S.

Overall, in Xis third term, he will focus on laying the groundwork for the Communist Partys goal of socialist modernization. His goal is to prove the superiority of socialism and turn China into a global power that will awe the West. It also means that Xis foreign policy will pursue ideological competition with the U.S., in addition to economic, military, and technological competition.

Conventional wisdom holds that the task facing the Communist Party today is to maintain the one-party system by strengthening its legitimacy, especially through economic recovery. Xi has somewhat invalidated this old formula, as his larger and more important mission is to demonstrate the superiority of socialism over other considerations. The Western business community has overlooked this aspect of Xis vision in its puzzlement over his policies, including his crackdown on Big Tech entities and the brake he has put on Chinas real estate market, not to mention the rigid zero-Covid policy that severely undermined Chinas economy. They regard these acts as China shooting itself in the foot.

But Xi is simply on a different mission, a grandiose one to revitalize socialism in the 21st century. For that reason, Xi, the strongman, is likely to remain second only to Mao Zedong as the most closely watched and vigorously debated leader in modern Chinese history.

Guest commentaries like this one are written by authors outside the Barrons and MarketWatch newsroom. They reflect the perspective and opinions of the authors. Submit commentary proposals and other feedback toideas@barrons.com.

Read more here:
Xis Third Term Will Double Down on a Mission of Revitalizing Chinese Socialism - Barron's

With every passing movie, box office numbers have started becoming more and more important, more so after the performance of Brahmastra in theatres. Box office numbers help the film to continue the buzz after it is released in theatres. More than ever before people outside the circle of trade and filmmaking are taking keen interest in how much money a film is making on its release and consecutive days. From The Kashmir Files to Brahmastra, from Vikram Vedha to Ponniyin Selvan, films performance at the ticket counters are as much in the news as their creative value.

In order to understand the language of trade, we spoke to trade analysts, film producers, distributors, cinema owners and chalk out how to read and assimilate all the trade information that is being bombarded at us every single day, about every single film on social media, which in turn influences the viewers decision to either go and watch the film or not.

If you talk about Brahmastra, the makers last shared its box office collection on September 19 and said the films worldwide gross collection is Rs 360 crore. The numbers suggest the film has been a spectacle and a smashing hit with the audiences. However, there has been a debate on whether or not the producers shared inflated numbers to make the films earnings look bigger than they actually are.

On this, film producer and film business expert Girish Johar says that box office numbers are a good marketing tool to ensure that the film continues to be talked about. However, he feels they dont actually add to the footfall.Before we discuss how box office numbers impact the audience and the business of films, it is important to see how box office numbers are calculated.

There is a major difference between net and gross box office collection. While the gross box office collection includes the money received from the total sale of film tickets, net is gross minus deductions made by the government like entertainment tax, service tax, etc. Another thing to consider is that these taxes differ from state to state, hence, the net collection of a film can differ from one state to another for the same film with the same gross amount. While net film collections are generally revealed for Hindi films, numbers shared for south India are mostly gross amount.

Johar says that given the numbers being discussed for films are fairly big, there is a lot of interest among people regarding box office. Everyone is keenly excited when big numbers, big money are talked about and we all know India is crazy about cricket and movies. So anytime big numbers are associated with films, be it high box office numbers or big budgets or even star fees, it gets a lot of traction and the general public does get attracted, the trade expert opines.

However, Johar also suggests that while there is a lot of conversation around box office numbers, it is only a marketing tool and doesnt always impact a moviegoers decision to either watch or not watch a film. Producers and the films marketing teams want to ensure that there is a huge number of audiences thronging the cinemas to watch their films, so they use box office numbers as a marketing tool. And now the audiences have realised that it is just used as a marketing tool to engage and get traction, Johar adds.

Kangana Ranaut continuously claimed that producers Karan Johar has been sharing inflated box office numbers for Brahmastra. Is there a way to authenticate these number though? Johar says, unfortunately there isnt! While internationally organisations like Rentrak provide some transparency, very few organisations in India are doing similar work, like Ormax. Johar explains, At the end of the day, if you see from a commercial perspective then the film is the producers investment, so it is completely their call whether to share numbers or not.

Thats the trade side of the story, but why do producers choose to share how much their film is earning? Producer Sunny Khanna who has backed films like Bheja Fry 2, Mulk and Traffic Signal is of the opinion that sharing box office number is becoming very important today because of the negativity that surrounds films, and that is one way to stop people with agenda from sabotaging a film.

He says, It is not required, but films are being targeted by those with an agenda. They try to sabotage the film by sharing wrong box office numbers, then the producer has no option then to start sharing how much their film has earned and this happens a lot. Recent example is Brahmastra. Everyone was putting the film down by saying that the content is not good or the film is not earning as much as it should have (compared to the budget), but today the box office numbers has proven the films mettle. Then the other possibility is that a smaller film, which starts with smaller earnings but shows growth over Saturday and Sunday, then the audience feels that the movie is has picked up so maybe it is worth a watch. For example when Chup released people didnt expect it to do the numbers but it went on becoming stronger with every passing day.

Box office numbers is a huge discussion on social media and publications too report it diligently, but does that really pull audiences to theatres to watch a film? Manoj Desai, distributor and owner of Mumbais Gaiety Galaxy and the iconic Maratha Mandir tells us that sharing box office numbers with public has really helped Bollywood, especially in these times.

He says, It has worked for Bollywood after it faced a few bad months. It also shows that people are excited to watch the film because there is a good advance booking. Box office numbers are the new indicators of how a film is and how it is fairing, it is like how people used to read reviews before watching films, now some of them check box office numbers to understand if it is doing good business and if it makes sense for them to invest in it by going to watch it.

View post:
Understanding box office numbers: A successful marketing tool in the age of social media - The Indian Express

OPINION:

Standing in front of a room packed full of college students on an American university campus, I have an unpopular opinion to share: Despite what many young Americans believe, socialism is not the answer to the nations problems. I know it could be a tough crowd to convince the majority of Gen Z adults ages 18 to 24 have a negative view of capitalism.

But I have the best evidence anyone can have my testimony. My story includes escaping unimaginable conditions and persecution in Venezuela, just as 6 million other Venezuelans have done in the shadow of dictator Nicols Maduros socialist regime. The record of socialism in Venezuela is one of political upheaval, severe socioeconomic instability, and one of the worst humanitarian crises Latin America has ever seen. If we do not act, if we do not change the perception of what socialism truly is and how it destroys the countries it claims to help, America may also go into decline and see its freedom and prosperity wither.

Its an important reminder during National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 in the U.S. This month recognizes the contributions made by the American Latino community through its diverse cultures and extensive histories. But history never ends; it is made every day, and as the adage goes, if we dont learn from the mistakes of our past, history is bound to repeat itself. In my home country of Venezuela, history is unfolding before our eyes with devastating effects. So, its crucial to acknowledge the struggles many endured in the face of socialism and to ensure their present realities dont emulate the horrors of their past.

In Venezuela I saw these horrors in person: Children dug through trash cans on the street, looking for their next meal. People died simply because they could not find insulin in the medical marketplace. Individual liberties were trampled in the name of state authority and oversight. But it wasnt always that way. As a child, I lived a comfortable middle-class life, but when Hugo Chavez began to impose socialist policies in the early 2000s, Venezuela went from the richest country in Latin America to the poorest.

In the face of these conditions, I knew I had to act. But in speaking out against Mr. Maduros tyrannical administration, I faced political persecution. I fled to the U.S., where I enjoyed the fruits of liberty, justice, individualism and autonomy.

But I also noticed an alarming trend. Unlike the young people of Venezuela, who took to the streets in protest of socialism and its appalling effects, American youth were congregating on college campuses and engaging in political action in favor of socialism.

The next generation of leaders simply must understand that socialist concepts are the very cause of radical regimes and the crises they produce. Thats why as an outreach fellow for The Fund for American Studies (TFAS), I began traveling the U.S., visiting universities to speak to young people as a witness to the real story of socialism, and how that story ends in a loss of free speech, state-policed oppression and economic collapse.

Many are receptive to my message; others are not. Some say that common problems plaguing the American people rampant inflation, runaway health care costs, increasing student loan debt, and lack of affordable housing, for example are a direct outcome of capitalism. My experience tells me otherwise: That it is excessive government intervention, not capitalism, that has caused these outcomes.

Surprise hospital bills and excruciating wait times to see a doctor are not the results of free enterprise. Rather, they are the byproduct of bureaucratic regulations and lack of transparency two practices that are the opposite of capitalist values. Sky-high student loan bills are also the consequence of government intervention; colleges have been free to drive up the cost of tuition, knowing that the federal government would eventually foot the bill (or simply cancel the student debt, which were now seeing).

Explaining the truth about socialism is how we will change hearts and minds, though it is often an uphill climb. However, just as I saw young people turn away from socialist ideology in Venezuela and throughout Latin America, I know that it can happen among Americas college students, too. This Hispanic Heritage Month, we must uplift the voices of American Latinos and migrants who have seen the true cost of socialism with their own eyes. By heeding these warnings, Americans can preserve the blessings of freedom and avoid Venezuelas fate.

Jorge Galicia is an outreach fellow for The Fund for American Studies (TFAS).

Continue reading here:
From Venezuela to America: Sharing the true cost of socialist ideals - Washington Times