Cartoon

Polite Society

Written by SK Ashby

(Cartoonist - Nick Anderson)

In other news, the Dow Jones Industrial Average saw its biggest drop of the entire year today because of Trump's trade war. Winning!

Meanwhile, two additional victims of the El Paso mass shooting died today, bringing the death toll to 22. The death toll from the other weekend mass shooting here in Dayton, Ohio stands at 9.

Finally, it looks like the British construction industry will be completely fucked if Boris Johnson moves ahead with a hard, no-deal Brexit.

The construction industry, which accounts for 6% of the economy and employs a similar number of people as manufacturing, has a lot to do to prepare for Brexit, when free movement of people between Britain and the remaining 27 EU countries will end. With the government setting ambitious home-building targets, the sector faces an acute labor shortage after struggling to recruit workers for a decade.

Under plans set out in December, post-Brexit rules will require EU workers to be divided according to their qualifications. “High-skilled workers” would be those with a secondary-school degree or higher. Only those who earn at least 30,000 pounds ($37,000) would be allowed to work and stay in the country.

For foreign workers without these qualifications, there would be a one-year limit to living and working in the U.K., before they would have to leave again for another 12 months. Almost half of builders are non-U.K. nationals.

A failure to attract young people means the industry is reaching retirement age unusually quickly: just 10% are under 25.

That means a labor shortage in the near future: The Construction Industry Training Board estimates that the sector will need to recruit and train 31,600 workers every year for the next three years just to keep up with demand. The number of apprentices going into construction fall short of this figure by almost a third.

Destroying your own country to own the Euros.

Our last real president had something to say today.