Friday, November 18, 2011

SAR #11320

Economic disaster traditionally begets social unrest; just say'n.

A Losing Season:No, not Penn State football. How proud are Pennsylvania taxpayers going to be of Joe Paterno et all when it’s time to pay the lawsuits? How many tuition hikes will it take to pay the settlements? Go team.

Déjà Vu: Greeks suspect they have seen this movie before, where the fascistic right takes control -  and they do not want any part of it. So they're back in the streets.

Unmentionable: The Republican tax hawks are not saying a word about the $110 billion tax increase coming January 1st. That's because it impacts the workers, not the owners. Without congressional action, the 2% of FICA (Social Security) tax that was temporarily suppressed will come back, after pumping about $110 billion into the economy. Come January the average worker will be taking home about $70 a month less, just as the CEO's start cashing their bonus checks.

Amber Green Alert: MF Global customers' money is still missing. Foul play is suspected.

Only The Good Diet Young: A new study of US adolescent cardiovascular health suggests that today's teens are likely to die of heart disease at an earlier age than their parents. Young (24 -35) adults are already keeling over faster than previous generations, especially the women, and those in the 12 -19 age range are mostly obese, have high blood pressure, get no exercise and eat french fries and pizza all day.

Gospel: The good news is that only 388,000 Americans lost their jobs last week, in an economy that is creating about 100,000 new jobs a month....

There Ain't No Frackin' Jobs: Most news outlets simply take the PR handoouts from the industry and tout how many jobs fracking will bring to the area. For example, western NY will gain 60,000 new jobs when the frackers get to fracking, so the frackers say. Looking at similar operations in neighboring Pennsylvania suggests the number is more like 6,000. And that's before taking into account the jobs that will be lost due to environmental damage.

Clarification: The Confederate Flag does not represent Southern Heritage, it represents a defeated nation that was established to perpetrate the ownership of blacks by whites. They lost.

Recommended Rant: I grew up way back when America was a democracy, but that just tells you that I'm old. Today's America isn't run by citizens, nor even the citizens' representatives. It is a Corporatocracy. Why is it that the Europeans have figured out that they are getting screwed, and we keep pretending we're going to win the lottery? While they're in the streets, we're fighting for control of the remote. And so on...

Now They Tell Us: Either the Supercommitte makes deep cuts in the Federal Budget, or the 'automatic trigger' does. Either way, the cuts will slow the economy further, at a time when it's already pretty damned slow. It's a version of the austerity game that is playing so well in the provinces. Thank your local deficit hawk.

8 comments:

rjs said...

the supercommittee no longer has time to have a plan scored by the CBO & back to them by monday so they'd have the required 48 hours to review it; the sequestered cuts include $600B to defense, & the hawks are squawking; expect an attempt by the right to rewrite the budget control act next week...

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

rjs - Thanks for the pointer - I hadn't recalled (and don recall anything lately in the mm about) the CBO scoring provision. I do think you are right about "calling re-write". I still maintain that no matter what the SC or the AT decree, future Congresses will do whatever they want to do - binding your successors hasn't worked before and won't now. This has been but a side-show.

ckm

Unknown said...

Unmentionable - Oh don't be silly. The CEOs only do direct deposit or wire transfer.

There Ain't No Frackin' Jobs - The big deal here in Western PA, the big issue is that the jobs that are created don't go to locals since there are no locals with the needed experience. The gas companies are coming in, frackin' the well, capping it and moving on. Turns out commodity prices are too low right now, but securing low price leases today for the bet of high commodity prices later is the draw. The result is a new breed of migrant workers.

Anonymous said...

A Losing Season:...

Don't forget that the Governor of PA just pulled the plug on a $3Million grant to the Second Mile Foundation. A close look at Foundations, NGOs and Non-Profits would reveal that many of these "charities" are run by and for the Elite to corrupt and manage the social agenda to their own ends while filling their pockets with filthy lucre. How many Foundations is GOLDMAN SUCHS involved in?

mistah charley, ph.d. said...

re "America used to be a democracy" - for a different perspective, see http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2011/11/concerning-american-change-in.html

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

mistah charley - Thanks for the referenced site. Good reading & I have little quarrel with its general view that it was the rich who formed this country for the benefit of themselves. [A quote: The State and "the law" will always be devised and implemented by those with the most power: that is why they are devising them and not you.]

But there have been a few times when the common man has had a better share of the crumbs, and my childhood - say from the end of WWII to LBJ's abdication - was a period when a greater degree of democracy was permitted (? or won?). Certainly the strong unions of that time had a positive effect and the interests of the many were far better served then than in many other / most other periods.

Every now and then the peasants shove their shoes in the works. It may be temporary and it may be futile, but from time to time it happens. Maybe one of those times is about due.

I do not expect the war to be won by the 99%. I do expect the war.

ckm

OSR said...

RR- "Why is it that the Europeans have figured out that they are getting screwed, and we keep pretending we're going to win the lottery?"

That would be due to the obvious reason: We are much dumber than our European counterparts. Ever since LBJ's abdication, the US public education has been systematically dumbed down. Why? Because the best educated generation this country ever created called BS on a BS war in southeast Asia. Thus, we've gone from your generation's catch phrase, "What's your politics?" to the current, "What am I protesting?" If you doubt me, find yourself a set of high school text books from the early 1970's and compare them to their modern equivalent. Critical thinking is lost art in US public education, memorization is the new order of the day.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

OSR - From family members I am quite aware of the circus our schools have become and from interactions with its products I am far too familiar with the general level of the product and agree the product from my generation was, by and large, a superior item. But I've also seen the AP texts that my grandchildren use and am favorably impressed by them.

But while I generally agree with the criticism of the schools, the texts, the administration and what goes on in the classroom I feel the greatest handicap the current generation of students face is their parents.

How did (your words)"the best educated generation" manage to produce the children who became the parents of the current bunch - disengaged, anti-science, non-supportive of the minimum school discipline, etc, etc? It's not all television.

ckm