Wednesday, September 25, 2013

SAR #13268



A recipe is not legally binding.

Making The Point: Ted Cruz vowed he would continue his fillibuster of Obamacare until he is “no longer able to stand”, knowing that if he collapses he will receive excellent medical treatment under his federal health care plan.

Confession: With five days to go before the silliness becomes serious, I see no way out. The demands and non-negotiables are far too rigid to be compromised. The Republican Right is not in contact with reality and it appears that Obama finally has finally realized that giving in is the same as giving up. I'd say something clever but there is nothing clever about this country's proud march to a non-functional political state. Time to go back to the drawing board on political structure and power, with all the violence that will entail. 
 
Child'sPlay: NCAA will restore the Penn State athletic scholarships that were supposedly punishment for the University's years of making sports and coaches far more untouchable than children. 
 
Leadership: John Kerry says the US will sign the UN treaty pretending to regulate the $80 billion-a-year international trade in weaponry, of which the US is directly or indirectly the largest seller. Of course the US Senate will never 'consent', so it will never apply to our merchants of death. And we will still make, use and sell anti-personnel mines, depleted uranium ammunition, and drones. 
 
Pot/Kettle: Israel says the US should not trust the Iranians because they are hypocrites 
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Censorslip: . The US has terminated reporting on the ongoing hunger strikes at Guantanamo, and the attendant forced feedings, but wants the world to know that hunger striker Pussy Rioter Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been sent to an isolation unit as punishment for complaining about conditions in the Gulag where she's imprisoned.

We're Number One! Income inequality in the United states is now more extreem than it was in the Roman Empire. 
 
As Intended: The 401(k) retirement charade has worked exactly as planned. It helped destroy private pension plans, has enriched Wall Street via fees and charges, and has made the wealthy, wealthier. The sheep have mostly not recovered from the two serious shearings the market handed out in the last decade. Oh, and it's still used as a 'reason' to bludgeon Social Security.

Censorship: Individuals who have witnessed and suffered from US 'surgical' drone strikes in Pakistan are being blocked from entering the US to describe the effects of these war crimes before a Congressional ad hoc hearing. Ah, yes: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you flee...”

Things I Didn't Know: “Nothing more Christian” than cutting food stamps and forcing four million more poor people into poverty, even though the SNAP program is “an effective economic stimulus”, or perhaps because it is. I also didn't know that all blacks' “last name is N****ER!” or that the Democrats are using “mind control” to force us to accept gay marriage. Thanks to various Republicans for pointing these things out to us.l

The Parting Shot:
Mistflower - Eupatorium coelestinum

3 comments:

jfwellspdx said...

Welcome back, CKM! Hope you are fully recovered. Missed the daily (depressing) news summary.

john patrick said...

Glad you're back, CKM.

HS said...

As Intended: Perhaps this one should be titled: Better Than Intended. While fees are charges are the icing on the cake, the real role of 401(k)s was to create a gargantuan (30-50% of NYSE capitalization) slush fund to move markets in a preferred direction without ever having to worry about said slush fund's contributors. Mission Accomplished!

Most 401(k) contributor's are utterly ignorant of even the basic workings of their retirement plans and Wall Street knows it. Groups, such as the ICI, continually and extensively survey plan contributors to insure that they are still clueless. Thus, Wall Street is now using what used to be "safe" 401(k) choices like money market accounts to dump all sorts of sketchy securitized assets, that no institutional investor would touch with a pole.