Tuesday, May 5, 2015

SAR #15125


Just because something is technically possible does not mean it is a good idea.

Senseless Data: There are 15 neighborhoods in Baltimore with life expectancies lower than North Korea. Those born in a wealthy neighborhood can expect to live to 84, well above the U.S. average of 79. Those born at the same time a few miles away will die 19 years earlier at 65 - 14 years below the U.S. average. 
 
Them That Has, Gets: The clever civic boosters of Lockport, NY have given Yahoo a half billion dollars in subsidies for creating 200 jobs. That's $2.4 million per job. Even Jerry Jones didn't get that good a job.

Simon Says: A federal task force stole a truck from a small company, got one of its drivers to try to smuggle a load of drugs into Texas from Mexico. Didn't work out well, the klutz was killed by the cartel and nothing good came from the operation. The truck, shot to pieces, was returned to the company. The company tried to sue the DEA for the damages, but the judge ruled that you can't sue the government, even if they steal your truck and get it shot up.

Relax: The US Senate, by a vote of 50 – 49 decided that climate change is not caused by humans. Which is some sort of comment on the Koch brothers.

Grammar Test: Parse this: “In the end, the staff forecast of economic activity during the Great Recession should be judged by how useful it was to the conduct of monetary policy at the time.” From the Forecasts Governors of the FED, explaining the usefulness of all those bad forecast they've made over the last decade or so.

It's In There: When (not if – they'll keep hammering until they get their way) TPP passes, another two or three million jobs will be “offshored, permanently lost.” Because trade and profits...

Noted: The WHO has pointed out that most countries have no plans for how to handle the health crisis that will arise when antibiotics stop working. Not if, when.

Plankton:The American people must make a fundamental decision. Do we continue the 40-year decline of our middle class and the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, or do we fight for a progressive economic agenda that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the environment and provides health care for all? Are we prepared to take on the enormous economic and political power of the billionaire class, or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy?” Bernie Sanders.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Simon Says: Truck owner has balls of steel. The DEA isn't above returning the truck with some of the drugs still in it, and then blaming the owner.

Relax:: Indeed we should just enjoy the show, because human inputs are no longer necessary, like a snowball pitched over a steep ridge, natural forces have been set in motion that we can no longer bring back under control. My hope is that the 0.01% can't slip through this one, because their usual trick of f*cking the poor & middle class over won't work. We'll be gone. (see Senseless Data ). Let's hope the robots become self-aware.

Anonymous said...

Hey Bernie: Most of the top 20% that I know are pretty happy with how society is organized right now. And, it seems, the bottom 80% is pretty happy as long as they've got enough (near) food, entertainment, and slow-motion eagles-n-flags.

So, I think, it's gonna be bizness as usual until the bottom 80% is actually starving (oh, but wait, they are doing that in India and nobody seems to mind very much either..., so... looks like bizness as usual for next few thousand years, Bernie).

kwark said...

re "Relax": And this will doubtless be counted as an accomplishment of the 114th Congress. Denying the obvious and finding cleaver ways to confuse and deceive the public. All in a day's work for Congress

But Anonymous 12:58 is right, any more it doesn't take too much to distract most of us . . . a little "reality" TV, Monday Night Football, the war against Christmas, the pending invasion by Mexico (or China, ISIS, or XXXXX).

Anonymous said...

DEA never makes a mistake: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/05/dea-still-cant-tell-senate-left-innocent-student-survive/

LJansen said...

kafka. wasn't that his name?