Tuesday, September 22, 2015

SAR #15265


Off Tracks: Again this month Caterpillar's retail sales are down throughout the world – which makes 33 consecutive months of contraction. There's a message in there – either someone's stealing their heavy equipment business or no one's in the “needing heavy equipment' business. I pick door #2.
Qualifications: Mega accounting firm Ernst & Young, which has previously been one of the UK's largest recruiters of college graduates, says that their years of experience with graduate associates has taught them that there is “no evidence” that a college degree is a pre-requisite for success in life, so they will no longer seek nor require college degrees in its hiring practices.
Protecting & Serving: A cop in Miami handcuffed a kid and put him in a squad care following an altercation at school... over a toy. The suspect is five.
The Company Store: Governments are examining ways to do away with physical currency and replace it with contactless credit/debit cards. Once “money” exists only as electronic digits in government monitored bank accounts, they will own us completely. Buy and bury some precious metals, just in case.
The Price Is Right: Martin Shkreli, the hedge fund slime charging $750 a pill for a 60-year old drug that sold for $13 a tab before he got his greedy hands on the rights, says that the drug is worth a lot more than $750 because people really, really need it to survive. Your money or your life. Or first the one and then the other – asked if he would consider lowering the price for those who couldn't afford it, Shkreli simply said “No.”
Hope, Springing Eternal: The Economists suspects that “the golden age of the Western corporation may be coming to an end.”
Crazies: Billy Graham's kid, Franklin Graham, says that the President will have the “blood of children” on his hands if he doesn't kill Planned Parenthood's federal funding. Some GOPers in MI claim Planned Parenthood encourages teens to get pregnant so the group can make money performing abortions. House Republicans are likely to shut down the federal government to make sure everyone knows they don't like providing healthcare services to women. Best of all is Carley Fiorina who insists that you watch a non-existent video of things that never happened before you can talk to her about the things that didn't happen.
Crime Fighter: Pennsylvania's Supremes have suspended PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane's law license while she defends herself against felony charges. How can she continue as the state's top lawyer if she can't practice law?
Condensed Version: It comes as no surprise that the US is unsure which terrorists to back – which explains the nation's penchant for creating their own.
Porn O'Graph: The trend is ot your friend.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why not both? China's silkworms are probably eating a bit of Caterpillars breakfast as well, though mostly in the low end equipment. Just like China is taking large swaths of rail, military and other equipment markets.

Chairmen of large corporations sold China the rope with which they will hand their successors; but what do they care as long as the short term sugar high lasts till they collect their retirement bonus?

kwark said...

RE "The Company Store": At the rate we're going the question is who will have any money left for the Big Boyz to control? I already trade/barter for a fair portion of our fresh food budget and I'm not really trying. Barter and grey market labor exchanges exist because so many have fallen off the truck in our "booming economy"(TM). Our country's race to the economic/labor cellar seems likely to induce ever more grey and black market maneuvering even as the technocrats and their corporate handlers push for ever more control.

RE "The Price Is Right": Yet more evidence, as if we needed any, that way too many of our revered corporate "job creators" are seriously twisted sociopaths. Watching this character being interviewed was truly creepy. As he attempted to justify the price hike plus his comments about his responsibility as a businessman he reminded me of Joseph Goebbels discussing the "Jewish problem".