SAR #13296

Let’s Get This Class War Started - Chris Hedges 

 

Fill in the Blank/Multiple Choice: “The White House conceded on Monday that revelations about how its intelligence agencies have intercepted enormous amounts of ______ phone and email traffic.” (French, Mexican...) Alternatively, how many nations are there?

Still: America’s Business is War.

Chain, Chain, Chain: Despite the debt/deficit drama in Washington, despite the weak to nonexistent recovery, despite another year of falling wages in real terms, we Americans are getting set to once more throw ourselves (and a great deal of our future) away on the annual holiday shopping orgies.

One Can Only Hope: Jamie Dimon is “damn proud” that JPMorgan is getting to keep years of crooked profits from manipulating financial markets by making a $13 billion deal with the government. It's called a “deal” because they got one. Now for the fall...

Prior Experience A Plus: Weak kneed liberals don't understand that Obama nominated Jeh C. Johnson to be the next Secretary of Homeland Security because he spent years justifying the excesses of the US war on humanity, not despite it. 
 
Better Believe It: Pope Francis has warned that there is little of Jesus in ideological religion, that it is faith and love and meekness and acceptance that echo Jesus.

Mousetraps: As part of the famed recovery^TM - now in its fourth year – cheerleaders at the Commerce Department announce that August construction spending was up 0.6% over July and 7.1% y/y. In smaller print they noted that private residential spending was 50% below the 2006 level. Some economist agree with Dean Baker that the housing bubble put an 8% hole in US GDP and so far nothing has been inflated enough to fill that hole; thus weak housing, weak jobs market, weak economy. Read the fine print.

All You Need Know: September payrolls increased only +148,000, and the unemployment rate plummeted 0.1% because even more workers left the labor pool. It's called a recovery.

It's Done With Mirrors: Alan Greenspan admits his surprise on discovering that an old treasure map he found in an adolescent's novel wasn't a useful guide to reality. He now seems to claim he's a hero for pretending to be one for so long.

This Way To The Egress: WaPo assures us that while we are on the road to hell – or at least a questionably survivable 8ºto 10º rise in global temperature – we'll make lots and lots of profit from burning up shale gas and poisoning the water supply.

Reassurance: No, Virgina, technology isn’t going to destroy the middle class - the 1% is doing that.

Asked and Answered: Why are housing inventories low? Why wouldn't they be? See any customers with new jobs or pay raises, ready to move up? See any customers who've been able to unload their old place for enough to make a down payment? See any customers who can afford to buy a house until the 12th of Never when the college loan is paid off? Jeesh.

Truth Or Consequences: While the US Senate is trying to hide a 6,000 page report on the ways the CIA went about its renditions and torture, Amnesty International has asked the US to explain why its continuing drone campaigns are not illegal and where its assumed right to kill anyone, anywhere, anytime originates in the rule of law. 
 
The Parting Shot:

This little piggie came home.