Just caught back up after a few days away. I saw goon called me a carpetbagger from Wyoming a few days ago…good stuff. Just had to point out that I was born in Craig :-).
China news…nothing new. Still lots of dark buildings at night and an underutilized factory during the day. Looks like they want me to stop off in Tokyo for a few days on the way home at the end of June to assist another customer. No problem, since I’m homeless at the moment anyway.
He said something about a separation from his wife. Hmm, I guess there’s one advantage to living in a trailer park. If they have to divide assets, not like she’s going to get a nice house…
I can’t help but see Tech headed into the crapper again soon. Aren’t PCs, tablets and smartphones pretty much played out? What growth is there that isn’t all stone soup. And eyeballs and clicks ain’t tech.
Can’t you have growth of internet companies that sell nothing but whimsical fantasy cooked up by college dropouts with vivid imaginations, at no cost of materials, capital or shipping?
I’m going to buy a $36 Rsspberry Pi computer very soon. Along with a power supply, HDMI cable and USB keyboard and USB mouse. I might only need my internet TV for the monitor.
And I will put a free Linux distribution on it to get a good graphical user interface and all the nice Linux software. But it will be air gapped. No ethernet, no Wi Fi
We should drop those on India and China by the millions.
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Comment by Bill, just south of Irvine
2014-06-13 13:03:52
I believe the raspberry pi folks are based in the UK. By the time I add up peripherals the total price is still under $100. It has a 700MHz ARM1176JZFS processor with FPU. Great graphics capabilities and 512 MB RAM. I worked with beagleboard XM boards recently and know as how to install linux so this will be my air gapped machine.
Comment by Carl Morris
2014-06-13 23:49:08
We’ve done a lot of Beaglebone Black stuff lately…it’s in the project I’m supporting in China right now. Not great, but not bad.
I can’t help but see Tech headed into the crapper again soon. Aren’t PCs, tablets and smartphones pretty much played out? What growth is there that isn’t all stone soup. And eyeballs and clicks ain’t tech.
I think that Apple will find ways to come out with iPhone versions that have minor feature additions. And their customers will buy whatever they put out. Besides that, there’s always things like Google Glass.
Have you prepaid your lifetime of losses to depreciation on the rapidly depreciating shack of yours? Premature question considering you haven’t brought yourself to the grim reality of that loss.
I confess I made a sh@tload of money in real estate.
Comment by Housing Analyst
2014-06-13 07:56:35
Its the internet afterall $hithouse Poet. You can say anything you want irrespective of the truth.
Comment by azdude
2014-06-13 08:42:25
are u a poser contractor?
Comment by Housing Analyst
2014-06-13 13:42:08
Unlike you, I’ve substantiated my CM experience.
Comment by Blue Skye
2014-06-13 15:37:14
I have a 35 lb. anchor that trumps pre-paid rent.
One nice thing about rent though, it doesn’t have to be borrowed. Another nice thing is that after renting for 30 years and the dump is falling down, you just go rent a new place. Another nice thing about renting is that after 30 years, if you aren’t a spendthrift, you have enough money set aside to buy two or three houses cash, maybe more.
Wow, this “children’s crusade” from Central America is a disaster. Tuberculosis, scabies, STDs, gang members, whoo-hoo, that’s some quality immigration, lemme tellya.
Be sure to use the correct word, this is not an “administration”, it’s a regime. It’s an occupation government of the US. The destruction of the US is the goal. Overwhelming the country with the worst of the worst is part of the strategy, as is demoralizing the military. As is giving the banksters a pass.
From the article:
The Homeland Security source cited earlier in this piece says “it’s all over the news in Central America that if you bring your kids north you have a free pass.” Most are entering the U.S. through the Rio Grande region in Texas. “The entire thing can be pinned squarely on the Obama administration and its policies,” the DHS source said. “It’s going to get much worse.” That’s probably accurate considering the news in these Central American countries. For instance, El Salvador’s largest newspaper reported just a few days ago that DHS officials confirmed that the amnesty offered to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors under DACA could be extended two more years. The article quotes DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson saying that everyone agrees that a minor who crossed the border illegally in search of a parent or a better life is not breaking our laws.
It is worse than scabies. The lawlessness, crookedness and arrogance this shows is a cancer on the country. Nero, Nixon, Obama fiddled while Rome burned.
ORCHESTRATED AT THE BORDER
Do you truly believe that these minors being let in at the border are all or most unaccompanied?
Do you truly believe there are many unaccompanied small children?
Do you truly believe they are all from Guatemala or El Salvador?
If I was a poor Mexican kid, where would I be headed right now, with a story about being from El Salvador?
Are there enough fast food jobs for a huge influx of 15-17 year olds?
The big question is where is the “libertarian” Bill? In the life he leads or just in the words he says? He says he’s libertarian and despises the government but works for them most his life. He says he’s a libertarian but will defend a Christian Reconstructionist which is anything but libertarian.
Bill defends this guy? Wow what a “libertarian”. More like a fraud imo.
Brat is a strict Christian Reconstructionist, which means that he supports a theocratic government and holds extraordinarily radical beliefs when it comes to the role that God should play in the lives of believers and non-believers alike. As far as Reconstructionists are concerned, the Bible is the standard for morality that all must adhere to and those in violation of its tenets as they interpret them — gays, blasphemers, the irredeemably sinful — should be subject to punishment by the state. In fact, Rousas John Rushdoony, who founded the Calvinist-based sect, declared that Christianity and democracy were “inevitably enemies.”
‘The defeat of House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor shifted the political ground under U.S. multinational corporations this week, just as they seemed to be gaining traction in their push for a $95 billion tax break on bringing foreign profits home.’
‘With House Republicans in turmoil after their leader’s loss, lobbyists and policy analysts said the proposal, known as the offshore corporate income tax holiday, was losing momentum.’
“Any controversial legislation … is not going to happen in a post-Cantor world because now every single member is afraid of every vote,” said Henrietta Treyz, a policy analyst at financial firm Height Analytics.’
“Those especially that still have primaries to go through are very, very wary of taking any difficult votes,” she said.’
¨What do white parents tell their white children about the demographic future of this country?¨
That weŕe turning the color of Jesus? Or weŕe turning the color of the people we stole the country from? Or weŕe turning the color of the people we enslaved and brought here against there will?
It would probably also be a good time to teach your kids about irony, poetic justice, and unintended consequences. Or original sin, if youŕe a religious family.
Is America Doomed to Become a Failed European-Style Welfare State?
finance.townhall.com | February 20, 2014 | Daniel J. Mitchell
More specifically, has America reached a tipping point, with too many people riding in the wagon of government dependency and too few people creating wealth and pulling the wagon in the right direction?
Is it when government spending consumes 50 percent of economic output? That would be a very bad development if the burden of government spending reached that level, but it’s not necessarily fatal. Back in the early 1990s, the public sector was that big in Canada, yet policy makers in that country were able to restrain budgetary growth and put the country on a positive path. Sweden is another nation that has turned the corner. Government spending peaked at 67 percent of GDP in the early 1990s, but is now down to 47 percent of GDP after years of free-market reforms.
Is it when a majority of households are getting government handouts? That’s also a worrisome development, especially if those folks see the state as a means of living off their fellow citizens. But taking a check from Uncle Sam doesn’t automatically mean a statist mindset.
Is it when a majority of people no longer pay income taxes, leaving a shrinking minority to bear all the burden of financing government? It’s not healthy for society when most people think government is “free,” particularly if they perceive an incentive to impose even higher burdens on those who do pay. And there’s no question that the overwhelming majority of the tax burden is borne by the top 10 percent. There’s little evidence, though, that the rest of the population thinks there’s no cost to government – perhaps because many of them pay heavy payroll taxes.
The whole world is about BURN RATE. How long before another cash infusion is required. How long before you get another car. How long before you have another kid and need more room. How long before the credit card interest payment is too high to pay each paycheck. How long can you feed that alligator on that accidental rental?
Here’s Why the Student Loan Market Is Completely Insane
Eric Chemi - June 11, 2014 - Harvard University
President Obama made news this week by expanding a student loan program to broaden the eligibility of borrowers and proposing to limit monthly payments to 10 percent of a student borrower’s income. On the margin, such moves might help. But the administration’s efforts don’t address a more fundamental problem: These loans aren’t calibrated for risk. In other words, students from Harvard and less-prestigious regional colleges are thrown in the same bucket, despite quite different risk profiles.
Under Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) rules governing the insurance of banks, lenders can’t differentiate among schools in assessing credit risk as they do with home buyers and car owners. As a result, “the government has made it difficult for banks to price to default rates,” says Mike Cagney, founder of Social Finance, a socially based student lending operation known informally as SoFi. “By accepting FDIC insurance, banks lose pricing flexibility and can’t charge interest rates commensurate with the quality of schools—and default rates vary widely by schools.”
SoFi has funded more than $650 million in loans to 7,000 borrowers since its founding in 2011. Says Cagney: “The definition of a predatory lender is someone who pushes loans on an individual who can’t afford to pay them back. Under that definition, many of the educational loans made today could be considered predatory.”
Despite other economic recoveries, including lower delinquency rates in every other type of loan (housing, auto, credit card), the problem in the student loan market is definitely getting worse. In the past few years, default rates have increased every single year:
More specifically, a school’s tuition doesn’t adjust for the quality of the education—as represented by graduates’ ability to pay back loans. Schools in a narrow $35,000-$45,000 range feature a wide range of default rates:
Right now the government, through such programs as Direct Loans, is happy to let students borrow tens of thousands of dollars, regardless of how likely that student can pay it back. Private lenders will offer up even more money. Students are saddled with debt they can never pay back, and the government knows this.
Retirement is the payoff at the end of a long career, the end game most workers are striving for. But these days, with corporate pensions disappearing (only 11% of Fortune 100 companies offered traditional defined-benefit plans in 2012, down from 89% in 1985) and life spans on the rise (65-year-olds in 2010 had remaining life spans of 19.1 years, nearly two years longer than folks who turned 65 in 1990), you’re likely to be on your own when it comes to building a nest egg that may have to last 30 years or more.
Will you ever save enough to retire comfortably? Many Americans aren’t so sure. In fact, 48% of workers don’t expect to retire by age 65 — up from only 33% in 2005, according to a recent CBS News poll. And 22% of Americans don’t think they’ll retire until they’re over 70.
1. You’re Not Saving in a Retirement Plan
2. You Are Neglecting the Company Match
3. You Didn’t Start Saving Early in Your Career
4. You Used Your Nest Egg as a Piggy Bank
5. You Cashed Out When Switching Jobs
6. You’re Not Saving Enough
7. You Haven’t Played Catch Up
8. You Saved for Kids’ College Instead of Your Retirement
9. You Haven’t Created a Retirement Budget
10. You Haven’t Planned to Maximize Social Security Benefits
And one reason why you will, and it’s called RAPE (Retire All Personal Early).
With all the newly graduating and heavily indebted (read: hungry for employment) job applicants that will be/are now hitting the job market for many companies it makes logical sense to sweep out the old and bring in the new - especially when you can get the new on much cheaper terms than you had to put up with when you hired the now-old.
RAPE the old workers and replace them with young Turks who will:
1. Work for less money and
2. Will work for less benefits
And if you work it right you just might get them for FREE - free as in interns.
The only real security EVER in the workplace is being able to walk across the street. If you have skills that are in demand, you will always be good. If you are in your 50s and retired in place, then when the boss “whistles - you squat. And what he does to you rots your brain. No amount of water on earth can get you clean again.”
How about forced retirement? If I had a business I’d offer plenty of incentives to get that dead wood out the door. I think there are a huge number of retired in place after 60 workers already.
Yeah, and lemme guess, you need to have 80% of your high income during retirement to “maintain your lifestyle.” These jokers have been giving out the same advice for decades.
Howard Gold’s No-Nonsense Investing Archives
June 13, 2014, 8:27 a.m. EDT Peter Schiff says to leave the U.S. to ‘make a fortune’
Opinion: The Fed has created bubbles, which will lead to catastrophe, he says
By Howard Gold
Euro Pacific Capital
Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital
Peter Schiff has a bone to pick with MarketWatch. Or, more specifically, with me.
In two columns I wrote recently, I took the outspoken chief executive officer of Euro Pacific Capital to task for his prediction that gold would hit $5,000 an ounce. It hasn’t come anywhere near that price yet.
I also wrote that average investors who feared debt and the Federal Reserve’s extraordinary bond buying “were, to put it mildly, led astray by the hyperinflation gurus — and not just by Faber and Schiff.”
Schiff’s brother Andrew Schiff, who runs marketing and communications for Euro Pacific, objected to that, though it clearly was referring to the general public, not Euro Pacific clients.
I actually like Peter Schiff. He’s passionate about his views and puts his money where his mouth is. Unlike some pundits, he engages interviewers who don’t ask softball questions. He even occasionally admits he’s wrong.
But Schiff wanted a chance to respond, so we obliged.
“I’m not leading people astray and causing them to miss out on all these profit opportunities,” he told me in a telephone interview. “We’re finding a lot of opportunities that most people are missing.”
…
Fox News: “A Missouri slaughter house recalled 4,012 pounds of fresh beef over concerns that nervous tissue that could contain the “mad cow” disease pathogen may not have been properly removed from the meat before shipment, a federal food safety agency said.
Reviewers found the firm may not have removed dorsal root ganglia tissue from cattle aged 30 months and older, in violation of federal regulations.”
US News dot com: “Men who ate roughly 2.6 ounces a day — the equivalent of 2 or 3 slices of ham — of processed red meats had a 28 percent higher risk of heart failure and more than twice the risk of death from heart failure compared with men who ate less than one ounce of processed meat daily, the researchers found.
Based on their findings — published online June 12 in Circulation: Heart Failure — the researchers recommend not eating processed red meat at all and having only one to two servings or less of unprocessed red meat a week.”
Dumbo study always peddling the fiction that meat is bad. Why would people whose study made conclusions about eating processed red meat then go on to make a recommendation about unprocessed red meat?
Everyone love Liberace our flamboyant housing pimp.
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Comment by FavelaTouro
2014-06-13 07:43:51
He seems to have really changed from a year or two ago. Pressures of lifey and wifey catching up? Biological clocks ticking?
Comment by goon squad
2014-06-13 07:48:34
It’s been a lot better for Downlow Joe since he got that pied-a-terre studio apartment in Dupont Circle for all his downlow hookups when he tells his wife he is working late…
If that is a Chipotle burrito i will give some wisdom. Ask for half and half, steak and carnitas. More often than not you will get 3/4 of each. More meat.
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Comment by goon squad
2014-06-13 07:53:13
Excellent.
I had a coupon for buy one get one so it’s carnitas for dinner last night and carnitas for lunch today.
3/4 more meat and another load of sodium. I skip the guac and salsa and chips and go for the burrito bowl these days. You are talking 2400 mg sodium if you include salsa with that burrito.
Burrito bowl, chicken, brown rice, black beans, cheese, sour cream and lettuce is 955 mg sodium.
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2014-06-13 09:03:49
Only about 20% of the population is salt sensitive. Unfortunately, I am in that group.
Comment by goon squad
2014-06-13 09:10:03
Bill, not all of us get to wear size 44 inch waist pants like Housing Analyst does.
4 days a week I do spinach salad with roast chicken that I make for myself. No salad dressing, no bread crumbs, no cheese, no bacon bits.
The burrito will not derail me from *WINNING* the Pikes Peak Ascent half marathon in two months.
Comment by Bill, just south of Irvine
2014-06-13 11:04:29
Unfortunately every Friday at work is catered lunch here. That means high sodium. I will have to do like Goon and bring my own low sodium stuff to work. Then not worry about eating Friday lunches
recalled 4,012 pounds of fresh beef….the firm may not have removed dorsal root ganglia tissue from cattle aged 30 months and older, in violation of federal regulations.
Get the government out of the way and that company would have recalled the beef on its own. Why? Because of some basic things that happen when there are no regulations in place to get in the way of items that are there when stuff happens in capitalism working without regulations.
I’ve posted this before. In around 2004 I was 30 miles from Brownsville Texas. I got into a conversation with a Canadian trucker. He had just driven a load of slaughtered cows down to Mexico. The meat was kept cold all the way across the US, and delivered to a plant for processing across the border in Mexico. He told me he backed up to the loading dock, and the workers threw the bodies onto the dock, where they were left lying in the 95 degree heat, in the sun, with flies crawling all over them. When he left sometime later, the bodies were still sitting there with no one beginning to take them inside. He was blown away that after all the care to keep the meat cold, the meat would be treated like this. And for what? So the company didn’t have to pay someone in Canada a few more bucks to process it. That’s your capitalism with regulations.
When I talk about our constitution having much more limited conception of privacy than other constitutions, what I mean is the creeping scenario where more and more offline thoughts, conversations, and actions end up online and people are essentially powerless to do anything about it. It’s not just the official government, hacking into your call records, it’s also the development of private drones and consumer products like Google glass and Go Pro cameras. Anything you say or do could be saved and used against you later, esp. edited or taken out of context.
I don’t agree with all the points this guy makes, but I think this is a useful read. (And, BTW, it’s from a very conservative author.)
The future of censorship is not commissars and gulags, but effective monopolies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter working with groups like the Anti-Defamation League to combat “hate.” This is already underway, and conservatives will accept the efforts as expressions of private sector autonomy.
The next few decades will see the end of the division between the “online” and “offline” world. Google Glass, which will be as ubiquitous as smartphones within a few years, is only the beginning. Soon, people’s identity, opinions, relationships, and work history will be available at a glance. More importantly, as Facebook has shown, most people will gleefully abandon their privacy.
The result will be an ever more extensive (and effective) witch hunt. Already, anonymous commentators in Sweden were (illegally) exposed by hackers, and the media showed no compunction about hounding them from their jobs. Donors will also be targeted. Already, “point and stutter” seems to be the sole occupation of American journalists.
The intellectual justification is already established. Because of “white privilege,” “trigger warnings,” and political correctness, this generation of liberal arts students will be incapable of understanding, let alone championing, white identity. Universities will abandon the pretense of debating issues or teaching the high culture of the West. Instead, they will embrace their role of training increasingly unqualified college students in egalitarian ideology.
The danger is that concepts like “white privilege” have no theoretical limit in terms of justifying government action. “Your rights end where my feelings begin”–at least if the crybaby is non-white. More importantly, be it out of moral belief, fear, or both, many whites will accept and perpetuate this.
This kind of thinking will increasingly dominate law, as a non-white America will continue to implement racial socialism. Already, Supreme Court justices have attempted to throw out referendum results on issues like affirmative action on the grounds that white Americans cannot vote on issues that affect the interests of minorities.
With the exceptions for things sexual or scatalogical, I am entirely in favor of allowing any private individual to record anything without notice or consent. Phone calls, conversations, whatever. Sunlight exposes the truth. You take the risk in associating with scumbags like Sterling did. Too much today is geared towards allowing weasels to skate because of no proof.
Because of “white privilege,” “trigger warnings,” and political correctness, this generation of liberal arts students will be incapable of understanding, let alone championing, white identity.
Is this something that you’re worried about, Joe?
Already, Supreme Court justices have attempted to throw out referendum results on issues like affirmative action on the grounds that white Americans cannot vote on issues that affect the interests of minorities.
Is this actually true? Which justices were involved and what how did they try to justify such opinions?
But at least we have double the debt and double the unemployment rate and double the cost of a gallon of gas…
——————-
The magic is gone: Just as many Americans dislike Obama as do George W. Bush, poll shows
Daily Mail (UK) | 18:21 EST, 12 June 2014
President Barack Obama has ruffled so many feathers during his five and a half years in office that he is now as disliked by as many Americans as former president George W. Bush, a new poll shows.
In the latest CNN/ORC International poll, 51 percent of Americans said they viewed President Obama unfavorably. The same percentage of respondents had a negative opinion of former President Bush.
This is the first time in Obama’s presidency that a majority of Americans have given the president bad marks.
This MSFT press release proves that the American worker (those who still have jobs in the next decades, anyway) are going to see the notion of “free time” or “family time” keep slipping away.
———-
“REDMOND, Wash. — Nov. 6, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. is declaring Nov. 7 Get It Done Day, to spark action for people who seek to balance life’s demands on their own terms. From the streets of New York to Paris, Canada to Mexico, Asia to Australia, and online at http://office.com/getitdone and #GetItDone, Microsoft is empowering people everywhere to share their story and inspire others to express how technology helps them get the things they care about — from work to home — done from anywhere.
No matter where you are — the office, airport or the gym — the need to get things done away from the office has never been greater.
As life and work blend, more than half (55 percent) of office workers* said they need to be able to get work done no matter where they are, and more than one-third (37 percent) said they do their best thinking outside the office, according to a recent study conducted online by Harris Interactive Inc. on behalf of Microsoft of 1,000 U.S. office workers. ”
Another reason dogs are superior to people:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2656101/Clever-boy-Dogs-prefer-EARN-treats-solving-problems-receiving-handouts.html
I meant to get back to post but I became busy with work, I am not Rio I am not getting paid for these posts:
British finance minister George Osborne on Thursday vowed “radical” planning reforms and more powers for the central bank in an attempt to curb the country’s spiralling house prices.
Making his keynote speech at London’s Mansion House, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced plans to build up to 200 000 homes, heeding the advice of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which warned excessive demand was fuelling the boom.
He promised an “urban planning revolution”, in which the government could force local councils to allow housing developments on certain brownfield sites.
Osborne also revealed plans to strengthen the Bank of England’s ability to impose restrictions on mortgage loan-to-value (LTV) and loan-to-income (LTI) ratios.
“We saw from the last crisis the dangerous temptations for politicians to leave the punch bowl where it is and keep the party going on for too long,” said Osborne.
“I want to make sure that the Bank of England has all the weapons it needs to guard against risks in the housing market.
“I want to protect those who own homes, protect those who aspire to own a home, and protect the millions who suffer when boom turns to bust.”
Despite the IMF warning, Osborne insisted that house prices were of “no immediate cause for alarm”, pointing out that house prices are still lower in real terms than they were in 2007.
“Does the housing market pose an immediate threat to financial stability today? No, it doesn’t,” he said.
“Could it in the future? Yes, it could, especially if we don’t learn the lessons of the past. So we act now to insure ourselves against future problems before they can materialise.”
Osborne accepted that his planning proposals would have to clear a lot of hurdles before becoming law, pointing out that previous reforms had been “hard-fought and controversial”.
NEW YORK – About 200 Americans under contract with the Department of Defense at Balad Air Force Base in Iraq are trapped by the al-Qaida-inspired jihadists who have seized control of two cities and are now threatening Baghdad, according to WND sources.
The sources, private contractors who have recently returned to the U.S. from Iraq, said Friday their former colleagues effectively have been abandoned by the U.S. military and are fighting for their lives against an army of jihadists surrounding the base who belong to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.
The U.S. contractors are at Balad to help the Pentagon prepare the facilities for the delivery of the F-16 aircraft the Obama administration has agreed to provide the Iraqi government.
The surrounded Americans said they currently are under ISIS fire from small arms, AK47s, and rocket propelled grenades, or RPGs.
The contractors so far have been able to hold the base, but those on the scene reported it was only a matter of time before the ISIS terrorists succeed in breaking through the perimeter. They expressed concern that they would be ab
WND has learned from sources that the jihadists have closed down escape routes, and the U.S. Air Force is in a stand-down position. U.S. forces are not assisting even with air cover so a private extradition flight could land for a rescue, the sources said.
Privately scheduled exit flights have fallen through, sources said, as several private pilots originally scheduled to make the flights have quit.
The sources contend the U.S. military could provide the necessary air cover to protect C-130s or other air transport craft sufficient to make the evacuation, but so far officials have refused to get involved.
Balad Air Force Base has been under attack since Wednesday, when ISIS rebels seized the nearby town of Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein.
The attacking ISIS forces approached Balad Air Force Base in trucks and called through loudspeakers for all private security forces and Iraqi special military to leave immediately or die.
We need to launch another D-Day, like 5 minutes ago, and rescue those contractors. I don’t care if it costs more than the Iraq war and the bank bailouts combined, because the value of a life of a contractor is truly incalculable…
……Trickle-down economics is the greatest broken promise of our lifetimeIt is not so much that the supply-side principle “if you build it, they will come” is no longer true. It is more that we appear to have passed a tipping point, where so much wealth has been concentrated at the top, they no longer need bother to “build” anything. In short, it has become more economically efficient to buy countries’ economic policy than to create value in order to sell it on. If one can control government to favour the richest, while raising barriers for new entrants, thus increasing their share of the pie exponentially, what is the incentive to grow the pie?
This applies to both companies and individuals. Small business gets clobbered by taxes and business rates, while big business turns around and says to the state: “This is how much tax I fancy paying this year, take it or leave it”. The rich no longer create jobs, through a process of consolidation, takeover and merger, they actually destroy them. Zero-hours contracts are the way of the future; in a society that is hungry, desperate and devoid of political engagement or unionism, why would anyone offer terms and conditions that give individual workers any standing?
And yet, the realisation must dawn soon – one hopes – that this model is unsustainable because its effects are uncontrollable. The more unequal we become as a society, the faster the top’s earnings diverge from the bottom’s.
“Trickle down economics” is a misnomer. The 1% spend enough money to power the 99% ! !
No, the statement itself is an impossible joke perpetuated upon uninformed persons to justify something that cannot become real by “geek politicians” who have little or no understanding of market drivers.
NBC Paid Chelsea Clinton $600,000 Annual Salary For Occasional Work
Nepotism from one extreme to the other
by Tyler Durden | Zerohedge | June 13, 2014
Hillary Clinton may have left the White House “dead broke” in her own words over a decade ago, but the same can hardly be said about her daughter, Chelsea, who as Politico revealed today, was being paid an annual salary of $600,000 at NBC News before switching to a month-to-month contract earlier this year.
As a reminder, the younger Clinton, who previously worked as an analyst at $12 billion hedge fund Avenue Capital in a quid-pro-quo which its owner Marc Lasry, a close friend of Bill Clinton, had hoped would bring him a fast track appointment to the French ambassador position (and which was scuttled last year after several of his poker-playing acquaintances were charged in a mob gambling ring), joined NBC News as a “special correspondent” in November 2011. “She was up for renewal or non-renewal this year. Instead, the sources said, the network decided to keep her on the payroll on a month-to-month basis so that the two parties could sever ties if Clinton’s mother, Hillary, runs for president.”
So what exactly did Chelsea do to command such a hefty salary?
As special correspondent, Clinton worked on service-related feature assignments for NBC’s “Rock Center with Brian Williams” until the show’s cancellation in June 2013. Clinton has since worked on packages for NBC Nightly News.
In that time, Clinton’s principal occupation has been the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, where she has been a major force in steering her parents’ charitable work in the final years of her mother’s tenure at the State Department, and since then. This April, she announced that she was pregnant. Clinton is due to deliver her first child in the fall, and it’s unclear if she would resume work with NBC after that.
In other words, “occasional work.”
Ironically, even as the US rages at cases of domestic investment banks abusing nepotism and hiring Chinese princelings in exchange for lucrative banking contracts, nobody finds the Clinton arrangement with what is supposed to be an objective, impartial media outlet even remotely disturbing.
Well, maybe some do:
When Clinton joined NBC, many media critics chafed at the network’s decision to employ a former first daughter with no experience in journalism. The New York Post referred to Clinton as “just another spoiled, aimless child of rich, successful parents chauffeured through adulthood by Mommy and Daddy’s connections.”
But before NBC is accused of pandering solely to democrats, recall that in 2009 NBC Universal, it hired George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna Bush Hager to serve as a correspondent on the “Today” show. In 2011, it hired Sen. John McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain as a contributor on MSNBC.
In other words, nepotism from one extreme to the other.
But the good news is that for all complaints about lack of wage inflation, it clearly does exist… for a very lucky few.
———————————————————————————
I wonder if this woman got to hear Hillary Clinton’s “dead broke” inteview before she died?
Pennsylvania mom of 7 dies in jail over unpaid school-related fines
EAG News ^ | 06/13/2014 | Ben Velderman
Posted on Friday, June 13, 2014 11:39:25 AM by Rusty0604
PHILADELPHIA – A growing number of Americans are expressing outrage that a Pennsylvania mother of seven died in jail last weekend while serving a 48-hour sentence over unpaid, school truancy-related fines.
DiNino Eileen DiNino, 55, was found dead last Saturday in her jail cell. Authorities don’t know the cause of death yet, they have ruled out suspicious behavior.
DiNino was being penalized because several of her children routinely missed school. According to the Associated Press, “She had racked up $2,000 in fines, fees and court costs since 1999…
The fines related to school truancy are quite small – perhaps $20 – but it’s the court-related costs that are most expensive, sometimes reaching $150. Such costs add up quickly and make it nigh impossible for low-income parents to pay.
In the county where DiNino lived, roughly 110 parents of truant students are jailed every year.
Americans of all political stripes are denouncing the practice and likening it to the debtor’s prisons from the nation’s Colonial days.
Leaked Counter Terrorism Bulletin Warns Police of Impending ‘Far-Right Violence’
Bulletin warns of those who believe in “government gun confiscation”
by Mikael Thalen | Infowars.com | June 13, 2014
A leaked New York State Counter Terrorism Bulletin provided exclusively to Infowars reveals how law enforcement are being told to prepare for increased violence from “far-right extremists.”
Published by the New York State Intelligence Center, the document, entitled “CTB 14-07: Recent Spike in Violence Targeting Law Enforcement,” details several recent shootings while warning police to be on the look out for people displaying anti-government viewpoints.
“Over the last week there have been three attacks – one in Canada and two in the United States – in which law enforcement officers were targeted, leading to the death of five officers and one civillian,” the bulletin states. “Based upon reporting it appears all the suspects in these incidents were motivated by elements of a far right anti-government ideology with a particular fixation on law enforcement.”
The bulletin mentions data from a New America Foundation study that claims 37 deaths since 9/11 were perpetrated by the “far right,” repeating the meme that those within the liberty movement are more dangerous than Al Qaeda. The bulletin also references a study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that argues that far right extremists have been killing law enforcement at an “increasing rate in recent years.”
While law enforcement should always remain vigilant, the bulletin illustrates the federal government’s never ending attempt to tie anyone with basic conservative beliefs to incredibly rare events carried out by deranged and psychotic killers.
The bulletin goes on to cite a study by the Countering Terrorism Center at West Point, a think tank that labels supporters of individual freedoms as extremist, as proof of the danger New York State faces. Law enforcement are warned that New York is ranked second in the number of far-right attacks nationwide.
“Since 2011, there have been ten submission/tips to the NYSIC regarding anti-government related suspicious activity, two of which were adopted by the JTTF,” the bulletin states.
Incredibly, one of the alleged suspicious events investigated by the state’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) was a case surrounding a citizen journalist with a degree in criminal justice. Matthew Grunert, who spoke with Infowars last month, was visited at his home by a police investigator and asked if he was a member of the “Sovereign Citizens Nation” for simply gathering content for a story outside a police building.
“My father spent twenty four years serving this country in the U.S. Army. I was raised with a healthy respect for the law that turned into fascination when I was in grade school,” Grunert told Infowars. “It is personally insulting and offensive to me that I would be associated with the Sovereign Citizen movement merely for exercising my constitutional rights. I am not a sovereign citizen; I am a citizen of the United States of America and I love my country.”
The bulletin even attempts to label those who believe the government is interested in gun confiscation as “far right” conspiracy theorists, ironically only one day after President Obama publicly endorsed the “success” of Australia’s gun confiscation program.
The recent passage of the NYSafe Act, gun control legislation that has been rejected by more than 84 percent of New York counties, is also mentioned as a likely lightning rod for “militia and sovereign citizens.”
Several groups receive special mention including the New York Mutual Assistance Group (NYMAG), Oath Keepers, and the III Percent Patriots. The bulletin incorrectly claims that the latter of the groups believes in the “need to use violence against the government” despite no indication that the group supports offensive violence.
“The recent attacks serve to highlight a trend of growing violence by far right extremists that is likely to continue in the near term,” the bulletin says in closing. “While attacks by lone offenders or small groups, common amongst far right extremists, are often difficult to detect and can occur with little or no warning, law enforcement should remain vigilant to any indicators or suspicious activity related to the persistent far right extremist threat.”
Interestingly, the aforementioned shootings, one of which the media ridiculously tied to Alex Jones, occurred only days after Attorney General Eric Holder unveiled a new Justice Department task force focused on “homegrown” terrorism.
Although the bulletin asks law enforcement to differentiate between law-abiding citizens and potential extremists, the federal government’s definition of extremism has vastly expanded in recent years.
Earlier this month, a Washington Times piece revealed a chilling Department of Defense directive that outlined instances in which President Obama believes he would be authorized to use lethal military force against Americans domestically. Similar to the bulletin, the Times article also mentions supporters of the Bundy Ranch, revealing how the President debated using military force against them.
Leaked Homeland Security documents obtained by Infowars last March revealed a joint DHS/FEMA national exercise which detailed a scenario on how the federal government would battle a group know as the “Free Americans Against Socialist Tyranny” during martial law in Alaska.
Just last year, Army troops at Mississippi’s Camp Shelby blew the whistle on a new training course that labeled the American Family Association, a mainline Christian organization, as a domestic hate group, proving the federal government’s attempt to blur the line between extremism and mainline conservative values.
Soldiers at Fort Hood received a similar warning that year when a pre-deployment discussion mentioned the “major terror threat” of Christians, anti-abortion activists and Tea Party supporters. Soldiers were threatened with disciplinary action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice if they were discovered to be supporting such groups.
A Department of Defense training manual leaked in August 2013 also warned military personnel against participation in groups that support “individual liberties,” linking the belief to extremism as well.
A Department of Homeland Security funded study published in 2012 tied Americans “suspicious of centralized federal authority” to “extreme right-wing” terrorism. The study went on to label those who are “reverent of individual liberty” as potential terrorists.
The federal government’s motive becomes even more apparent in light of a 2012 report from the Small Wars Journal featured in Forbes, which detailed “how the U.S. Military would crush a Tea Party rebellion.”
Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano publicly gave support to a 2009 report that labeled returning military veterans as the main terror threat, a false claim that has been disseminated throughout law enforcement agencies. Agencies such as the FBI have also repeatedly characterized returning veterans as a major domestic terrorist threat as well.
A Morgan County, Indiana Police Sergeant, clearly exposed to such federal anti-veteran training, told reporters last month that his department was receiving an armored military vehicle due to the perceived threat of returning military veterans.
“The weaponry is totally different now that it was in the beginning of my career, plus, you have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques,” the Sergeant said.
Despite 2013 having the “lowest level of law enforcement fatalities in six decades” according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, police are continually being trained to view every conservative American as a potential extremist cop-killer.
With government support at historic lows across the board, the attempt to target the political right by linking them to extremism is yet another example of the Obama Administration’s unrelenting political persecution.
Name:Ben Jones Location:Northern Arizona, United States To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
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Just caught back up after a few days away. I saw goon called me a carpetbagger from Wyoming a few days ago…good stuff. Just had to point out that I was born in Craig :-).
China news…nothing new. Still lots of dark buildings at night and an underutilized factory during the day. Looks like they want me to stop off in Tokyo for a few days on the way home at the end of June to assist another customer. No problem, since I’m homeless at the moment anyway.
Homeless???
He said something about a separation from his wife. Hmm, I guess there’s one advantage to living in a trailer park. If they have to divide assets, not like she’s going to get a nice house…
I’m sure he means that he is an itinerant renter.
I can’t help but see Tech headed into the crapper again soon. Aren’t PCs, tablets and smartphones pretty much played out? What growth is there that isn’t all stone soup. And eyeballs and clicks ain’t tech.
Can’t you have growth of internet companies that sell nothing but whimsical fantasy cooked up by college dropouts with vivid imaginations, at no cost of materials, capital or shipping?
whimsical fantasy cooked up by college dropouts with vivid imaginations …
Now leave Lola out of this!
Seriously, Lola claimed the other day to have owned a business. What, selling Che Guevera Tshirts?
I’m going to buy a $36 Rsspberry Pi computer very soon. Along with a power supply, HDMI cable and USB keyboard and USB mouse. I might only need my internet TV for the monitor.
Will that help the tech economy?
It will be for a crypto projects at home.
And I will put a free Linux distribution on it to get a good graphical user interface and all the nice Linux software. But it will be air gapped. No ethernet, no Wi Fi
We should drop those on India and China by the millions.
I believe the raspberry pi folks are based in the UK. By the time I add up peripherals the total price is still under $100. It has a 700MHz ARM1176JZFS processor with FPU. Great graphics capabilities and 512 MB RAM. I worked with beagleboard XM boards recently and know as how to install linux so this will be my air gapped machine.
We’ve done a lot of Beaglebone Black stuff lately…it’s in the project I’m supporting in China right now. Not great, but not bad.
I can’t help but see Tech headed into the crapper again soon. Aren’t PCs, tablets and smartphones pretty much played out? What growth is there that isn’t all stone soup. And eyeballs and clicks ain’t tech.
I think that Apple will find ways to come out with iPhone versions that have minor feature additions. And their customers will buy whatever they put out. Besides that, there’s always things like Google Glass.
Stay safe and best of luck to you.
If you have to borrow for 15 or 30 years, you can’t afford it nor is it affordable.
Have you pre-paid your next 15 years of rent up front to Amy Hoagie yet?
Have you prepaid your lifetime of losses to depreciation on the rapidly depreciating shack of yours? Premature question considering you haven’t brought yourself to the grim reality of that loss.
Youll get honest with yourself eventually.
I’m up to 3,999 followers on Twitter today. Somebody here pleeeeeaaase follow me so I can end the week with 4,000!
Cheetos and beer. Fetch. NOW!
Worthless, worthless housing. Buy today and your losses will be incalculable.
I have so much money after throwing it away on rent every month that I don’t know where to throw it anymore.
its very easy to print money.
Are u confessing $hithouse Poet?
I confess I made a sh@tload of money in real estate.
Its the internet afterall $hithouse Poet. You can say anything you want irrespective of the truth.
are u a poser contractor?
Unlike you, I’ve substantiated my CM experience.
I have a 35 lb. anchor that trumps pre-paid rent.
One nice thing about rent though, it doesn’t have to be borrowed. Another nice thing is that after renting for 30 years and the dump is falling down, you just go rent a new place. Another nice thing about renting is that after 30 years, if you aren’t a spendthrift, you have enough money set aside to buy two or three houses cash, maybe more.
Debt is not the shortest path to owning things.
solution to the slow housing market = clone HBB poster “jingle male” to create an army of idiotic buyers who will take out 30 yr mortgages.
side effect = when it crashes and burns, we’ll have another chance to get the “too big to fail” right by not bailing out the big banks.
Liberace!
Lib…. You’re forgetting housing sales are rolled back to 1995 levels……. And sinking.
The mice voted unanimously to bell the cat.
Wow, this “children’s crusade” from Central America is a disaster. Tuberculosis, scabies, STDs, gang members, whoo-hoo, that’s some quality immigration, lemme tellya.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2014/06/influx-illegal-alien-minors-disaster-overcrowded-shelters-diseases-sexually-active-teens/
Future democrat voters.
Nothing will be done by this administration…
Be sure to use the correct word, this is not an “administration”, it’s a regime. It’s an occupation government of the US. The destruction of the US is the goal. Overwhelming the country with the worst of the worst is part of the strategy, as is demoralizing the military. As is giving the banksters a pass.
From the article:
The Homeland Security source cited earlier in this piece says “it’s all over the news in Central America that if you bring your kids north you have a free pass.” Most are entering the U.S. through the Rio Grande region in Texas. “The entire thing can be pinned squarely on the Obama administration and its policies,” the DHS source said. “It’s going to get much worse.” That’s probably accurate considering the news in these Central American countries. For instance, El Salvador’s largest newspaper reported just a few days ago that DHS officials confirmed that the amnesty offered to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors under DACA could be extended two more years. The article quotes DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson saying that everyone agrees that a minor who crossed the border illegally in search of a parent or a better life is not breaking our laws.
It is worse than scabies. The lawlessness, crookedness and arrogance this shows is a cancer on the country. Nero, Nixon, Obama fiddled while Rome burned.
ORCHESTRATED AT THE BORDER
Do you truly believe that these minors being let in at the border are all or most unaccompanied?
Do you truly believe there are many unaccompanied small children?
Do you truly believe they are all from Guatemala or El Salvador?
If I was a poor Mexican kid, where would I be headed right now, with a story about being from El Salvador?
Are there enough fast food jobs for a huge influx of 15-17 year olds?
What does that do to crime?
Where is socialist “share the wealth” Lola to call for OTHER people to have their wealth confiscated to help the children from south of the border?
Lola is a high net worth former business owner who worked for everything he’s got. He’s the American Dream.
Where is socialist “share the wealth”
The big question is where is the “libertarian” Bill? In the life he leads or just in the words he says? He says he’s libertarian and despises the government but works for them most his life. He says he’s a libertarian but will defend a Christian Reconstructionist which is anything but libertarian.
Bill defends this guy? Wow what a “libertarian”. More like a fraud imo.
Brat is a strict Christian Reconstructionist, which means that he supports a theocratic government and holds extraordinarily radical beliefs when it comes to the role that God should play in the lives of believers and non-believers alike. As far as Reconstructionists are concerned, the Bible is the standard for morality that all must adhere to and those in violation of its tenets as they interpret them — gays, blasphemers, the irredeemably sinful — should be subject to punishment by the state. In fact, Rousas John Rushdoony, who founded the Calvinist-based sect, declared that Christianity and democracy were “inevitably enemies.”
http://thedailybanter.com/2014/06/dave-brat-jesus-not-another-one-of-these-aholes/
‘The defeat of House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor shifted the political ground under U.S. multinational corporations this week, just as they seemed to be gaining traction in their push for a $95 billion tax break on bringing foreign profits home.’
‘With House Republicans in turmoil after their leader’s loss, lobbyists and policy analysts said the proposal, known as the offshore corporate income tax holiday, was losing momentum.’
“Any controversial legislation … is not going to happen in a post-Cantor world because now every single member is afraid of every vote,” said Henrietta Treyz, a policy analyst at financial firm Height Analytics.’
“Those especially that still have primaries to go through are very, very wary of taking any difficult votes,” she said.’
“that’s some quality immigration”
What do white parents tell their white children about the demographic future of this country?
This is a serious question.
And for those of you who can’t take it seriously, go watch the Souper Bowl Coke commercial.
¨What do white parents tell their white children about the demographic future of this country?¨
That weŕe turning the color of Jesus? Or weŕe turning the color of the people we stole the country from? Or weŕe turning the color of the people we enslaved and brought here against there will?
It would probably also be a good time to teach your kids about irony, poetic justice, and unintended consequences. Or original sin, if youŕe a religious family.
their will
Is America Doomed to Become a Failed European-Style Welfare State?
finance.townhall.com | February 20, 2014 | Daniel J. Mitchell
More specifically, has America reached a tipping point, with too many people riding in the wagon of government dependency and too few people creating wealth and pulling the wagon in the right direction?
Is it when government spending consumes 50 percent of economic output? That would be a very bad development if the burden of government spending reached that level, but it’s not necessarily fatal. Back in the early 1990s, the public sector was that big in Canada, yet policy makers in that country were able to restrain budgetary growth and put the country on a positive path. Sweden is another nation that has turned the corner. Government spending peaked at 67 percent of GDP in the early 1990s, but is now down to 47 percent of GDP after years of free-market reforms.
Is it when a majority of households are getting government handouts? That’s also a worrisome development, especially if those folks see the state as a means of living off their fellow citizens. But taking a check from Uncle Sam doesn’t automatically mean a statist mindset.
Is it when a majority of people no longer pay income taxes, leaving a shrinking minority to bear all the burden of financing government? It’s not healthy for society when most people think government is “free,” particularly if they perceive an incentive to impose even higher burdens on those who do pay. And there’s no question that the overwhelming majority of the tax burden is borne by the top 10 percent. There’s little evidence, though, that the rest of the population thinks there’s no cost to government – perhaps because many of them pay heavy payroll taxes.
The whole world is about BURN RATE. How long before another cash infusion is required. How long before you get another car. How long before you have another kid and need more room. How long before the credit card interest payment is too high to pay each paycheck. How long can you feed that alligator on that accidental rental?
Everything has a burn rate, even life.
Here’s Why the Student Loan Market Is Completely Insane
Eric Chemi - June 11, 2014 - Harvard University
President Obama made news this week by expanding a student loan program to broaden the eligibility of borrowers and proposing to limit monthly payments to 10 percent of a student borrower’s income. On the margin, such moves might help. But the administration’s efforts don’t address a more fundamental problem: These loans aren’t calibrated for risk. In other words, students from Harvard and less-prestigious regional colleges are thrown in the same bucket, despite quite different risk profiles.
Under Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) rules governing the insurance of banks, lenders can’t differentiate among schools in assessing credit risk as they do with home buyers and car owners. As a result, “the government has made it difficult for banks to price to default rates,” says Mike Cagney, founder of Social Finance, a socially based student lending operation known informally as SoFi. “By accepting FDIC insurance, banks lose pricing flexibility and can’t charge interest rates commensurate with the quality of schools—and default rates vary widely by schools.”
SoFi has funded more than $650 million in loans to 7,000 borrowers since its founding in 2011. Says Cagney: “The definition of a predatory lender is someone who pushes loans on an individual who can’t afford to pay them back. Under that definition, many of the educational loans made today could be considered predatory.”
Despite other economic recoveries, including lower delinquency rates in every other type of loan (housing, auto, credit card), the problem in the student loan market is definitely getting worse. In the past few years, default rates have increased every single year:
More specifically, a school’s tuition doesn’t adjust for the quality of the education—as represented by graduates’ ability to pay back loans. Schools in a narrow $35,000-$45,000 range feature a wide range of default rates:
Right now the government, through such programs as Direct Loans, is happy to let students borrow tens of thousands of dollars, regardless of how likely that student can pay it back. Private lenders will offer up even more money. Students are saddled with debt they can never pay back, and the government knows this.
Interesting - nothing about housing…
———————
10 Reasons You’ll Never Retire
June 2014 - http://www.kiplinger.com
Retirement is the payoff at the end of a long career, the end game most workers are striving for. But these days, with corporate pensions disappearing (only 11% of Fortune 100 companies offered traditional defined-benefit plans in 2012, down from 89% in 1985) and life spans on the rise (65-year-olds in 2010 had remaining life spans of 19.1 years, nearly two years longer than folks who turned 65 in 1990), you’re likely to be on your own when it comes to building a nest egg that may have to last 30 years or more.
Will you ever save enough to retire comfortably? Many Americans aren’t so sure. In fact, 48% of workers don’t expect to retire by age 65 — up from only 33% in 2005, according to a recent CBS News poll. And 22% of Americans don’t think they’ll retire until they’re over 70.
1. You’re Not Saving in a Retirement Plan
2. You Are Neglecting the Company Match
3. You Didn’t Start Saving Early in Your Career
4. You Used Your Nest Egg as a Piggy Bank
5. You Cashed Out When Switching Jobs
6. You’re Not Saving Enough
7. You Haven’t Played Catch Up
8. You Saved for Kids’ College Instead of Your Retirement
9. You Haven’t Created a Retirement Budget
10. You Haven’t Planned to Maximize Social Security Benefits
“10 Reasons You’ll Never Retire”
And one reason why you will, and it’s called RAPE (Retire All Personal Early).
With all the newly graduating and heavily indebted (read: hungry for employment) job applicants that will be/are now hitting the job market for many companies it makes logical sense to sweep out the old and bring in the new - especially when you can get the new on much cheaper terms than you had to put up with when you hired the now-old.
RAPE the old workers and replace them with young Turks who will:
1. Work for less money and
2. Will work for less benefits
And if you work it right you just might get them for FREE - free as in interns.
What if you are very healthy and love your work and very skilled in your field and in your mid 50s?
The only real security EVER in the workplace is being able to walk across the street. If you have skills that are in demand, you will always be good. If you are in your 50s and retired in place, then when the boss “whistles - you squat. And what he does to you rots your brain. No amount of water on earth can get you clean again.”
“What if you are very healthy and love your work and very skilled in your field and in your mid 50s?”
“… love your work …”
Ah, a point that is a bit vulnerable, no? A point that is subject to a bit of a change if the proper tool (i.e. and insufferable boss) is applied.
The real joy comes after you are retired with good retirement benefits and then the company suddenly decides to cut the benefits.
Very close to the same, but not quite the same:
The real joy comes after you are retired with good retirement benefits and the government suddenly decides to cut the benefits.
California public employees will know this joy well.
How about forced retirement? If I had a business I’d offer plenty of incentives to get that dead wood out the door. I think there are a huge number of retired in place after 60 workers already.
For example, in November 2016
Hillary Clinton will be 69 years old.
John McCain will be 80.
Today Sheriff Joe Arpaio turns 82.
Yeah, and lemme guess, you need to have 80% of your high income during retirement to “maintain your lifestyle.” These jokers have been giving out the same advice for decades.
Depreciation is pricey.
Have you escrowed $$$ this year for the new windows? The boiler? The failing frost wall on the north elevation?
Cha-ching!
None of the above. I’ve been tracking her debt donkey spending, she blew it all on lighting fixtures and a rain chain for the garden.
Yes yes and no. My north wall is doing well and sends you its kind regards.
Depreciation… it eats donkeys for lunch.
2. You Are Neglecting the Company Match”
have not seen that for over 10 years
A couple of weeks ago they release 5 terrorist leaders from Gitmo, and now Iraq is falling to the terrorists.
Is there ONE foreign policy achievement or success of the obama administration?
Of course and a HUGE one. They have been able to unite Iraq and Syria into one new wonderful Islamic state. Brotherhood. Maybe it will spread.
Also uniting the other half of Iraq with Iran?
Turning 3 enemies into 2, significant success.
was it a mistake for saddam to try and escape opec?
Well, I can think of one dude that they killed.
Howard Gold’s No-Nonsense Investing Archives
June 13, 2014, 8:27 a.m. EDT
Peter Schiff says to leave the U.S. to ‘make a fortune’
Opinion: The Fed has created bubbles, which will lead to catastrophe, he says
By Howard Gold
Euro Pacific Capital
Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital
Peter Schiff has a bone to pick with MarketWatch. Or, more specifically, with me.
In two columns I wrote recently, I took the outspoken chief executive officer of Euro Pacific Capital to task for his prediction that gold would hit $5,000 an ounce. It hasn’t come anywhere near that price yet.
I also wrote that average investors who feared debt and the Federal Reserve’s extraordinary bond buying “were, to put it mildly, led astray by the hyperinflation gurus — and not just by Faber and Schiff.”
Schiff’s brother Andrew Schiff, who runs marketing and communications for Euro Pacific, objected to that, though it clearly was referring to the general public, not Euro Pacific clients.
I actually like Peter Schiff. He’s passionate about his views and puts his money where his mouth is. Unlike some pundits, he engages interviewers who don’t ask softball questions. He even occasionally admits he’s wrong.
But Schiff wanted a chance to respond, so we obliged.
“I’m not leading people astray and causing them to miss out on all these profit opportunities,” he told me in a telephone interview. “We’re finding a lot of opportunities that most people are missing.”
…
Article linked from google news
Fox News: “A Missouri slaughter house recalled 4,012 pounds of fresh beef over concerns that nervous tissue that could contain the “mad cow” disease pathogen may not have been properly removed from the meat before shipment, a federal food safety agency said.
Reviewers found the firm may not have removed dorsal root ganglia tissue from cattle aged 30 months and older, in violation of federal regulations.”
Do they sell their meat to sausage makers?
US News dot com: “Men who ate roughly 2.6 ounces a day — the equivalent of 2 or 3 slices of ham — of processed red meats had a 28 percent higher risk of heart failure and more than twice the risk of death from heart failure compared with men who ate less than one ounce of processed meat daily, the researchers found.
Based on their findings — published online June 12 in Circulation: Heart Failure — the researchers recommend not eating processed red meat at all and having only one to two servings or less of unprocessed red meat a week.”
Dumbo study always peddling the fiction that meat is bad. Why would people whose study made conclusions about eating processed red meat then go on to make a recommendation about unprocessed red meat?
Agenda driven Baloney. Yuk, yuk.
“If you like your dorsal root ganglia tissue, you can keep your dorsal root ganglia tissue” — President Barack Obama
John Wayne had plenty of fresh beef in his colon, as did Elvis.
Obama had plenty of fresh beef in his colon when he visited the Chicago bathhouses.
And that’s Lola’s favorite spot.
“Where? The Chicago bathhouses or Obama’s colon?”
Totally out of line with that comment. lmao
Now this thread is a doozy.
I’m waiting for vegan poofter Liberace to chime in with his opinions about eating meat.
Now this, this is truly a thing of beauty:
http://www.picpaste.com/IMG_20140613_073707_483-ooQuDqbE.jpg
Everyone love Liberace our flamboyant housing pimp.
He seems to have really changed from a year or two ago. Pressures of lifey and wifey catching up? Biological clocks ticking?
It’s been a lot better for Downlow Joe since he got that pied-a-terre studio apartment in Dupont Circle for all his downlow hookups when he tells his wife he is working late…
The rumour is that Lola brings her tricks there.
If that is a Chipotle burrito i will give some wisdom. Ask for half and half, steak and carnitas. More often than not you will get 3/4 of each. More meat.
Excellent.
I had a coupon for buy one get one so it’s carnitas for dinner last night and carnitas for lunch today.
Adding some beef to that sounds nice.
This….. This…. Is fine cuisine.
http://picpaste.com/pics/ea8bf89aae60b3aa06fa6b73168bb99f.1402672674.jpg
3/4 more meat and another load of sodium. I skip the guac and salsa and chips and go for the burrito bowl these days. You are talking 2400 mg sodium if you include salsa with that burrito.
Burrito bowl, chicken, brown rice, black beans, cheese, sour cream and lettuce is 955 mg sodium.
Only about 20% of the population is salt sensitive. Unfortunately, I am in that group.
Bill, not all of us get to wear size 44 inch waist pants like Housing Analyst does.
4 days a week I do spinach salad with roast chicken that I make for myself. No salad dressing, no bread crumbs, no cheese, no bacon bits.
The burrito will not derail me from *WINNING* the Pikes Peak Ascent half marathon in two months.
Unfortunately every Friday at work is catered lunch here. That means high sodium. I will have to do like Goon and bring my own low sodium stuff to work. Then not worry about eating Friday lunches
recalled 4,012 pounds of fresh beef….the firm may not have removed dorsal root ganglia tissue from cattle aged 30 months and older, in violation of federal regulations.
Get the government out of the way and that company would have recalled the beef on its own. Why? Because of some basic things that happen when there are no regulations in place to get in the way of items that are there when stuff happens in capitalism working without regulations.
‘capitalism working without regulations’
I’ve posted this before. In around 2004 I was 30 miles from Brownsville Texas. I got into a conversation with a Canadian trucker. He had just driven a load of slaughtered cows down to Mexico. The meat was kept cold all the way across the US, and delivered to a plant for processing across the border in Mexico. He told me he backed up to the loading dock, and the workers threw the bodies onto the dock, where they were left lying in the 95 degree heat, in the sun, with flies crawling all over them. When he left sometime later, the bodies were still sitting there with no one beginning to take them inside. He was blown away that after all the care to keep the meat cold, the meat would be treated like this. And for what? So the company didn’t have to pay someone in Canada a few more bucks to process it. That’s your capitalism with regulations.
That’s your capitalism with regulations.
Actually that’s your capitalism without regulations - either no Mexican regulations or Mexican regulations not being enforced.
No that’s how they do things in Mexico. If you are going to do business there, or allow this sort of activity, that is what you’ll get.
Ben, where did the meat ultimately go? To the US market?
It was going back to Canada or the US, I can’t remember exactly.
When I talk about our constitution having much more limited conception of privacy than other constitutions, what I mean is the creeping scenario where more and more offline thoughts, conversations, and actions end up online and people are essentially powerless to do anything about it. It’s not just the official government, hacking into your call records, it’s also the development of private drones and consumer products like Google glass and Go Pro cameras. Anything you say or do could be saved and used against you later, esp. edited or taken out of context.
I don’t agree with all the points this guy makes, but I think this is a useful read. (And, BTW, it’s from a very conservative author.)
———————-
“America in 2034″
http://www.amren.com/news/2014/06/america-in-2034-3/
(excerpt)
The future of censorship is not commissars and gulags, but effective monopolies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter working with groups like the Anti-Defamation League to combat “hate.” This is already underway, and conservatives will accept the efforts as expressions of private sector autonomy.
The next few decades will see the end of the division between the “online” and “offline” world. Google Glass, which will be as ubiquitous as smartphones within a few years, is only the beginning. Soon, people’s identity, opinions, relationships, and work history will be available at a glance. More importantly, as Facebook has shown, most people will gleefully abandon their privacy.
The result will be an ever more extensive (and effective) witch hunt. Already, anonymous commentators in Sweden were (illegally) exposed by hackers, and the media showed no compunction about hounding them from their jobs. Donors will also be targeted. Already, “point and stutter” seems to be the sole occupation of American journalists.
The intellectual justification is already established. Because of “white privilege,” “trigger warnings,” and political correctness, this generation of liberal arts students will be incapable of understanding, let alone championing, white identity. Universities will abandon the pretense of debating issues or teaching the high culture of the West. Instead, they will embrace their role of training increasingly unqualified college students in egalitarian ideology.
The danger is that concepts like “white privilege” have no theoretical limit in terms of justifying government action. “Your rights end where my feelings begin”–at least if the crybaby is non-white. More importantly, be it out of moral belief, fear, or both, many whites will accept and perpetuate this.
This kind of thinking will increasingly dominate law, as a non-white America will continue to implement racial socialism. Already, Supreme Court justices have attempted to throw out referendum results on issues like affirmative action on the grounds that white Americans cannot vote on issues that affect the interests of minorities.
So happy I deleted facebook for the last time over two years ago
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/06/12/privacy-experts-say-facebook-changes-open-up-unprecedented-data-collection/
Mark Zuckerberg is an Israeli spy
With the exceptions for things sexual or scatalogical, I am entirely in favor of allowing any private individual to record anything without notice or consent. Phone calls, conversations, whatever. Sunlight exposes the truth. You take the risk in associating with scumbags like Sterling did. Too much today is geared towards allowing weasels to skate because of no proof.
Because of “white privilege,” “trigger warnings,” and political correctness, this generation of liberal arts students will be incapable of understanding, let alone championing, white identity.
Is this something that you’re worried about, Joe?
Already, Supreme Court justices have attempted to throw out referendum results on issues like affirmative action on the grounds that white Americans cannot vote on issues that affect the interests of minorities.
Is this actually true? Which justices were involved and what how did they try to justify such opinions?
You should post on other topics besides racism / race relations, it will make it look less obvious that you work for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But at least we have double the debt and double the unemployment rate and double the cost of a gallon of gas…
——————-
The magic is gone: Just as many Americans dislike Obama as do George W. Bush, poll shows
Daily Mail (UK) | 18:21 EST, 12 June 2014
President Barack Obama has ruffled so many feathers during his five and a half years in office that he is now as disliked by as many Americans as former president George W. Bush, a new poll shows.
In the latest CNN/ORC International poll, 51 percent of Americans said they viewed President Obama unfavorably. The same percentage of respondents had a negative opinion of former President Bush.
This is the first time in Obama’s presidency that a majority of Americans have given the president bad marks.
Schoolmarm always loves her progressive deity.
Shes briefing the principal of all comments here.
Maybe she can be shifted to the border to teach the wave of children.
you guys need to make some friends with the people at the top that create the money.
We need to become John Corzine…
I’ll knock on Warren Buffet’s door and ask him for a cup of sugar.
Its all about connections to the money.
This MSFT press release proves that the American worker (those who still have jobs in the next decades, anyway) are going to see the notion of “free time” or “family time” keep slipping away.
———-
“REDMOND, Wash. — Nov. 6, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. is declaring Nov. 7 Get It Done Day, to spark action for people who seek to balance life’s demands on their own terms. From the streets of New York to Paris, Canada to Mexico, Asia to Australia, and online at http://office.com/getitdone and #GetItDone, Microsoft is empowering people everywhere to share their story and inspire others to express how technology helps them get the things they care about — from work to home — done from anywhere.
No matter where you are — the office, airport or the gym — the need to get things done away from the office has never been greater.
As life and work blend, more than half (55 percent) of office workers* said they need to be able to get work done no matter where they are, and more than one-third (37 percent) said they do their best thinking outside the office, according to a recent study conducted online by Harris Interactive Inc. on behalf of Microsoft of 1,000 U.S. office workers. ”
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/nov13/11-06getitdone.aspx#infog
(above text is my excerpt)
I’m guessing this is how future workers will discuss this type of thing:
“work while you shit, work while you wind down, work while you sleep!”
“I never wanted any time to myself anyway”
And that’s why I will never work in public accounting ever again.
Sometimes I take contractor proposals into the men’s room, depending on what I ate that day and if I think I’ll be in there for a while…
What hath Technology wrought?
I do all my best thinking on the bus. — Miller, Repo Man, 1984.
Miller also had a bit to say about John Wayne.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/doritos-is-giving-away-thousands-of-gold-plated-chips/
I will trade you one doritos gold plated chip for a bottle of TIDE.
There was a time when the dream was Doritos. Now the dream is gold.
the new currency for walmart shoppers?
From the article: “Not as good as seizing control of a candy factory and commanding an army of oompa-loompas, but hey, not bad, either. ”
I knew that was coming.
http://www.usahomeraffle.com/faq.asp?faqID=154
http://www.mining.com/web/peak-pollution-china-aims-for-the-top-so-it-can-go-down/
Another reason dogs are superior to people:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2656101/Clever-boy-Dogs-prefer-EARN-treats-solving-problems-receiving-handouts.html
Link no workie, Dannyboy
Go to Drudge and read it directly, cutout the middle man.
http://news.yahoo.com/china-housing-slump-sparks-fears-economy-065619966.html
http://business.iafrica.com/worldnews/944084.html
If the URL string does not contain words that are descriptive of the article, then you should post an excerpt, Dannyboy.
It’s not only bad internet etiquette, it’s lazy
I meant to get back to post but I became busy with work, I am not Rio I am not getting paid for these posts:
British finance minister George Osborne on Thursday vowed “radical” planning reforms and more powers for the central bank in an attempt to curb the country’s spiralling house prices.
Making his keynote speech at London’s Mansion House, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced plans to build up to 200 000 homes, heeding the advice of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which warned excessive demand was fuelling the boom.
He promised an “urban planning revolution”, in which the government could force local councils to allow housing developments on certain brownfield sites.
Osborne also revealed plans to strengthen the Bank of England’s ability to impose restrictions on mortgage loan-to-value (LTV) and loan-to-income (LTI) ratios.
“We saw from the last crisis the dangerous temptations for politicians to leave the punch bowl where it is and keep the party going on for too long,” said Osborne.
“I want to make sure that the Bank of England has all the weapons it needs to guard against risks in the housing market.
“I want to protect those who own homes, protect those who aspire to own a home, and protect the millions who suffer when boom turns to bust.”
Despite the IMF warning, Osborne insisted that house prices were of “no immediate cause for alarm”, pointing out that house prices are still lower in real terms than they were in 2007.
“Does the housing market pose an immediate threat to financial stability today? No, it doesn’t,” he said.
“Could it in the future? Yes, it could, especially if we don’t learn the lessons of the past. So we act now to insure ourselves against future problems before they can materialise.”
Osborne accepted that his planning proposals would have to clear a lot of hurdles before becoming law, pointing out that previous reforms had been “hard-fought and controversial”.
I am not getting paid for these posts
“I am not a crook”
Richard Nixon
“I did not have sex with that women…”
Bill Clinton
“I am not getting paid for these posts”
Adan, Koch Brothers Ministry of Web Propaganda intern
“I did not have sex with any woman”
Rio/Lola
Of course that would be a true statement, now if she/he said I did not have sex with that man or animal, it would be false.
Debt is for donkeys.
From WND.com:
NEW YORK – About 200 Americans under contract with the Department of Defense at Balad Air Force Base in Iraq are trapped by the al-Qaida-inspired jihadists who have seized control of two cities and are now threatening Baghdad, according to WND sources.
The sources, private contractors who have recently returned to the U.S. from Iraq, said Friday their former colleagues effectively have been abandoned by the U.S. military and are fighting for their lives against an army of jihadists surrounding the base who belong to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.
The U.S. contractors are at Balad to help the Pentagon prepare the facilities for the delivery of the F-16 aircraft the Obama administration has agreed to provide the Iraqi government.
The surrounded Americans said they currently are under ISIS fire from small arms, AK47s, and rocket propelled grenades, or RPGs.
The contractors so far have been able to hold the base, but those on the scene reported it was only a matter of time before the ISIS terrorists succeed in breaking through the perimeter. They expressed concern that they would be ab
WND has learned from sources that the jihadists have closed down escape routes, and the U.S. Air Force is in a stand-down position. U.S. forces are not assisting even with air cover so a private extradition flight could land for a rescue, the sources said.
Privately scheduled exit flights have fallen through, sources said, as several private pilots originally scheduled to make the flights have quit.
The sources contend the U.S. military could provide the necessary air cover to protect C-130s or other air transport craft sufficient to make the evacuation, but so far officials have refused to get involved.
Balad Air Force Base has been under attack since Wednesday, when ISIS rebels seized the nearby town of Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein.
The attacking ISIS forces approached Balad Air Force Base in trucks and called through loudspeakers for all private security forces and Iraqi special military to leave immediately or die.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/200-u-s-contractors-surrounded-by-jihadists-in-iraq/#7CiuiAOVQIpuhiKL.99
No government contractor left behind!
We need to launch another D-Day, like 5 minutes ago, and rescue those contractors. I don’t care if it costs more than the Iraq war and the bank bailouts combined, because the value of a life of a contractor is truly incalculable…
“as several private pilots originally scheduled to make the flights have quit.”
Huh, so they’re walking away from the job? I’m confused.
When the going gets tough, the contractors get out of town not fly into the war zone.
But I though private stuff is better?
People wonder why there are no jobs. It’s because we were sold a bill of goods and many hacks are still pushing the nonsense.
Trickle-down economics is the greatest broken promise of our lifetime
http://worldobserveronline.com/2014/01/23/trickle-economics-greatest-broken-promise-lifetime/
……Trickle-down economics is the greatest broken promise of our lifetimeIt is not so much that the supply-side principle “if you build it, they will come” is no longer true. It is more that we appear to have passed a tipping point, where so much wealth has been concentrated at the top, they no longer need bother to “build” anything. In short, it has become more economically efficient to buy countries’ economic policy than to create value in order to sell it on. If one can control government to favour the richest, while raising barriers for new entrants, thus increasing their share of the pie exponentially, what is the incentive to grow the pie?
This applies to both companies and individuals. Small business gets clobbered by taxes and business rates, while big business turns around and says to the state: “This is how much tax I fancy paying this year, take it or leave it”. The rich no longer create jobs, through a process of consolidation, takeover and merger, they actually destroy them. Zero-hours contracts are the way of the future; in a society that is hungry, desperate and devoid of political engagement or unionism, why would anyone offer terms and conditions that give individual workers any standing?
And yet, the realisation must dawn soon – one hopes – that this model is unsustainable because its effects are uncontrollable. The more unequal we become as a society, the faster the top’s earnings diverge from the bottom’s.
Singapore: a combination of eugenics and supply side economics leaving the other countries in its dust.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/13/brazil-economy-idUSL2N0OU0DC20140613
Brazil’s economy is in the dust.
Rio
“Trickle down economics” is a misnomer. The 1% spend enough money to power the 99% ! !
No, the statement itself is an impossible joke perpetuated upon uninformed persons to justify something that cannot become real by “geek politicians” who have little or no understanding of market drivers.
To them it just sounds good.
NBC Paid Chelsea Clinton $600,000 Annual Salary For Occasional Work
Nepotism from one extreme to the other
by Tyler Durden | Zerohedge | June 13, 2014
Hillary Clinton may have left the White House “dead broke” in her own words over a decade ago, but the same can hardly be said about her daughter, Chelsea, who as Politico revealed today, was being paid an annual salary of $600,000 at NBC News before switching to a month-to-month contract earlier this year.
As a reminder, the younger Clinton, who previously worked as an analyst at $12 billion hedge fund Avenue Capital in a quid-pro-quo which its owner Marc Lasry, a close friend of Bill Clinton, had hoped would bring him a fast track appointment to the French ambassador position (and which was scuttled last year after several of his poker-playing acquaintances were charged in a mob gambling ring), joined NBC News as a “special correspondent” in November 2011. “She was up for renewal or non-renewal this year. Instead, the sources said, the network decided to keep her on the payroll on a month-to-month basis so that the two parties could sever ties if Clinton’s mother, Hillary, runs for president.”
So what exactly did Chelsea do to command such a hefty salary?
As special correspondent, Clinton worked on service-related feature assignments for NBC’s “Rock Center with Brian Williams” until the show’s cancellation in June 2013. Clinton has since worked on packages for NBC Nightly News.
In that time, Clinton’s principal occupation has been the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, where she has been a major force in steering her parents’ charitable work in the final years of her mother’s tenure at the State Department, and since then. This April, she announced that she was pregnant. Clinton is due to deliver her first child in the fall, and it’s unclear if she would resume work with NBC after that.
In other words, “occasional work.”
Ironically, even as the US rages at cases of domestic investment banks abusing nepotism and hiring Chinese princelings in exchange for lucrative banking contracts, nobody finds the Clinton arrangement with what is supposed to be an objective, impartial media outlet even remotely disturbing.
Well, maybe some do:
When Clinton joined NBC, many media critics chafed at the network’s decision to employ a former first daughter with no experience in journalism. The New York Post referred to Clinton as “just another spoiled, aimless child of rich, successful parents chauffeured through adulthood by Mommy and Daddy’s connections.”
But before NBC is accused of pandering solely to democrats, recall that in 2009 NBC Universal, it hired George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna Bush Hager to serve as a correspondent on the “Today” show. In 2011, it hired Sen. John McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain as a contributor on MSNBC.
In other words, nepotism from one extreme to the other.
But the good news is that for all complaints about lack of wage inflation, it clearly does exist… for a very lucky few.
———————————————————————————
I wonder if this woman got to hear Hillary Clinton’s “dead broke” inteview before she died?
Pennsylvania mom of 7 dies in jail over unpaid school-related fines
EAG News ^ | 06/13/2014 | Ben Velderman
Posted on Friday, June 13, 2014 11:39:25 AM by Rusty0604
PHILADELPHIA – A growing number of Americans are expressing outrage that a Pennsylvania mother of seven died in jail last weekend while serving a 48-hour sentence over unpaid, school truancy-related fines.
DiNino Eileen DiNino, 55, was found dead last Saturday in her jail cell. Authorities don’t know the cause of death yet, they have ruled out suspicious behavior.
DiNino was being penalized because several of her children routinely missed school. According to the Associated Press, “She had racked up $2,000 in fines, fees and court costs since 1999…
The fines related to school truancy are quite small – perhaps $20 – but it’s the court-related costs that are most expensive, sometimes reaching $150. Such costs add up quickly and make it nigh impossible for low-income parents to pay.
In the county where DiNino lived, roughly 110 parents of truant students are jailed every year.
Americans of all political stripes are denouncing the practice and likening it to the debtor’s prisons from the nation’s Colonial days.
(Excerpt) Read more at eagnews.org …
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3167306/posts?page=16 - 21k -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
Singapore moving up fast, socialist Brazil dead in the water.
Leaked Counter Terrorism Bulletin Warns Police of Impending ‘Far-Right Violence’
Bulletin warns of those who believe in “government gun confiscation”
by Mikael Thalen | Infowars.com | June 13, 2014
A leaked New York State Counter Terrorism Bulletin provided exclusively to Infowars reveals how law enforcement are being told to prepare for increased violence from “far-right extremists.”
Published by the New York State Intelligence Center, the document, entitled “CTB 14-07: Recent Spike in Violence Targeting Law Enforcement,” details several recent shootings while warning police to be on the look out for people displaying anti-government viewpoints.
“Over the last week there have been three attacks – one in Canada and two in the United States – in which law enforcement officers were targeted, leading to the death of five officers and one civillian,” the bulletin states. “Based upon reporting it appears all the suspects in these incidents were motivated by elements of a far right anti-government ideology with a particular fixation on law enforcement.”
The bulletin mentions data from a New America Foundation study that claims 37 deaths since 9/11 were perpetrated by the “far right,” repeating the meme that those within the liberty movement are more dangerous than Al Qaeda. The bulletin also references a study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that argues that far right extremists have been killing law enforcement at an “increasing rate in recent years.”
While law enforcement should always remain vigilant, the bulletin illustrates the federal government’s never ending attempt to tie anyone with basic conservative beliefs to incredibly rare events carried out by deranged and psychotic killers.
The bulletin goes on to cite a study by the Countering Terrorism Center at West Point, a think tank that labels supporters of individual freedoms as extremist, as proof of the danger New York State faces. Law enforcement are warned that New York is ranked second in the number of far-right attacks nationwide.
“Since 2011, there have been ten submission/tips to the NYSIC regarding anti-government related suspicious activity, two of which were adopted by the JTTF,” the bulletin states.
Incredibly, one of the alleged suspicious events investigated by the state’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) was a case surrounding a citizen journalist with a degree in criminal justice. Matthew Grunert, who spoke with Infowars last month, was visited at his home by a police investigator and asked if he was a member of the “Sovereign Citizens Nation” for simply gathering content for a story outside a police building.
“My father spent twenty four years serving this country in the U.S. Army. I was raised with a healthy respect for the law that turned into fascination when I was in grade school,” Grunert told Infowars. “It is personally insulting and offensive to me that I would be associated with the Sovereign Citizen movement merely for exercising my constitutional rights. I am not a sovereign citizen; I am a citizen of the United States of America and I love my country.”
The bulletin even attempts to label those who believe the government is interested in gun confiscation as “far right” conspiracy theorists, ironically only one day after President Obama publicly endorsed the “success” of Australia’s gun confiscation program.
The recent passage of the NYSafe Act, gun control legislation that has been rejected by more than 84 percent of New York counties, is also mentioned as a likely lightning rod for “militia and sovereign citizens.”
Several groups receive special mention including the New York Mutual Assistance Group (NYMAG), Oath Keepers, and the III Percent Patriots. The bulletin incorrectly claims that the latter of the groups believes in the “need to use violence against the government” despite no indication that the group supports offensive violence.
“The recent attacks serve to highlight a trend of growing violence by far right extremists that is likely to continue in the near term,” the bulletin says in closing. “While attacks by lone offenders or small groups, common amongst far right extremists, are often difficult to detect and can occur with little or no warning, law enforcement should remain vigilant to any indicators or suspicious activity related to the persistent far right extremist threat.”
Interestingly, the aforementioned shootings, one of which the media ridiculously tied to Alex Jones, occurred only days after Attorney General Eric Holder unveiled a new Justice Department task force focused on “homegrown” terrorism.
Although the bulletin asks law enforcement to differentiate between law-abiding citizens and potential extremists, the federal government’s definition of extremism has vastly expanded in recent years.
Earlier this month, a Washington Times piece revealed a chilling Department of Defense directive that outlined instances in which President Obama believes he would be authorized to use lethal military force against Americans domestically. Similar to the bulletin, the Times article also mentions supporters of the Bundy Ranch, revealing how the President debated using military force against them.
Leaked Homeland Security documents obtained by Infowars last March revealed a joint DHS/FEMA national exercise which detailed a scenario on how the federal government would battle a group know as the “Free Americans Against Socialist Tyranny” during martial law in Alaska.
Just last year, Army troops at Mississippi’s Camp Shelby blew the whistle on a new training course that labeled the American Family Association, a mainline Christian organization, as a domestic hate group, proving the federal government’s attempt to blur the line between extremism and mainline conservative values.
Soldiers at Fort Hood received a similar warning that year when a pre-deployment discussion mentioned the “major terror threat” of Christians, anti-abortion activists and Tea Party supporters. Soldiers were threatened with disciplinary action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice if they were discovered to be supporting such groups.
A Department of Defense training manual leaked in August 2013 also warned military personnel against participation in groups that support “individual liberties,” linking the belief to extremism as well.
A Department of Homeland Security funded study published in 2012 tied Americans “suspicious of centralized federal authority” to “extreme right-wing” terrorism. The study went on to label those who are “reverent of individual liberty” as potential terrorists.
The federal government’s motive becomes even more apparent in light of a 2012 report from the Small Wars Journal featured in Forbes, which detailed “how the U.S. Military would crush a Tea Party rebellion.”
Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano publicly gave support to a 2009 report that labeled returning military veterans as the main terror threat, a false claim that has been disseminated throughout law enforcement agencies. Agencies such as the FBI have also repeatedly characterized returning veterans as a major domestic terrorist threat as well.
A Morgan County, Indiana Police Sergeant, clearly exposed to such federal anti-veteran training, told reporters last month that his department was receiving an armored military vehicle due to the perceived threat of returning military veterans.
“The weaponry is totally different now that it was in the beginning of my career, plus, you have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques,” the Sergeant said.
Despite 2013 having the “lowest level of law enforcement fatalities in six decades” according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, police are continually being trained to view every conservative American as a potential extremist cop-killer.
With government support at historic lows across the board, the attempt to target the political right by linking them to extremism is yet another example of the Obama Administration’s unrelenting political persecution.
http://www.infowars.com/…/ - 77k -
Why are disbarred attorneys so attracted to this blog?
Because there is no entrance exam.
because they were too honest to hose clients.
How many are there?
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