America as a Horror Show

"The horror show is we are going to be slaves to profit. Some of us are going to be higher on the pyramid and we’ll count ourselves lucky and many, many more will be marginalized and destroyed” - David Simon, journalist and creator of the TV series The Wire, in an interview with Bill Moyers

Dean Baker - Inflation Hawks: The Job Killers at the Fed

"...This is the situation we face today. Many in the financial industry couldn’t care less about unemployment. They don’t want to risk any inflation that could erode the value of their wealth. Their voices are being heard at the top levels of the Fed. It is essential that the broader public get involved in this debate as well." ~Dean Baker

The Haves need to get a grip

Four on line stories, one from the Daily Mail, one from a California radio station, and two from Guardian, reinforce the class divisions. This is just a sample.

In sunny California, paying for access with celebrity royals as citizens protest cuts. Most people will ignore the struggles, compartmentalize them as they prefer the diversion of polo and Pimm's; even if they don't (or cannot afford) to participate, they'll live it vicariously by reading about it.

Daily Mail:

The billion pound brand of William and Kate Inc
Next month’s US trip has already made millions for charity. The royal couple's potential earning power for Britain is immense, says Gordon Rayner

KALW News:

16 arrested in Downtown Oakland “anti-austerity” protest

Crazy insanity of consumerism and crazy desperation to survive and obtain the good life: About 15 years ago my partner and I went to Las Vegas and had lunch at the Debby Reynolds casino and hotel (now defunct). There was a museum attached and I swear we saw the Monroe dress among the "antiquities."

Guardian:

Migrants run Mexican gauntlet to make leap of faith to US

And placed just under this story is

Marilyn Monroe dress sells for $4.6m

US taxes disappear in Dutch-Irish-Bermuda triangle (Updated)

Updated: And the Dutch react to the Obama "slur."

From Radio Netherlands

Obama targets "tax haven" Netherlands

The Netherlands is a corporate tax haven for US multinationals, and together with Ireland and Bermuda it is sheltering companies' earnings from the American tax authorities, president Barack Obama said on Monday. As long as they keep their earnings overseas US companies are legally exempt from paying. Taxes only become due when the money is "repatriated" to the United States.

The current practice is perfectly legal, but the US government considers it harmful to the American economy. President Obama announced a crackdown on the tax shelters, aiming to raise 210 billion dollars in taxes over the next decade. A Wall Street Journal report in April quoted a figure of 58 billion dollars in overseas earnings, which are out of the tax office's reach, losing it an estimated 20 billion dollars in tax revenue. One-third of the foreign profits in 2003 came from, what the US Treasury calls, "three small, low-tax countries: Bermuda, the Netherlands, and Ireland".

Call it the stimulus package from God

From Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News, April 22, 2009

Manhattan's Riverside Church - one of the country's most illustrious religious institutions - is paying its new senior pastor, the Rev. Brad Braxton, more than $600,000 in annual compensation.

That's twice what Braxton's predecessor, James Forbes, one of the country's best-known preachers, was getting after running Riverside for more than 18 years.

It amounts to almost 10 times what William Sloane Coffin, the legendary anti-Vietnam War clergyman, was paid in his last year as senior minister at Riverside in 1987.

COMMENT: "No mere man since the Fall, is able in this life perfectly to keep the Commandments."> - Book of Common Prayer, Shorter Catechism

Pepe Escobar: Welcome to the new “new world order”

Related to what I've written here and here, two commentaries by Pepe Escobar from The Real News Network:

ABANDON SHIP

The New York Times

The bad economy is creating a flotilla of forsaken boats. While there is no national census of abandoned boats, officials in coastal states are worried the problem will only grow worse as unemployment and financial stress continue to rise. Several states are even drafting laws against derelicts and say they are aggressively starting to pursue delinquent owners.

“Our waters have become dumping grounds,” said Maj. Paul R. Ouellette of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. “It’s got to the point where something has to be done.”

Derelict boats are environmental and navigational hazards, leaking toxins and posing obstacles for other craft, especially at night. Thieves plunder them for scrap metal. In a storm, these runabouts and sailboats, cruisers and houseboats can break free or break up, causing havoc.

Some of those disposing of their boats are in the same bind as overstretched homeowners: they face steep payments on an asset that is diminishing in value and decide not to continue. They either default on the debt or take bolder measures.

Marina and maritime officials around the country say they believe, however, that most of the abandoned vessels cluttering their waters are fully paid for. They are expensive-to-maintain toys that have lost their appeal.

THE MYTH OF GAY AFFLUENCE

Thanks to Toujoursdan for highlighting findings in a report (PDF) about LGBT poverty from the Williams Institute of the UCLA Law School:

After adjusting for a range of family characteristics that help explain poverty, gay and lesbian couple families are significantly more likely to be poor than are heterosexual married couple families.

+ Notably, lesbian couples and their families are much more likely to be poor than heterosexual couples and their families.

+ Children in gay and lesbian couple households have poverty rates twice those of children in heterosexual married couple households.

+ Within the LGB population, several groups are much more likely to be poor than others. African American people in same-sex couples and same-sex couples who live in rural areas are much more likely to be poor than white or urban same-sex couples.

+ While a small percentage of all families receive government cash supports intended for poor and low-income families, we find that gay and lesbian individuals and couples are more likely to receive these supports than are heterosexuals.

Thanks also to Counterlight

I've always felt that "affluent gays" was a big canard, up there with "rich Jews." The rich Palm Springs circuit party crowd is a very visible, but tiny minority of the LGBT population. Most well paid LGBT professionals are in medicine and technology. High tech companies are usually very gay friendly because that's where a lot of their talent comes from. Most other gay men, especially the young, are in famously low wage jobs provided by retail, hospitality, restaurants, and arts and entertainment. And this has always been true.

Lesbians face a double whammy of the wage discrimination against women built into the economy, and homophobic prejudice.

Those who face the worst employment discrimination are transexuals. So many once turned to prostitution because there was no other work. Some businesses and professions are beginning to open up very slowly and reluctantly, but it is still incredibly difficult for them.

Proponents and opponents of Vermont's gay marriage bill have used the economy in their arguments. The Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility have both supported its passage. Governor Jim Douglas and opponents of the bill have scolded Vermont lawmakers for even considering it (read: wasting precious time and money). Dissing LBGTs as non-persons without proper rights - as Douglas has done with a terrific force - and saying the economy should receive priority just doesn't cut it. Loving and caring Vermont LBGT families are having just as hard a time surviving in Vermont as their hetero counterparts. Also, as toujoursdan notes in a comment over at Counterlight, the religious right have used the myth of gay affluence to argue that LGBTs don't need civil rights protections or marriage equality. The opponents - especially the anti-government folks - may attempt to use the UCLA report as ammo against the bill, that Vermont doesn't need that added burden or responsibility to help "them." With blinders on, the opponents fail to realise that, as the report points out, they would be continuing systemic homophobia and class discrimination in our cities and towns, and it's not a good thing to live in state that disregards fundamental human rights of Vermonters to such basic needs as healthcare, housing, education, social security and dignified work.

Very relatedly, connecting equal marriage rights to struggles of all Vermont families, a new advertisement from Vermont Freedom to Marry:



Cross-posted at Antemedius.

WE'RE ROYALLY FUCKED

... by the cartel of financial institutions.

If you haven't read the Rolling Stone article Big Takeover by Matt Taibbi.

It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. no empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.

LIFESTYLE OF THE RICH AND $HAMELESS

NRC/international

FAIRFIELD/WILTON - Bus 650, a rickety old vehicle with a barely attached ceiling and crusted snot on the brown upholstery of the seats, struggles with the rolling hills in this park-like upscale residential area in Connecticut. This is where several employees of insurance giant AIG reside - the ones who received millions of dollars in bonuses even after AIG had to be rescued with a government bailout.


The bus's engine coughs, and driver Bill – a golden eagle and 'USA' in thickly embroidered letters on his cap – puts his foot down on the gas pedal. The passengers stare out of the dirty windows at the lavish homes outside. So this is where they live.

(Photo: Chantal Heijnen.)

SILICON DAIRY GOES BYE BYE

Joel Banner Baird in the Free Press:--The sudden departure of Vermont's home-town-styled Internet provider and Web host, Silicon Dairy, has a lot of folks puzzled.

And a lot of folks vexed. Overnight, many of its longtime and loyal clients lost Web sites, databases and email lists.

The evaporation of Silicon Dairy sounds out of character. Any clues?

What's surprising is that their clients stuck around at all. I speak from experience: Silicon Dairy's service sucked. Unprofessional. Inefficient. I dropped them over a year ago. Better service & rates elsewhere.

LOCAL ISSUE: RENT RISE FOR CITY FARMER MARKETEERS

Over the weekend I read about this in a Front Porch Forum post by Chris Wagner, the market manager of Burlington Farmers' Market. In the Free Press today is an article alluding to that post:- Wagner said in his public letter that the market’s steering committee decided to meet with Kiss, to make sure he understood that the increases would be stressful to the vendors — particularly those just starting out. They met Friday in what Bissell called a cordial discussion.

“He was basically noncommittal,” Bissell said of Kiss. “He said he was going to talk with Wayne (Gross). It was hard to tell where he was going with it.”

“We heard the city supports the market,” Wagner said. “We were glad to have him say it, but I think we expected a little bit more.” Kiss said, “We’re at the beginning of the process, and we’ll move forward to make a proposal.” He said he would talk to Gross about the issue later this week.

Of course Bob Kiss loves 'process,' and is non-committal, although I note a hint of the usual double-speak.

Mayor Bob Kiss said the proposed rent increase from the Parks and Recreation Department is still in flux and will be resolved by late March or early April.

After the city mayoral election, you see.

No doubt the FPF post is making the rounds in the organic granola neighborhoods of Birkenstock... uhm Burlington. Already, under the Kiss administration, the Parks and Rec Dept have been under fire about their procedures. Given that, I don't think it's coincidental that news of the rent rise comes out the week before the city election.

WAKE UP BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh writes in Counterpunch:- A government “of the people, by the people, for the people” would start from the goal of finding a solution to the financial crisis that is based on national interests, and then would look at the implications of such a solution for the insolvent banks. Instead, the Bush/Obama administrations start from the objective of saving the insolvent banks, and then look for a “solution” that would accommodate this objective!

When asked why he was selecting an economic team of neoliberal economists who played critical roles in bringing about the current financial meltdown, President Obama gave a most bogus, obfuscating and, uncharacteristically stupid, reason: “I have to choose from the pool of experts who know how financial markets work.”

Yes, Mr. President, they certainly know how Wall Street financial giants work. The problem is that they are disguised lobbyists of those financial giants.

The substance of Mr Hossein-Zadeh's essay is that the rescue schemes being forced upon us and willingly approved by our congressional representaties are actually copycats of the Hoover administration.

TWO STORMS

nrc.nl international editorial: Perfect storm in the Dutch economy.

While the common folk grapple with the economic problems, a vacationing Dutch royal family is stuck in Lech am Arlberg, Austria. Due to heavy snowfall Lech has become unreachable since the town has been hit by a severe winter storm. I don't think the royal vacationers need to worry about lack of food, beverage or a nice hot sauna.


They remain en famille at their chalet/hotel, untouched by the "perfect" storm at home.





© Dutch Photo Press, Patrick van Katwijk

THE DAYS OF TWO-PLY ARE OVER

ASSOCIATED PRESS:-- Inmates at the Des Moines County jail in Burlington may have to begin paying for toilet paper. The county is facing a more than $1.7 million deficit in this year's budget and the Board of Supervisors gave department heads the option of cutting costs or facing the possibility of unpaid furloughs or layoffs.

WEAPONS PROGRAMS REBRANDED AS JOBS PROGRAMS

The military have been kicking this around even under Bush. As you'll see on the Real News Network clip above, Barney Frank has been raising holy hell about it for quite some time. However, with the failing economy, will our Dear Leader and his supporters in congress cave in?

Then, there's this from BBC News: US army 'wants more immigrants'.

WORLD PRESS 2008 AWARD GOES TO US FORECLOSURE PHOTO

RNW reports from Amsterdam

The international World Press Photo jury has selected a photo by US photographer Anthony Suau as photo of the year 2008. It shows an armed police officer searching a deserted home in the state of Ohio.

Pistol drawn, the officer was searching the house to make sure the residents had moved out, after they had been evicted having failed to keep up with their mortgage payments.

The black and white photograph was part of TIME magazine's Tough Times in Cleveland report on the effects of the credit crunch.

Dutchman Roger Cremers clinched the first prize in the Art and Entertainment category. His winning entry in colour features two visitors to the Auschwitz Nazi death camp. Dressed in the same track suits, the two men are seen from the back taking photographs of a monument on the site.

POTOMAC TROUBLES

From the start, we knew Emmanuel=trouble right there in Potomac City, didn't we?

A CONGRESSMAN STARTS ASKING QUESTIONS & THE FED FLIPS OUT

THROWING 'GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD'

Michael Hudson:- The government’s solution, placed in its hands by the financial lobbyists, is to bail out the bankers and Wall Street while leaving the ‘real’ economy even more highly indebted. Families, businesses and government are having to spend more wage income, profits and tax revenues on debt service instead of buying goods and services. So why is the solution to this debt overhead held to be yet MORE debt? Is there not something crazy here?