THE COMING RECESSION, FLIGHT 370, INCOME INEQUALITY AND OTHER THINGS THIS BLOG HAS PROVEN RIGHT.

The main reason I started this blog was that I was tired of being right all the time and everyone nit picking on the rare instance I was wrong. Yes I blew it on occasion as no one can be right all the time. However, if anyone wishes to go back and see how much I got right, I estimate it to be between 70 and 80%. That's pretty good which comes to about two times of ten I am wrong which seems about right.

Lately, I have been on fire. I predicted the death of the Tea Party this past election and that seems to  be happening everywhere except Texas, and who sees that as a shocker. I said the Republicans would use the VA scandal to their own advantage while simultaneously ignoring their whole part in this through their lack of funding or passing of any bill that would have helped the problem. I watched one Senator yesterday demand to know why this had happened at the VA's, conveniently forgetting he himself had voted against the bill which would have given the hospitals more money or another that would have fixed some serious problems which he said was just Democrats wanting to spend more money and the VA's were fine. No they weren't and apparently this yet another guy in politics who don't know about things like video tape and computers.

In my discussions about Flight 370, I said that the alleged pings they found were doubtfully what they were looking for, as anyone who has any knowledge of physics or even video games knows the pings will get stronger the closer you get to them. If the object is stationary, as a crashed plane would be, finding the source is easy. If it is moving however, due to them mistaking whales, geological noises or even subs for the said pings, finding them will be near impossible as they will disappear and/or move which is exactly what happened. We cannot say with any degree of certainty at this point whether or not the plane crashed at all. Hijacking is still a possibility, even if I do think suicide by pilot is the most likely explanation, but has to be considered a possibility.


How is we can track a turtle anywhere on earth with a GPS, but we lack the same ability for a 777? It's not like this hasn't happened before. In 2003, a plane disappeared from Angola, stolen off the runway by two mechanics that supposedly didn't even know how to fly. It took off and was never seen again. Shouldn't that have been a wake up call to put GPS trackers in all planes? How come we gave up all rights to privacy after 9/11 but planes with GPS was too much? Flight 370 is not where they thought it was. Now what?

The economy is other prediction that is coming true, much to my chagrin. I like electricity, and supermarkets with food and a roof over my head. I DO NOT want to see the economy collapse. But the idiots in charge, and backed up by a right wing insanity brigade on one side and a super PC, nanny state left on the other, and what we see is an almost certain all out plunge into the darkness.

As I said here, the last quarter, which was listed as .1% gain was officially revised downward to a negative 1 now. In reality it is almost certainly 2 or three points lower than that as they rig the numbers by adding in royalties and future investment money which is like saying, "I can predict next years income for myself by the amount of money I am going to win at the casinos." Right. How do they not know that this doesn't work?


Now as always, "bad weather" has been to blame, but as every economic data shows, at the same time the poor and middle class were all huddled up at home trying to stay warm, the rich went out and spent like gangbusters. High end stores like Michael Kors, Nordstrom, Tiffany, Saks, and Ralph Lauren all posted better than expected gains so why was bad weather not affecting them? Bad weather is not the culprit. People with no money are.

All signs say the average consumer is tapped out. They spent every dollar they had last month, as statistics show, and went heavily into debt even to buy what they had to, like college tuition and new cars. Because of this, retail is dying. It didn't help that we have the highest level of retail store space on the planet, most of which is being turned into abandoned strip malls. There are at least seven strip malls I can think of near this town or where I used to live in CT that have been empty now for at least a decade. That is not the kind of growth that sustains anyone for long.


Housing is taking a beating again, though you wouldn't know it from the glowing government and MSM reports. If you have an expensive house, it will sell quick. If it's below $250,000, good luck. Again bad weather has been to blame for the slowdown, ignoring the fact that it has been gorgeous in CA and their market is devolving faster than anyone else. In San Diego, house costing $200,000 or less plunged 46% in sales last quarter. Ouch. People are being priced out of the market by rising housing costs caused by investors grabbing whatever they could driving up prices as a result. But just like 2007, sales and prices are dropping in various cities as investors are leaving the market and no one else can afford to buy at the rates they are.

This is leading many to say not only is a recession all but guaranteed by July 30th, when the next round of numbers come in, but our entire economic system may collapse soon after. Our government has done nothing to fix anything and, surprise, nothing has worked. Our middle class is being eviscerated, corporations are paying people even less to stay "competitive," and tax coffers are being emptied because no one has any money to pay taxes. If only there was some way, like a minimum wage, to make sure people got paid enough to survive. If only.


In response to this coming disaster, the bankers have pulled out their terrorism card again and said if they get prosecuted, they will tank the economy. Whatever happened to this country does not deal with terrorists? I guess it only applies if their are foreigners. Nevermind the fact that Iceland arrested everyone involved with their banking scandal, threw out all the politicians who allowed it, gave people the houses that banks had tried to steal through mortgage fraud. and holy crap, it worked. Their economy is humming while ours is stuck in reverse. The only reason nothing has been fixed is you do not live in a free society. Corporations, especially banks, run the show now. They are above the law. And yet some of you yahoos out there are fighting to give them even more power by voting in corporatists who are going to butt fuck you first chance they get. There's no lube people. Remember that: NO LUBE!

This is from a former professor of law and economics, and chief S&L prosecutor, William K. Black:


First, no banker is “too big to jail.” They are easily replaceable and removing a fraudulent bank CEO from power is the single most productive act that regulators and prosecutors can accomplish. [The Department of Justice's chief of criminal prosecutions] Breuer and Attorney General Eric Holder were involved in a con when they claimed that their failure to prosecute the senior bank officers leading the frauds was in any way related to “too big to fail.” Hilariously, they even applied the “rationale” for non-prosecution to former bank officers – as if a bank would fail “because” its former officers were prosecuted. It is a testament to the weakness of the reportage that this claim was not treated with ridicule.

Second, valid fraud prosecutions do not “cause” a business to fail. The fraud causes them to fail. They should fail when their “profits” arise from fraud. In particular, they should fail in the case of accounting control fraud because their “profits” are the fictional product of accounting fraud. The markets and the economy are greatly improved when fraudulent enterprises are destroyed. ***

Third, very little is actually “destroyed,” when we place a fraudulent bank in receivership, fire the crooked CEO, and sell the bank to an acquirer of integrity and competence. The new bank will, net, be greatly improved because it has been freed from control by the fraudulent leadership that was “looting” the bank (George Akerlof and Paul Romer, 1993, “Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit”).


Fourth, there is rarely a need to prosecute a bank. In virtually every case in which the bank’s frauds cause serious harm senior officers of the bank will have led the fraud and profited from it. Everyone in law enforcement realizes that any effective deterrence will come from prosecuting those officers and not only removing their fraud proceeds but also imposing fines that will leave the officers bankrupt.

Fifth, the bank’s controlling officers are in an immense conflict of interest when their frauds are detected. They control the bank and its resources. Their first priority is to prevent their own prosecution. Their second priority is to prevent any substantial “claw back” of their compensation. Their third and fourth priorities are to do the same for less senior officers. This isn’t altruism (though it certainly has an aspect of class-based affinity). Fraudulent CEOs realize that it is risky to allow the prosecutors to gain any leverage over more junior officers who may “flip” and testify against the CEO. The fraudulent officers controlling the bank, therefore, will gladly trade seemingly huge fines in exchange for obtaining their top four priorities.

[Finally, the government's policy of not prosecuting Wall Street criminals] produces what Akerlof and Romer warned was the “sure thing” of CEO “looting” through accounting control fraud plus the assurance that the CEO will not be prosecuted, forced to surrender his fraud proceeds, or forced to pay fines that bankrupt him.Unsurprisingly, the result has been unprecedented accounting control fraud by elite banksters.


None of this explains why they don’t prosecute bankers (much less ex bankers)

Our society is falling apart, no one wants to do anything to fix the problems, and the right is still focused on abortion and gay rights as the house is burning down around us. We have precious little time left before the four horsemen arrive and if we don't start demanding more, a lot more, we won't have anything left.

EIGHT REASONS WHY CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL AND DENIAL IS NO LONGER AN OPTION

I keep hearing from my right wing acquaintances how Obama and the left are lying to us about climate change and it's all just some scam to wring more money out of the American people. Most recently, 15 "scientists" wrote a scathing review of the IPCC's latest info which the White House has touted as factual. Many are using this to hammer the left on "facts" that aren't. I myself destroyed the 15 idiots that wrote this latest bit of crappy science as they used random data to justify their position while ignoring real data that said the exact opposite of what they were proclaiming. They were either the worst scientists ever or being paid to obscure the truth. Either way, anyone listening to these fools are every bit as dumb as the morons who wrote it. But what about eight other signs the right keeps throwing in our face. Turns out, they are no better than this latest round of garbage. Let's look at it, one by one.


1# THE EARTH STOPPED WARMING IN 1998- This one is my favorite as it appears everywhere. It is also just like the hit piece on the IPCC. Instead of looking at the totality of the data, these num-nuts are cherry picking the data that best suits their needs. If I look at any respectable data, I can see with my own eyes that the number of hot days are increasing over the number of cold days. 1998 was also an anomaly year as one of the biggest El Nino's appeared that year, skewering the data. Several papers were published afterward that suggested global warming had stopped. However, top scientists looked at the data and found three massive flaws in their math, including changing a plus sign for a minus in one important equation, using means numbers to hide any influxes, and other questionable methods to change their data to fit their theory. Oceans absorb most of the heat anyway and their temperatures have been skyrocketing as seen in the graphs below:

(Graphic: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for

The people who came up with the "no warming since 1987" theory, are doing the same type of misinformation the anti-IPCC guys are. It looks fine to the less intelligent out there, but those that know how to read these kinds of things know it to be the crap that it really is.

2#-THE IPCC PREDICTIONS ARE WRONG SO THEREFORE IT ISN'T HAPPENING.- People keep confusing weather with climate change which is why when ever it snows the climate change deniers show up in force, but when the asphalt is melting in Arizona, they seem to disappear again. Deniers are looking at short term periods and saying "See. See. The world only got .2 degrees warmer, not the .4 you predicted." Please. Long term studies have been much more accurate than that, as global warming predictions made when I was college (back in the stone age) have largely become true. Hurricanes are becoming less frequent, but more powerful. Ocean and surface temps are rising. Sea levels are also rising. It may not be the exact number they said back then, but it is fairly close.

3#-TEMPERATURE READINGS ARE UNRELIABLE- A 2009 study by Andrew Watts said that 90% of all temperature stations are built near places which would confuse the data, thus the numbers couldn't be trusted. That study by the way was paid for by the Koch Brothers and Exxon/Mobil so you know that it can't possibly be wrong (roll eyes and snort here). What this fails to take into account is that scientists take this data into measurements which is offset by satellites, ocean buoys and weather balloons, and other methods which are every bit as accurate. When we see that, temperatures, especially in the oceans are increasing at an exponential rate.


4#-3% OF SCIENSTS DISAGREE SO THERE IS NO CONSENSUS- Many here use the Galileo example, where science at the time was dead wrong and Galileo was right. The difference here is that Galileo had real proof where as climate deniers do not. Even less convincing for them is the fact that if you look as to who exactly belong to this 3%, no climate scientists worth his weight is involved, and is mostly filled with people whose field has little to nothing to do with climate change science. Would you ask your doctor about your taxes? Would you ask your lawyer about a hernia? Of course not. So why does the opinion of some mathematician from a third rate university matter then?


5# -THE SUN IS REPSONSIBLE FOR GLOBAL WARMING- This one is one of the stupidest ones as no scientist considered an expert in his field of studying the sun says this is happening. Also, if the sun was really warming the planet, the ENTIRE planet would be seeing uniform warming, which it isn't, strongly suggesting that the sun is not to blame.

6#-IN THE 1970'S, SCEINTISTS WERE WARNING US OF GLOBAL COOLING- No they weren't actually. This was a fringe theory thrown out there by magazines like Time trying to sell magazines. There was never any consensus on this, was considered stupid by top scientists and just this last month, the originator of this theory came forward to say he was wrong and provably so. Stop bringing this up, and take that idiotic UK Independent story about winters being a thing from the past in 2000 with you.


7#-THE EARTH HAS BEEN WARMED IN THE PAST SO WHY WORRY- Yes the Earth has been warmer in the past, but that predates mankind and spells disaster for any ecosystem when temperatures rise too fast, as they are now. The rise of temperatures in the Middle Ages is always brought out, not realizing that that spike was a local, random phenomenon, what we call weather, and was not uniform across the planet at that time. We know this from tree rings and ice cores, otherwise known as science.

8#- ANTARTCIA IS GROWING ICE- I hear this one on a daily basis. It's also false. Sea ice is growing this year due to incredibly cold temperatures, but land ice is disappearing quickly. Land ice is what will cause sea levels to rise as sea ice is already in the water. If you fill a glass with water and ice, the glass will not overspill. But add ice to an already full glass and watch it overflow. Land ice is disappearing at an unheard of rate and this could cause sea levels to rise by ten feet by the end of the century.


The point of all of this is to show that climate change denial is about as good as Holocaust denials or those that think Sandy Hook was a hoax by actors. Stop believing everything you read. Hell, don't believe any of this and look it up for yourself. The facts show that the world is getting warmer and our weather is getting more and more unpredictable. If I am right, we could save the planet. Even if I am wrong, which I highly doubt, the planet will be a better place. If the deniers are right, we still face massive problems from our oil addiction and are supporting terrorists by default. If they are wrong, this planet is over and we all die. Which is the smarter route to take?

DOUCHEBAG OF THE WEEK: BIG BUSINESS AND GENERAL MOTORS

I would sure like to know how 99% of the CEO's of major companies got where they are because brains certainly wasn't one of the reason. Retail information was released this week and in what can only be described as a complete lack of surprise, most stores are dying. The ones that aren't cater to high end luxury items because those people have money while the rest of us starve. GM takes the grand prize for actually killing their customers and have watched their profits plunge as a result. Let's see those runner ups.


1)EBAY- My computer got hacked this week which cost me a fortune to repair as the malware was military grade and actually fought off attempts to get rid of it. I don't know if it had anything to do with what I write about but it is odd that I would be infected on purpose by a foreign IP address that was logging all my keystrokes yet didn't even try to steal any of my money. Too bad for them my identity can't be stolen, nor can my credit card information due to security I have on all of that. As a result I am upgrading my computer, my anti-hacking software and will soon be moving to encrypted passwords. Good luck douchebags. But the fact remains that all of this could be because fucking EBAY is to goddamned cheap to encrypt their info and, as a result, info from 145 million was stolen. Then these ass clowns never bothered to tell anyone for three whole months. I had to find out about it on the Internet. All of this info could be protected if they wanted it to be but these morons are too cheap to spend the capital to do so. We should run anyone like Ebay or Target out on a rail for playing fast and loose with our info for no other reason than they are cheap bastards.

2)The Duggars- Will some one please spay and neuter these fuckwads who are directly contributing to the overpopulation problem already? Apparently not happy with the 19 kids they have, 47 year old Mrs. Duggar recently miscarried which is God's way of saying ENOUGH! So now they are going to a fertility clinic whose doctor who is treating them should really be losing his license to practice medicine for this. Question one should be "How many kids do you have?" and if the answer is more than two then they should be shown the door. How come abortion is so abhorrent to the religious right but playing God with fertility is perfectly fine? Someone please start dosing these idiots with salt peter and the morning after pill.


3)The Tea Party- As predicted in this column, the Tea Party way overstepped their boundaries with the government shutdown causing businesses to lose billions. Once they saw the dog biting the hand that fed them, they turned around and crushed them in the primaries, with not one Tea Party candidate winning any primary anywhere. As a matter of fact, it wasn't even close. McConnell, whose popularity is someone between navel lint and the latest Adam Sandler movie, easily beat his challenger Mark Bevin, who repeated all the mistakes of his Tea Party brethren by giving a speech at a pro-cock fighting rally recently. Genius. Some in the Tea Party are starting to wake up to the fact that 99% of politicians suck, including almost everyone on the right. But there are not enough to counter the morons who are still screaming about Benghazi at the top of their lungs.

4)PetCo and PetSmart- It came out this week that thousands of dogs were killed from eating tainted jerky treats from China. The really sad part about this is that this is really old news. I used to have two dogs back in the mid-90's. Before the Internet, my girlfriend and I had already heard about this and made sure not to buy any treats from Brazil or China because pets were dying. IT'S FUCKING 2014 AND THIS WAS STILL GOING ON?! Anyone who lost a pet from this ultimate greedy action should sue because you can prove they knew about this for more than a decade. Companies do not care about anything but the bottom line and anymore and it has to stop.


5)Global Cooling idiots- I am constantly bombarded with right wing loons who keep showing me articles from the 70's that said the world was getting cold or one from the UK Independent from 2000 saying winters were a thing of the past. The thing both have in common is that they were wrong. There was never any scientific consensus ever that this was occurring, the very definition of fringe theory. As a matter of fact, the scientist who came up with this in the 70's recently came forward to say he was wrong and all evidence points toward temperatures going the other way. The world is getting warmer. Face facts.

6)Elliot Rogers- Another day, another shooting. This moron was pissed because no woman wanted to touch his winkie. The fact he was a raving loon probably had a lot to do with it. Can we please start putting people away who show obvious signs of lunacy as this ass did? He might as well have sent the police a detailed itinerary on his plans. Oh wait, he did.

7)Isla Vista police department- Turns out Rogers parents became aware of awful videos their son was posting and alerted police. They interviewed him and found no problems. However, for some insane reason, they never bothered to watch the videos that spelled out a different story. Way to not do your job. Where you guys too busy shooting some 90 year old woman in her bed or perhaps planting drugs on a black guy you didn't like the looks of? You certainly were not concerned with getting this loon off the streets.


8)Conspiracy nuts- If I hear of one more "false flag" bullshit be foisted on an obvious tragedy I am going to lose my mind. Yes the right wing loons are saying things like "all past shooters have left wing ideals," which flies in the face of reason. Even worse, some are saying it is yet another false flag like the Boston Bombing or Sandy Hook. They base this on the fact that some eyewitnesses swear they saw two shooters which, as anyone who have ever studied eyewitness testimony will tell you, is less reliable than the MSM and government statistics combined. People are TERRIBLE are recalling events under stress and every single study ever done confirms this. Add to this the fact that one victim's father rightfully said that our gun laws are getting people killed, while the crazies pointed to that as a reason why Obama was behind the whole thing. Regular readers know I do not agree with the left on gun control, but even I think our background checks need to be better as there is no way this loon should have allowed to get a weapon as he was seeing three therapists at the time. The videos alone should have gotten him banned. But the NRA is more concerned with weapon sales than weapon safety, not to mention eliminating the democratic party from the face of the Earth.

9)Business owners- The latest business information was released this week and it spells doom for this country. And what have business owners done about this? Absolutely nothing. Here are the sales numbers:

Wal-Mart Profit Plunges By $220 Million as US Store Traffic Declines by 1.4%

       Target Profit Plunges by $80 Million, 16% Lower Than 2013, as Store Traffic Decline 
by    2.3%

Sears Loses $358 Million in First Quarter as Comparable Store Sales at Sears Plunge by 7.8% and Sales at Kmart Plunge by 5.1%

JC Penney Thrilled With Loss of Only $358 Million For the Quarter

Kohl’s Operating Income Plunges by 17% as Comparable Sales Decline by 3.4%

Costco Profit Declines by $84 Million as Comp Store Sales Only Increase by 2%

Staples Profit Plunges by 44% as Sales Collapse and Closing Hundreds of Stores

Gap Income Drops 22% as Same Store Sales Fall

American Eagle Profits Tumble 86%, Will Close 150 Stores

Aeropostale Losses $77 Million as Sales Collapse by 12%

Best Buy Sales Decline by $300 Million as Margins Decline and Comparable Store Sales Decline by 1.3%

Macy’s Profit Flat as Comparable Store Sales decline by 1.4%

Dollar General Profit Plummets by 40% as Comp Store Sales Decline by 3.8%

Urban Outfitters Earnings Collapse by 20% as Sales Stagnate

McDonalds Earnings Fall by $66 Million as US Comp Sales Fall by 1.7%

Darden Profit Collapses by 30% as Same Restaurant Sales Plunge by 5.6% and Company Selling Red Lobster

TJX Misses Earnings Expectations as Sales & Earnings Flat

Dick’s Misses Earnings Expectations as Golf Store Sales Plummet

Home Depot Misses Earnings Expectations as Customer Traffic Only Rises by 2.2%

Lowes Misses Earnings Expectations as Customer Traffic was Flat

 

All of this was, according to "experts," because of "bad weather." However, during all this alleged bad weather than killed housing, auto sales and retail, high end luxury houses, autos and retail did just fine. Are they really suggesting that rich people will brave the cold while the rest of us are too freezing to leave the house? Please.

 

At the same time credit debt is exploding again, particularly in sub prime auto sales (which explains the bump in March for this) but much like the sub prime housing market, these are repossessions waiting to happen. The other factor is tuition debt which is another bubble waiting to explode.

 

The way to fix any of this is to raise the minimum wage, along with middle class salaries, start taxing the wealthy at a much higher rate and moving our work force from tanks and planes we don't need to infrastructure and green energy.

 

McDonalds was besieged by thousands of pissed off workers about the slave wages they get paid, arresting a hundred. As I have pointed out on my Facebook page, Denmark pays their employees $45,000 a year and their Big Mac combo meal is around $11. In other words, they make enough money to buy the products these companies are selling. When they don't, see the chart above as sales plummet.

 

GM takes the cake this week by having a paltry $35 million fine for killing as many as 300 people. Oh, that'll teach them as they made that amount of money in the time it takes for me to finish this sentence. Sales are plummeting as anyone who doesn't have a death wish is staying far, far away from these retro Pinto mobiles. So congratulations GM, you are indeed douchebag of the week.

S.T.E.M. WORKERS, FARMING, WALMART AND OTHER SIGNS THAT CAPITALISM IS DYING ON THE VINE,

Karl Marx wrote that capitalism was ultimately doomed due to the greed of the richest classes. He may have been right which is terribly ironic as he failed to see the same fatal flaw in Communism which doomed that from the start as well (if everything is shared, he who does the dividing will inevitably keep more for himself and his friends). Greed is the worst trait in mankind followed closely by watching repeats of any show with a Kardashian in it. We are starting to see for the first time how bad capitalism has become as the people who pay salaries have decided they would rather watch the world burn than give people a raise.


Alabama and Georgia attempted to stop illegals from working in farms and when that happened, they discovered no one really wanted to work for three dollars an hour. So instead of increasing the amount of money they would pay people to attract workers (the very definition of free market factors) these douchebag owners let food rot on the plants rather than increase wages to pick the damned fruit. Nevermind the fact that the owners are all rich beyond words, they want slaves to work the fields meaning almost nothing has changed since the 1850's. We've just altered the definition of slavery. This has resulted in more and more food being imported from overseas whose quality standards are far lower than ours and becomes more expensive due to shipping costs. This is NOT capitalism but profiteering. This in turn lowers all salaries and is one of the major reasons this country is falling apart.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I keep hearing how this country doesn't have enough STEM (science, tech, engineering, and math) workers and that there are thousands of jobs just waiting to be filled. What they don't tell you is that the reason a lot of these jobs are open is that they want to pay people far less than the going rate. Who is going to take a job requiring tons of experience for a measly $40,000 a year when there are plenty of others that pay $80,000+? These jobs are not being filled because they cannot find workers but because they are not offering the types of salaries that would attract said workers. It turn, because of this mythical shortage, companies are demanding more worker VISA's from other countries who are perfectly happy working for less, thus dropping salaries across the board again. If you want to know why there are tons of Indians working in IT jobs, that is why. They will work for far less money that an US worker. Now because of this, many in the US declined to pursue these fields as who wants to go hundreds of thousands in debt to compete against someone who is willing for half of what you will need just to pay back your mortgage sized loan?


It also doesn't help that many recent grads in STEM degrees have a unrealistic view of how much money they will paid upon looking for a job. Without experience of any sort, which few have, their chances of landing a high paying job is limited and again, that huge debt becomes crushing after a while. Because of this, many are unable to buy a house, a new car or even start a family which is leading to a rapid decline in middle class living and an immense amount of graduates living at home for some time.

Lastly, let's look at Wal-Mart, probably one of the worst companies on Earth for destroying mom and pop businesses and deflating salaries. Nevermind the fact that the Walton family is the richest on Earth, they are not giving up one red cent for their slaves, I mean workers. Unfortunately, just like Marx predicted, this level of greed of starting to have serious repercussions. Wal-Mart profits have started to drop by as much as 20% and, overseas, their stores are in free-fall. Austerity measures, which have NEVER worked ever, are having the same effect they always have had which is decreasing buying power of the middle class which leads to a further break down of society.


As everyone else has done, "bad weather" has been used to blame weak sales in the first quarter of this year, but this bucks a trend that has been going on for far longer. Wal-Mart has been declining in sales for some time now and weather is the least of their problems. The biggest problem is the same one Henry Ford faced when he realized that if he paid his workers enough money to buy his product, he would be far richer as his employees would be far more likely to afford his wares. Wal-Mart pays their slaves next to nothing, which means they can't even afford to shop at the same shitty store they work in and, because of that, profits are starting to plummet.

Wal-Mart stock is depreciating at an alarming rate because of this as seen in the graph below.




At this rate, they could be Sears, JC Penny or Kmart overnight.

Because the middle class is dead and even poor people have no money to shop, as recent data suggests, Wal-Mart's low wage growth is killing them. People are going elsewhere to shop that have better prices like Amazon and specialty stores like Williams-Sonoma ,Lululemon, and Michael  Kors, among others.

Because Wal-Mart has failed to move into online shopping (their site is terrible by the way), they are losing to those that are. Because they don't pay people enough, others are staying away in protest or because they have no money. Either way, Wal-Mart may be screwed.

The point of all of this is that capitalism is dying because all these assholes who supposedly worship at the altar of free market nonsense, do not follow any of those actual norms. They want to be oligarchs, not business leaders, which again, is what Marx would say would happen. It's too bad he couldn't come up with an alternate economic form that worked far better than communism. Someone better soon because time is running out for the rest of us.

THE TTIP, A GROWING POLICE STATE, TOTAL BULL STATISTICS AND OTHER THINGS THE GOVERNMENT IS STICKING IN OUR ASS

The government released another round of bullshit statistics this weekend, lowering unemployment yet again, now stating that North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate of 2.3%, largely due to the fracking and oil industry which has traded jobs for the death of the planet and RI with the highest of just over 8%, most likely due to the fact that the state is wicked expensive to live in with few industries capable of allowing anyone to make a decent living anymore. Actual stats from the BLS, not estimated as the unemployment model does which uses a formula woefully out of date, says that as many as 93 million do not have a full time job, making the true unemployment number, minus those who can't work, in prison, or other reasons, at least 23%, not anywhere near the 6% they keep trotting out. Even worse, the jobs being created are overwhelmingly low paying, go nowhere jobs. This is a disaster and because we have fixed NOTHING since the last crisis, this one will end even worse.
 

It doesn't help that the one solution that would have worked, as Iceland did, would have been to forgive billions in debt that were created illegally in the first place with credit default swaps, bad loans, and sky high interest rates. But as we bailed out the rich first and told the rest of us to go jump off a bridge, our economy is actually doing much worse than many suspect.

Take the inflation rate which since 2000 has yo-yoed between near 0% (in 2009 which is not a shocker) to as high as just over 4% in  2008 (again no shocker there). The funny part of these stats the government shows us do not reflect nationwide prices. If the inflation rate was indeed this low, prices we see everywhere would reflect that, but instead show a far higher rate of inflation, as high as 11% in some years. Disney just raised their rates $4 to a whopping $96 a day. When I was there in 2007, the price was $67, meaning a rise of almost thirty dollars in seven years. The US inflation rate was around 15% according to their stats. But the Disney inflation rate is DOUBLE that at 30%. Or take your cable bill which has gone up 4 times the rate of inflation in the last ten years. Hell, even a Big Mac costs 25% more than it did in 2007. So where in the hell are all these savings? Ah the wonders of statistics where if you manipulate them enough you can show how an elephant can dangle off a cliff holding onto a daisy. You see televisions have dropped in price dramatically, as have many electronics as they are wont to do. Likewise clothes, as they are mostly made in sweatshops overseas, haven't increased much at all for the past decade, so if I add these into the mix, viola, low, low inflation, even though most things like oil, college, food and entertainment have all skyrocketed. The actual inflation rate is most likely between 6 and 11% PER YEAR. And the American People are getting screwed over it.


Here's the only way to save this country anymore and, unfortunately, it is the least likely to happen because most of you out there are morons who can't see the speeding train in front of you. However, if you are reading this right now, you are most likely as exasperated as I am with how dumb your co-worked and bosses really are. and are part of the small minority who see we are a bug rapidly approaching the windshield. The best way to save us is both debt forgiveness and a huge raise for the middle class. Until the middle class has buying power again, we can hold out breath until we turn blue and it won't change the fact that nothing else we try will work. It can't. But like the Swiss who fell for scare tactics when they turned down the highest minimum wage in the world of $25 an hour, so do idiots here who keep harping on how the minimum wage will destroy the world without any facts to back it up. I keep hearing how people will be priced out the market, which never made any sense to me as the only group who would truly suffer are teens and too bad for them as they don't have to work to survive like the rest of us. The stats say differently. As a matter of fact I have issued this question to anyone who can answer it: Name me any country in the world that has raised the minimum wage and saw their economy fail as a result. Good luck as I have never found one yet.
Australia just raised their minimum wage to $16 an hour and their economy is doing far better than ours.

We also keep hearing how great the housing market is. When you look at the actual stats though, you see most are bought now cash only, favoring the rich over the middle class once again, heavily populated by equity firms buying rental properties and the number one type of dwelling being built right now by a huge margin are multi-family homes. Renting is the new king now, which is driving up rental prices in areas like SF, Boston and DC and driving out long time residences that can no longer afford to live there. This trend shows no sign of abatement any time soon or at least until the whole housing market crashes again, which it is likely to do.

So our government, instead of fixing well just about anything, they are going the opposite route of cracking down harder and harder on dissent while taking away as many Constitutional rights as they can. Right now, President Douchebag is negotiating with the EU on the horrific TTIP, which would give corporations sovereignty over countries and people's rights. Obama is becoming more and more fascist with every passing day and his idiocy is selling us all down the river. Protestors tried to gather to voice their opinion in Brussels but were driven back by water cannons. The EU wants more fracking which is fine and well for them as they recently banned it in their countries. But hey if the US wants to fuck up their country, that's fine I guess. Reporters haven't even been let in to these deals which are taking place in total secrecy. If we knew how much they planned on dictating our every move in life, we'd probably string them up by their ears. So much for Obama's promise on transparency during his term, along with everything else he has ever said. I swear if the next President is as bad as this one, I'm moving to Mars.


In turn, every government agency seems to be arming themselves to the teeth, including ones you wouldn't expect like the Post Office, USDA and the FDA. Why exactly do these guys need sub machine guns with 30 round ammo and bullet proof vests? In Pennsylvania now cops can search your car without a warrant, just "probable cause." Here's how every traffic stop will go on for now: Cop "I smell weed." And then you are screwed as you should worry about cops planting something on you because private prisons need manpower. This is already happening in many places like RI, NV, AZ and NM which are already using forfeiture laws to steal money from law abiding citizens. That's right, people who have done nothing wrong other than have lots of cash on hand are having it confiscated with no hope of getting it back. How is that not piracy?

It gets worse. A federal court just ruled that cops can break into your home without a warrant and seize your guns if you "pose a threat to society." Yeah no chance that will be misused. If they do start this en masse I hope they head the words of Col. Trautman from Rambo when he said what the police would need is "a good supply of body bags." And the cops just kicked in my door, broke all my teeth and then left after trashing the place and finding no weapons. Good times.


The point of all this is this country is going to hell in a handbasket and it may be too late to do anything about it. The police are armed to the teeth while we are being told guns are bad and no one should have them except cops. That is a recipe for a dictatorship which we are rapidly heading toward. Start being proactive and help stop this by ending voting for any Republican and most democrats who refuse to help the middle class. Make your voice heard or else be prepared to be in chains as the corporate world runs over us roughshod.

DOUCHEBAG OF THE WEEK: CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS

Just for fun, I spent the last four weeks pouring over every bit of data I could get my hands on to see if the climate change deniers had anything to their argument. Not only did I find next to zero credible evidence to back their claims, I destroyed the latest anti-climate change theory (brought up by 15 whinny scientists who are either stupid or evil, your choice) due to inexcusable data mining. Let's see those runner ups, some of whom were doozies this week almost entirely from right wing assholes.

1)Operation American Spring- The right wing attempt at OWS fizzled this week as instead of the 10 to 30 million organizer Col. Harry Riley promised, 10 to 30 people actually showed up. And while their idea may have been in the right place, getting a bunch or redneck loons, some of whom looked like rejects from a Hee Haw reunion, the rest like drunken bikers, to NOT sound like racist morons was all but impossible. Yes, we saw several BENGHAZI banners and several other misspelled signs (does no one on the right own a freaking dictionary or does that interfere with your idiotic worship of the Bible and fishing shows) along with some out of place Guy Fawkes masks. Their attempt to put MORE people like Ted Cruz into power was idiotic from the start. Had they dispensed with the partisan bullshit and gone after ALL the politicians, they might have had a better turn out. Still, a small step in the right direction from the lunatic right is better than no step at all. Next time though, don't promise everyone gold plates and instead hand them lead.

2)Rush Limbaugh- Speaking of right wing loons, this fat bag of gas who somehow is still on the air despite the fact his show his running on fumes with major advertisers fleeing his sinking ship, this most loathed radio host hit a new low this week. After ridiculing Michelle Obama for her picture with a sign saying "bringbackourgirls," referring to the missing Nigerian teens, Limbaugh went off on a racist rant that was truly horrific. Jon Stewart said it best with this description of Rush: “a quivering rage heap who is apparently desperately trying to extinguish any remaining molecule of humanity that might still reside in the Chernobyl-esque superfund clean-up site that was his soul.” Very apt I must say. Limbaugh went on to say things like we shouldn't care about the missing girls because they are not from the US (or white) and other racist nonsense not worth repeating here. If you are still listening to this fuckwad, there's something wrong with you.


3)Republicans- It has been a banner week for Republicans, with many trying to out-stupid the next. If there was a comment from the right, it was beyond asinine, a fact I hope the voting public realizes. Laura Ingraham said the Nigerians were kidnapped because, wait for it and take a wild guess, Benghazi. Yes that's right, she actually said that. Marco Rubio went from climate change denier, which played very poorly in a state that every scientist and beach home owner can see with their own eyes is rapidly going under water, to some wishy washy answer that deflected the real truth that this ass doesn't know science from shinola. He then went on to say life beginning at conception was an accepted scientific fact, which it isn't even close to real as well as his belief that birth control is no better than abortion. What a dick. And then there is Keith Ablow, who must have gotten his doctorate out of a box of Lucky Charms, claimed girls wearing leggings are "asking for it," and agreed with the ban in some schools, because they were distracting for his kid. You know what else is distracting for teen boys: girls. They could be wearing a burka and at that age we would still find something hot to stare at. The right was in full on melt down mode this week, and I still have people to point out and laugh at.

4)Karl Rove- The Republican bashing continues, which I apologize for my right wing leaning readers, but these guys were in rare form this week. Karl Rove is still recovering from his epic meltdown on national TV during the election where he struggled to explain how Romney could be getting crushed when all his data said otherwise. This is called "believing your own bullshit," and it came back to bite him in the ass big time. Actual data spelled doom for Romney, which the right all but ignored, relying on their far less accurate predictions. I still have the Daily Show from that week with Karl Rove flailing in all his pudgy glory on election night. If I am having a bad day, it never fails to make me smile. This week, he continues his downward slide, suggesting that Hillary may be unfit to lead because of brain damage caused be her concussion last year. Rove of all people should be an expert on brain damage as he surrounds himself with people who seem to have suffered serious blows to the head, especially our last president who he advised for eight years. Again, what a dick.


5)Racists- Not one but two racists made the news this week, one we knew, and one new contender. The old one was of course Don Sterling who went on to be interviewed by Anderson Cooper in the most ill-advised newscast since Sandusky's phone chat with Bob Costas. Sterling actually came across worse than before with comments about Magic Johnson, AIDS and black people which made even the most racist person cringe in anticipation of what idiotic thing he would say next. He has gone on to say he will fight the NBA in court over the sanctions they have proposed which may lead them to disbanding the team rather than fight, leaving Sterling nothing in the long run. I so hope that happens. The new racist was police chief Robert Copeland of Wolfeboro, NH who was caught saying "Obama is a nigger," at a local diner and, instead of denying it and going about his way, he said he did say it and felt it accurate. OMG! Calls for this 82 year old racist to resign have increased. Why do we allow people over say 75 to work at all in public office anyway? This jerk is way too old to be police chief (just like a lot of members of Congress) who seem to hold positions that the rest of us resigned away decades ago. Let us institute a maximum age for all in public office and get rid of outdated morons like this one.

6)David and Jason Benham- These two, just like Copeland above, got caught saying bad things about gay people and were immediately fired from their show on HGTV. They denied any mention of being anti-gay, but this miracle of things called video-tape said otherwise, and now conservatives are up in arms that they are being discriminated against. I hate to break it to you but not allowing you to discriminate others does not qualify as discrimination. These arguments against gays are the same thing we heard about the Irish or black people and the world didn't fall apart by recognizing them as legitimate citizens. Go back to stories in the 60's about the civil rights arguments and watch how many Bible thumpers were against desegregation for the same kind of reasons they are against gay people today. It is NOT okay anymore to discriminate against gay people and using the Bible as your weapon is not working.


7)Brazil- To get off the right's back, Brazil is showing to be every bit as inept for hosting the World Cup and the Summer Olympics as would be expected. The World Cup is in a few weeks and the stadium is nowhere near done. Corruption is rampant in this country and it shows. Crime is sky high and many are being displaced due to construction, when it actually occurs. It has gotten so bad, the Olympics committee has quietly told England to be prepared as an alternate location should the construction fall short which the current head said "was the worst he had ever seen." Considering the World Cup has fallen into equally disturbing problems with the 2020 location Qatar (really, QATAR!?) and the Olympics in Tokyo where some of the housing will be in the Fukushima area, really makes me question the logic of human kind at this point.

8)Aaron Hernandez- This moron threw away forty million dollars because apparently he really liked shooting people. Defining the word thug, Hernandez was indicted this week for two more murders that happened outside a Boston nightclub in 2012, weeks after being signed by the Patriots. Way to celebrate dude. He has now out OJ'd OJ Simpson in the stupidity department, who at least waited to fuck up his life until after his pro career. Hope you enjoy prison, because you are going to be in there for the rest of your life.


9)Climate Change deniers- This week 15 scientists wrote a scathing review of the climate change report that came out of the White House this week. In it they claim that the latest notion that the world is warming is bunk and set out to prove it by showing data that the world is actually getting cooler and that over 70% of heat records were from before 1970. The only problem is that their science is either intentionally wrong or they are REALLY bad scientists. See, they looked at just what the hottest of coldest day ever was in a particular state over the last hundred years and offered that as proof. First off, this is the very definition of random. Only by studying the pattern of rising temperatures over a year by year basis do we see indeed we are getting warmed, as every study every done worth it's salt shows. When fellow scientists refused to publish this, these 15, including people like Dr. Don Easterbrook of Western Washington University and Dr. George Wolff, who formerly chaired the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, whined at the top of their lungs over how unfair it was that their ideas were not getting the same traction and screamed bias. Nevermind the fact that their data was obviously wrong and wasn't worth the paper it was printed on, they wanted their day in court, to which their peers said "bug off" and rightfully so. There is no credible data that says the world is not getting warmer. Out of 10,000 papers published last year, only 2 were denying climate change as real. If that isn't a consensus as to what is happening I don't know what is. Climate change/global warming/climate disruption is real and it is happening. These douchnozzels are killing the planet trying to say otherwise. So congratulations climate change deniers you are indeed douchebags of the week.

THE FCC, THE FBI, THE GOVERNMENT AND OTHER REASONS WHY PEOPLE ARE LITERALLY FORMING MOBS WITH PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES.

People are finally starting to wise up to the writing on the wall, with even the most loony tunes Tea Party supporter starting to realize that government in general is controlled by corporate interests. Obama, a train wreck of president as well as being the least truthful president to ever sit in office, for some inane reason this week, let 36,007 illegal aliens go this week who also happened to be violent, convicted criminals. Funny how that didn't seem to make the news anywhere, but you read it here that Obama let tens of thousands murders and rapists loose for no good reason. Wow.


Further complicating any support the democrats could get is the FCC, who voted 3-2 along party lines (liberal majority) to rewrite Internet rules that will officially put the last nail in democracy and our economy. Netflix is already being blackmailed into paying higher rates and you can be sure that will be passed on to us, the consumer, which it is through higher rates, coming to all of us by 2016. Comcast is talking about data caps that would severely curtail watching broadband over the internet as the average user would fly by their cap in the first few weeks of a month of they watch a lot of streaming video. This will raise prices steeply. Does anyone remember that huge raise we got this year because between this, rising gas prices, and rising food process, the average consumer is going to get walloped?

Over 100 companies have said they hate the new rules which are being almost entirely written by conglomerates like Verizon and AT&T, which is not surprising as current FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is a former executive with these companies. Corporations run the show now and we are merely spectators. Worse, it is because of this corporate influence that our police force has become militarized and the common people now cower in fear over their brutality.


The FBI has been shown to be nothing more than a thug brigade who will hire anyone apparently, no matter how much baggage their have before hand. New evidence done by the Boston Globe shed serious doubt onto how the FBI handled the shooting of boxer, Chechen immigrant Ibragim Todashev last year. The unidentified FBI agent (which should not been allowed in the first place) has been shown to be 41 year old Aaron McFarlane, who was an Oakland cop for all of four years until 2008 when he went to collect a $52,000 a year disability pension and then joined the FBI. Nevermind the fact that no one deserves a $52,000 a year pension after only working for such a short time, this waste of space also racked up four IA investigations and two police brutality lawsuits, which the department lost both.

The official story of what happened to Todashev never rang true as the story was constantly changing, and unlike other stories where the media is to blame, I went back and watched press conferences and releases from the FBI and discovered they were the ones altering the narrative on a minute by minute basis. Autopsy results further show that the victim may have been beaten before hand and shot in the back while fleeing, which is not what the official story says. Funny how both the DOJ and FBI said that McFarlane's story was just fine, even though he was the only one in the room at the time, a blatant violation of FBI rules by the way. Was McFarlane hired as a thug for hire and did the FBI assassinate Todashev? The evidence strongly suggests so. Do not trust the FBI. Do not let them in your house. Never talk to one without a lawyer. The evidence is pointing strongly that they are being used to take out people who may embarrass the government. How long before they wind up here I wonder?


The fact remains though that even if they silence people like myself, many out there have had it and are starting to wake up to the realization that the game is rigged. Now some, like the racist, utter morons in Kentucky, in which a recent survey showed that even though most collect some sort of government assistance, they hate Obama and will only vote Republican. Look, I get the whole not liking Obama thing, but voting for Republicans who are trying to eliminate all safety nets, is suicidal. These people are literally voting themselves to death. Ever time they pull that lever, they are digging their own grave.

But some Tea Party people are waking up to the fact that a lot of politicians on both sides of the aisle are corrupt. A group of militia members, supposedly numbering in the millions, are to descend on DC this weekend to demand the resignation of Obama, along with party leaders on both sides of the aisle like Boehner and Cantor or Pelosi and Reid. Couldn't agree more there. Some have started writing about the fact that Bush was never elected president in 2004, a fact due to vote rigging in Ohio that has been proven beyond a doubt. For example, hundreds of thousands of people voted in Cuyahoga County alone than actually lived there, and every single extra vote went for Bush. Apparently, new books are being written about this and the even the right is starting to take notice of this fact and wonder how corrupt their side really is.


Operation American Spring is coming to DC and I can only hope that the rally is big, really big. I have been telling people for years now, we need to stop bitching at one another over idiot thing like gay marriage and abortion (not that they aren't serious issues but we have bigger fish to fry) and focus on things like the fact that our highway funds are exhausted and no one wants to pay for more, our economy is nose diving and the banks and corporations are screwing us blue. If we don't start fighting for these things, the end result is a Depression of epic scales that may end civilization if we don't right it and soon. The organizer is former Army Col. Harry Riley and in his interview he says something that should make the government worry in that he hopes for a peaceful march but that that isn't something that seems to have happened to often in the past. And unlike the wussies from OWS, I kind of doubt these groups will go so willingly should armed police enter the fray.


Mind you, all of this stems over whether or not anyone will actually show up for this or not. Past participation in these kinds of things have been lax in the past, which is too bad as America needs to get off their fat asses and PROTEST at the top of their lungs. We are being sold out to the highest bidder and our very way of life is at stake. We fought the British for far less. What will it take for Idiot America to fight back? Some protestors have taken to surrounding government buildings with pitchforks and torches to signify their anger. We need more of that.

ECONOMIC REFORM, THE UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM AND OTHER WAYS TO FIX OUR RAPIDLY DEVOLVING SOCIETY

Karl Marx may have had a dismal failure when it came to communism, mostly because it fails to take into account human greed. When everything is divided equally, the one that divides everything will inevitably take more for himself and his friends and give everyone else less. Capitalism is falling prey to the same thing: greed is making more and more people want greater and greater returns and are using devalued labor costs as the way to do that. Combine this with technology that is making jobs obsolete, and we have a serious problem.


Right now, we appear to be headed for an epic default, The exact same things we saw before the last crash are all appearing again: stagnating housing sales , falling wages, record unemployment (which is being disguised), questionable economic programs that do nothing to fix the problem and a complete lack of ability to arrest anyone for anything connected to destroying the country. After last month's buying boom, April sales have slid into low numbers signaling the American people are tapped out. It is also coming to light that the bond buying program used to prop up the economy last time may have been nothing more than a shell game. People are questioning how Belgium was able to buy nearly $150 billion in Treasury bonds which would have been 25% of their annual GDP. Many think the US used Belgium as a sort of shell company to buy the bonds themselves to prevent the dollar from crashing to Earth. It is not out of the realm of possibility as the money junkies are spinning as many plates as possible right now.

But what to do with all of this when, if history repeats itself, our economy, and the world's go belly up some time later this year, with perhaps a total Depression sometime in 2015? We need to admit that capitalism, in this latest form, is not working. First off, there are not enough jobs for the amount of people in this country. That is fact not hyperbole. If we have no welfare program, and no jobs, the end result is tens of millions homeless and unemployed. That is not sustainable.


So first, we raise taxes on the rich and corporations. They currently pay nothing so even a slight raise would be a step in the right direction. We raid any offshore account that any US citizen or corporations has, and if they haven't paid taxes on any of it, depending on how much it is, they get to go to the worst prison we can put them in. Put a few bankers in Rikers and see how fast things change for the better. We legalize weed, creating a huge new industry, and decriminalize the rest, effectively closing hundreds of prisons and saving billions in taxpayer funds going nowhere. Recent studies say the legalization movement is killing Mexican drug cartels, which means we have done more damage to them in the last few months without firing a shot than the entire DEA has done in 35 years.

We are also going to have to face facts that we are going to have to pay some people to stay home. I know that gets the right wingers panties' in a bunch, but there really is no other solution. Over the next decade, up to half of all current jobs will be obsolete. You read the right: HALF. The reason for this is that 3D printers will become cheaper and more prevalent destroying manufacturing on a global scale. As they enter homes, people will be able to make whatever they want without buying it. Within twenty years, cars, houses and even food may be replicated destroying capitalism in it's wake. There simply won't be enough things to create anymore that requires work. This is a fundamental shift in economics for which we are woefully unprepared.


The theory then is to change the way we do things. We can start by coming up with an arts program in which gifted individuals can be paid to stay home and make music, paint, write, invent or do anything else as long as they can show a decent body of work. If we started this, we could start becoming world leaders again as people would have time and the ability to make great works of art that have all but disappeared. Are there any great painters anymore? I certainly don't see any and I see lots of new comer art, most of which is kind of sad. How about philosophers? The last one worth his weight was Bertrand Russell and that was decades ago. We are becoming a stagnating group, which the same level of decline seen in Rome before it's fall. The end of intellectualism is the end of society and considering the level of crap on TV, it seems we are not that far off. The only thing we seem to do well anymore are spectacle levels movies and high tech devices. Everything else seems to be on auto pilot.

Capitalism is dying. There is nothing we can do to fix that at this point as progress has rendered it ineffective and unequal. Communism is not the way and pure socialism is not going to work either. So then what? Well some smart economist better start figuring a new economic forum because everything we have is not working. The ideas above are a good starting point. Why not set a livable minimum wage and a high maximum wage? That way inequality never gets too bad. You still have the rich and the poor, which will probably be a problem for some time, but you don't have the destitute and the super rich either. I am not an economist even though I have studied political economics for decades now. We need some new thoughts. Any ideas from the peanut gallery?

THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY, NIGERIAN KIDNAPPED GIRLS CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND OTHER THINGS THAT ARE PATENTLY FALSE

There is a lot of nonsense going on right now, which you can take your pick from the media, the Internet or the government. All seem to be promoting things that are completely untrue and it is this level of misinformation that is killing this planet. We are rapidly becoming a people who trust nothing nor each other and that is a recipe for disaster, Without trust, we have nothing and that is rapidly where we are devolving to.


Let's start with the Nigerian girls who conspiracy theories are becoming abundant on sites like What Really Happened, which is a great place for alt-news, but the Rivero's see conspiracy in EVERYTHING, even when there are much more logical explanations. Their denial of the Holocaust and Climate Disruption (the new moniker apparently as it sounds much scarier) are even more troubling as Jews died in mass numbers and provably so and Climate Disruption is an established fact with 97% of all peer reviewed science saying it is. But I digress.

There are two new "scandals" involving the Nigerian kidnap victims. One, government officials claimed the victims had all been released last week, which obviously wasn't true and, most likely, a government trying to spin the info their way, woefully unaware that because of the Internet we can check these so called facts. As a result, the tin foil hats have proclaimed this whole thing is some sort of Obama inspired fantasy so he can realize his dream of re-colonizing Africa and attack Nigeria with armed forces. Right. Or is it more likely, the corrupt Nigerian government just lied about the girls and tried to cover the whole thing up, no matter how ineptly. Your call.


Second, a picture has surfaced, seen below that supposedly shows a Nigerian girl with tag lines such a "bring our girls back." Unfortunately, the picture is not that of a Nigerian girl but one from Guinea-Bissau  and taken in 2011. Unlike the Fox News pics showing Tibetans rather than Koreans mourning the ferry disaster, does it really matter where this picture was taken? This picture is meant to inspire emotion, not a factual composition, and appears to be in context to what the articles are talking about.
So what if she's not from Nigeria, it still doesn't change the fact that a dangerous group of morons have kidnapped teen girls for slavery.


However, there is a huge problem with this, that many seem to be overlooking though and that is one of copyright infringement. The photographer gave no permission for this to be used and that is a serious problem in today's internet connected world. But the fact that this photo is being used to promote the cause of getting back kidnap victims is far less serious than the theft of said photo which everyone seems to be glossing over. Just saying.

And then there is the economy with which the Dow is soaring to record highs again today. Why? I have no earthly idea as all signs point to an economic doomsday which we may not survive. Banks worldwide are still talking about buy-ins that would allow banks to raid personal accounts during a downturn. Anyone who has watched South Park or played the video game knows how this will turn out. It will be the ultimate finger to the eye and one I hope everyone will flee banks en masse should this come to play as your money would be safer in your mattress than the bank.


Regular readers know that I have been saying the birth/death model of job creations, the one used by the government to estimate how many jobs have been created each month, is woefully out of date. The formula they use hasn't changed in decades, even though the economic landscape has. More businesses die each year than are started, a combination of no one having money to start a business which has become unaffordable for most and a crushing burden of over-regulations that only affect the little guy. Businesses have put these regulations in to crush them as they can easily absorb costs that a start-up can't.

With Net Neutrality on the line, over 100 companies, including Google and Netflix, have petitioned the FCC to keep the rules as is, because Netflix has already seen Verizon blackmail them into paying higher costs for faster internet service which they are passing on to new subscribers and the rest of us in 2016. This will destroy our economy as the Internet will become too expensive for people already under crushing debt.

This chart below shows how self-employment is being decimated due to lack of funds, tighter lending laws for banks and terrible regulations that only affect the small business. Notice the severe decline since 2006. As small businesses are the engine that runs this country, we are rapidly running out of gas.



Now this does not mean Big Business is doing much better. Their options of paying people nothing is coming back to haunt them as their sale number continue to plummet. Office Depot is closing 400 stores due to poor sales. Not much need for office supplies when 90 million people are out of work. Incidentally, when this was announced, their stock rose 20%. So the company is failing, the economy does not appear to be getting better and their response is to buy more stock? We are headed for a big fall.

Here a breakdown of what people are making on average in this country right now:

Bottom 25%: $4,600
From 25% to 50%: $21,700
From 50% to 75%: $78,900
From 75% to 90%: $242,800
Top 10%: $1,606,600

Notice that 50% of us make almost nothing. That is not a sustainable number. It is this reason why we have become a two tiered economy. The rich are buying like there is no tomorrow. The rest of exist as if there is no tomorrow. We have no money which explains why million dollar homes are going like hotcakes, while the smaller market has ground to a halt.


If we do not start demanding our politicians to start fixing this, especially the clueless GOP who are still fixating on Benghazi which is long past its sell date, this country is going to come to crashing end by this fall. The numbers say disaster is right around the corner and all we care about are pointless fixations on illegal photos rather than the rise of this evil form of Islam (which Liberals are loathe to confront short of boycotting hotels and TV shows), and false claims of welfare abuse from the right while corporations steal from us blind. We have precious little time left. Do not waste it on garbage like Benghazi.