The USA Oligarchy-Austerity-Schadenfreude Thread

[Bruce Dazzling]

Repo Games reality show gives debtors chance to win their pink slips

We've never had a car repossessed, but we imagine it's a painful ordeal. That doesn't mean that it won't make a great game show, however, as the producers of Jersey Shore have created Repo Games. The premise is simple; real repo guys are taking real cars, but with a twist. If a vehicle owner/contestant answers three out of five questions correctly, the vehicle isn't towed, and the winner gets to keep the vehicle outright.

Tru TV, which will air the show, says that people from all walks of life sometimes have trouble making their car payments. Still, we're guessing that many of the show's contestants will be hard-luck types. Hit the jump to watch the three-minute promo video. Many of the questions from the clip appear to be absurdly simple, though the answers aren't always that easy to come by.

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.georgiademocrat.org/2011/05/ ... -increase/

Georgia – Gas prices in Georgia have risen due to a tax hike by Republican leaders, yet no one in the majority party takes responsibility for the 27% tax increase.

Governor Nathan Deal can waive the tax hike without legislative approval. On April 26, Deal suggested that the increased gas tax should be “something for the General Assembly to take up rather than the Governor.”

Republican leaders in the General Assembly have opted to stay out of the discussion. With no action from either the Republican Governor or legislature, the 27% tax hike went into effect Sunday for the entire state of Georgia.

“It’s another example of ‘tax and pretend’ Republicans raising taxes on our state while pretending not to,” said State Rep. Rashad Taylor (D-Atlanta), Vice Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “This tax could have been stopped by Governor Deal or the GOP leadership in the Capitol. Instead, they both punted.”

Gas prices in Georgia are over 35% higher than just a year ago. In 2008, a smaller price increase prompted the former governor to suspend the tax hike. This year, Georgians have no such luck.

“The Governor blames lawmakers, while the Republicans in the General Assembly stay silent. It’s their ploy to raise taxes,” concluded Tom Ellington, Macon City Councilman. “They continue giving sweetheart deals to corporations, and haven’t lifted a finger to stop this brutal tax hike on working Georgians.”

[vanlose kid]

Guest Post: Capital Exploits Labor: The U.S.-China Trade And Beyond
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/11/2011 11:29 -0400

Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds

Capital Exploits Labor: the U.S.-China Trade and Beyond

In a classic Marxist set-up, Capital is free to exploit labor because labor is in surplus.

The fundamental dynamics of the U.S.-China trade partnership--certainly the biggest economic story of this generation--boil down to "capital exploits labor." I am well aware that this sort of quasi-Marxist analysis is supposed to be passe in the era where young nerds can start billion-dollar enterprises in a garage or dorm room. Capitalism is a priori "win-win," as all those workers in China are getting ahead while our youth launch $50 million IPOs of social networking Web 2.0 companies.

But if you scrape away the high-gloss propaganda and myth-making, then the fundamental dynamic is definitely Marxist: American capital jettisoned American labor as a costly hassle in favor of cheap, no-hassle Chinese labor.

Since Capital's best buddy in the whole world is the Central State and its proxies, i.e. the Federal Reserve, then the Central State and the central bank (the Fed) smoothed over the exploitation and furthered the consumer economy by inflating a credit-housing bubble. Since 60% of American households own a home, this enabled the increasingly impoverished "middle class" to borrow trillions of dollars in "free" money that could be spent--surprise!--on the new imports from China that filled the shelves of big box global retailers everywhere.

Allow me to illustrate this dynamic by deconstructing two recent stories in the Mainstream Financial Media: 'Superjobs': Why You Work More, Enjoy It Less (WSJ.com) Businesses expect a lot more out of their employees these days...

Taco Bell and the Golden Age of Drive-Thru Operational innovations at restaurants like Taco Bell rival those at any factory in the world.

The first piece describes in clinical fashion how U.S. capital is ruthlessly exploiting labor, demanding more work for little to no additional pay. The underlying dynamic here is purely Marxist: capital encourages over-supply of labor, which then drives the value of labor down. Competition for the few jobs available makes desperate wage-earners willing to put up with exploitation and insecurity because the options of escaping the cycle of centralized Corporate value extraction are insecure and risky.

Global Corporate America fosters a surplus of labor in the U.S. via three mechanisms:

1. vast illegal immigration which keeps labor costs down in low-skill corporate workhouses such as slaughterhouses, fast-food outlets, etc.

2. H1-B visas for high-tech workers (now falling out of favor as those positions are better filled directly in India and China).

3. ship production, software coding and back-office functions to China, and to a lesser degree, to India and elsewhere in east Asia.

The unemployment rate among PhDs is roughly 50%. So much for "winning" by becoming ever more educated. The number of slots in academia is shrinking, and the total number of research positions is relatively inelastic. For more on academia's "plantation economy," please read Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education (The Nation).

With labor in surplus, capital is free to demand whatever it needs to boost all-important profits. The propaganda machines in HR (human resources) spray-paint slogans everywhere ("you're really really valuable to us, Super-Duper Team Member!") but everyone knows the reality: everybody is dispensible, and everyone but the CIO at a hot startup a few months from an IPO is a corporate serf a paycheck away from being booted out of the castle into abject poverty.

As a result of this exploitation--known as "wage abritrage"-- corporate profits (which boost the wealth of the top 10% who owns the vast majority of stocks and mutual funds) are extremely plump and juicy:



In the second piece, BusinessWeek breathlessly assures us that we have thousands of highly efficient factories running 24/7 in the U.S.--fast food outlets. Yes, all 6,000 Taco Bells are miniature factories pumping out "product" in vast quantities. The fast food "industry" revenues are $168 billion a year, and the workers, we're told, are paid $1.25 above minimum wage--woo-hoo, love you, Corporate America!--which means that the full-time employee makes $16,500 a year.

$16K a year doesn't go very far in urban America, but there is no pressure on Corporate America to raise wages.

I realize that I am an outsider, and biased against global corporate power regardless of the nominal country of origin (down with Canal+!), but I still found it noteworthy that BusinessWeek could run thousands of words of glowing praise for the profitable efficiency of the fast food "industry" without noting that it isn't an industry at all--it's just a consumerist fantasy (fast and cheap meals that require no effort or discipline) that produces "food" of low value that pushes the consumer into ill-health with overloads of salt, sugar, and low-grade fat.

70% of the fast "food" served is via the drive-through window, which suggests that an overworked, stressed out, focused on getting through the next two hours American is opting to shut the kids up and stave off hunger by pulling into the drive-through lane and loading up on a "meal" that they know is bad for them but they have no time to make a real meal at home (or so they've been brainwashed by thousands of hours of adverts).

If Taco Bell is the "manufacturer/factory of the New America," then I think we need a peaceful revolution, and soon. The toadies and sycophants of the financial media are pleased to worship 1) CEOs 2) profits 3) efficiencies 4) globalized "growth" as long as its owned by global corporations and of course, everyone's favorite, 5) innovation, because "innovation" drives profits!

Elsewhere in the latest issue, BusinessWeek breathlessly cooed over digital game company Electronic Arts latest "innovation," which was selling a digital parrot for $10 a pop that sits on your digital warrior's shoulder.

Excuse me while I raise my glass to American "innovation." If pumping out fast food garbage (hello, 60% obesity rates, is there any connection?) is the new American "factory" and "innovation" is selling kids with access to Mom's credit card a $10 digital parrot (and what does the parrot say? "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out, brawk!") for their hyper-violent fantasy wargame, then this nation is well and truly doomed.

To reap a fat profit, you need to sell the stuff being imported from the American-owned factories in China. Since wages have been flat for decades, that posed a problem, as consumers were tapped out. Never fear, capital's best buddy rode to the rescue, inflating a stupendous credit-housing bubble that enabled the working stiff to speculate "like the big boys" with free money and limitless leverage, all supported by lies (liar loans) and the misrepresentation of risk.

Wall Street reaped tens of billions in profits originating and packaging the debt loaded onto the middle class debt donkeys--not just mortgages, but auto loans, student loans and even credit card debt.

But now, at long last, capital's doting partner, the Federal Reserve, has run into a spot of bother: the only way to keep profits rising is to crash the dollar, and doing that has squeezed the purchasing power of the debt donkeys. By exporting inflation to China and the rest of the world, the Fed has engineered massive profits for U.S. corporations (when profits earned overseas are stated in dollars, presto, a 10% increase) but it has also forced China into raising prices and fueled an oil and import-driven inflation in the U.S. which has caused millions of insolvent households living paycheck to paycheck to cut back on their consumption.

China has its own problems, namely runaway domestic inflation (thanks, Federal Reserve) and finding places to dump its excess dollars. It was a wonderfully beneficial trade for awhile: we print paper money, and you give us tangible goods for the paper. Thank you very much, and we can offer you some terrific low-yield Treasuries to recycle your growing stash of dollars.

The Fed's inflation games are sinking the value of the dollar, and the Chinese are not amused. They are trying to buy tangible resources with their ocean of depreciating dollars, and even sinking to buying Spanish debt.

They have another problem: as capital's return in China slips, it will exit China just as fast as it exited the U.S.

There is a grand irony in that dynamic: a supposedly Communist country trying to run a central-command quasi-capitalist economy will find that Marx had a point after all. Not that the leadership is at risk themselves; the ChiCom offspring already have homes in Vancouver B.C. and Los Angeles and citizenship/green cards, and the family fortune is safely invested in Switzerland and North America.

The "story" is that the Chinese consumer is about to step up spending, and as a result, "you gotta be in China to profit from all the trillions in new consumer spending." The reality is that the Chinese middle class is already spending like drunken sailors and their 900 million rural compatriots already own TVs and other cheap consumer goods.

The reality is that Capital has already skimmed the big, fat easy profits, and it's looking elsewhere as labor costs and pesky regulations rise in China. The truth is American and European corporations have already earned out their investments in China, and shipping the factories from China to Vietnam is not much different than crating the factory up in the U.S. and shipping it to China.

There is a theory that the Fed's "master plan" is to sink the dollar to the point that the low-income states in the U.S. will be the lowest-cost manufacturing base in the world.

At $16,500 a year for full-time workers pushed to maximum production, they might be getting close.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest- ... and-beyond

*

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/1 ... 60210.html

Dozens of homeless people will soon take the stand in a Sacramento, Calif. courtroom to share their experiences of having their personal possessions seized by local authorities.

The rare case highlights the often untold struggles of homeless Americans attempting to create makeshift homes for themselves in a climate where law enforcement policies target them and their rights are ambiguous.

The civil class action lawsuit brought before federal court represents all homeless people in Sacramento whose possessions were taken in police sweeps since 2005, The Sacramento Bee reports. The period of time includes the highly publicized closure of the "Tent City" homeless encampment.

Approximately 20 people are expected to testify, but the case touches many more. So far, over 60 homeless men and women have filed depositions and the case could end up including 2,000 plaintiffs total, KCRA reports.

Each one has their own story of how their belongings were taken and what they lost. Some had tents, sleeping bags and other necessities confiscated; others lost sentimental possessions.

According to The Sacramento Bee,

Among the items she lost that day, [Linda McKinley] said, were her identification card, eyeglasses, medication, legal papers and photographs.

"I just lost everything," she said. "It was really devastating. It was like losing my house in a sense. It was like I had been stripped."

A homeless veteran, Kendall Gabriel, told The Sacramento Bee that his medals, a Silver Star and a Purple Heart, were among the items police confiscated from him.

Prosecuting attorney Mark Merin charges that Sacramento authorities violated the constitutional rights of the plaintiffs by seizing property. Merin says that items were taken without sufficient notification and destroyed -- instead of giving the homeless opportunities to reclaim them. California law mandates property be kept for 90 days so that owners are able to retrieve their possessions.

In an interview with KCRA News, Merin said:

"I think the city had a mandate to clean up areas where homeless people were living. And it felt that the easiest way to do it was just to take the stuff and toss it."

City officials meanwhile argue that police officers were only doing their job by enforcing laws that restrict people from camping for more than 24 hours in areas not designated as campgrounds. They also deny that the police force routinely destroyed or discarded property.

In the case of the dissolution of the tent city specifically, the city says that residents were given weeks of advanced notice -- and had the opportunity to relocate their belongings, but chose not to.

In its most simplistic form, the case begs the question: what rights do the homeless have?

While the prosecution says rights were violated, Sacramento government officials say that the constitutional rights of the homeless were upheld and they were treated no differently that any other citizens.

While instances of homeless people claiming the confiscation of their property is common across America, cases like this rarely make it to trial for a variety of reasons.

The homeless are socially ostracized, making it difficult for them to have proper venues to take issues of discrimination to court.

Even if legal advocates want to help, organizing a group of individuals without permanent addresses or contact information can be a challenge to pulling together a case.

A similar class action suit filed by the ACLU in San Diego was settled out of court. Like the Sacramento case, the lawsuit charged that police conducted raids in which they illegally confiscated and destroyed things belonging to the homeless.

The city of San Diego agreed to open a storage facility to house all confiscated property, so that homeless owners would be able to get back their items.

Whether this solution will play a part in the Sacramento decision is unclear, but the groundbreaking case's outcome could have wider-reaching implications for the homeless beyond California's capital.

[justdrew]

no mention of Safe Ground? odd, but good to see they've made it to court.


http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/03/0083334

Homeless in Sacramento: Welcome to the new tent cities
By William T. Vollmann

for folks who can't subscribe...
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W14X5SV8

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43078110/ns ... he_economy

Almost a year after Congress created a new federal agency to protect consumers from shady lending practices, there is a move afoot on Capitol Hill to clip its wings before it takes flight.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was one of the most contentious provisions of the sweeping Dodd-Frank financial reform bill enacted in 2010. That 2,000-page legislation was designed to fix many of the regulatory loopholes that allowed big banks to take on too much risk. The aim was to prevent another financial collapse like the Panic of 2008 that produced a massive government bailout, sent the housing market into a tailspin and plunged the economy into a deep recession.

On Wednesday, the CFPB put its toe in the turbulent waters of regulating mortgage loan disclosures, one of the most common consumer credit complaints during the housing boom. The "Know Before You Owe" project will test two prototype forms designed to clearly spell out loan terms when a borrower applies for a mortgage. Over the next few months, the CFPB will test the new forms with consumers, lenders and mortgage brokers and take comments on its website.

"With a clear, simple form, consumers can better answer two basic questions: 'Can I afford this mortgage, and can I get a better deal somewhere else?'" Elizabeth Warren, the White House's special adviser in charge of setting up the CFPB, told reporters.

When it officially opens for business in July, the new, independent consumer lending watchdog will consolidate regulatory powers now housed in seven different federal agencies with a mandate to protect individuals from abusive lending practices by the financial services industry.

Much of the criticism of the CFPB has been aimed at the appointment of Warren, a Harvard law professor who has been a tireless critic of the financial services industry — one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.

To avoid a battle in the Senate to confirm her as the agency's new director, President Barack Obama appointed her in September as a special assistant to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. In that role, she is in charge of staffing up the new bureau, putting systems and procedures in place, creating new rules and developing ways to tighten enforcement of existing rules against predatory lending.

With just two months to go before the law officially grants the agency those powers, Congress is considering measures that supporters of the new agency say would substantially weaken it before it writes its first new rule.

Last week, the House Financial Services Committee passed three bills to tighten the reins on the agency. One would create a new bipartisan commission to oversee it. A second would make it easier for other regulators to veto any new rules written by the CFPB. And a third would give it independent status only if its director is confirmed by the Senate, where Republicans are also demanding changes in oversight of the agency

"No person should have the unfettered authority presently granted to the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau," forty-four GOP senators wrote to Obama earlier this month. "Therefore we believe that the Senate should not consider any nominee to be CFPB director until the CFPB is properly reformed."
Advertise | AdChoices

Senate Republicans also are pressing for a commission to oversee the agency, along with congressional approval of its budget and greater veto power by banking regulators over any CFPB decisions.

Warren declined a request for an interview. But in a statement, she said the moves are designed to "defund, delay and defang the consumer agency before it can help one family."

"These bills are about preventing the CFPB from operating effectively — a dangerous game to play in light of recent lessons in the marketplace and how quickly financial threats to consumers emerge,” she said.

In the months since her appointment, Warren has been setting up the bureau's organizational structure, hiring a staff of about 200 that includes veteran regulators and lending industry experts and reviewing existing regulations and proposals for new ones. She's also been on something of a charm offensive, meeting with bankers, business leaders and members of Congress.

"Everyone seems to report back the same thing: She's a very engaging and engaged person," said Jess Sharp, executive director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets.

But as the July 21 deadline approaches for naming a director, the battle over the agency's oversight and Warren's appointment threatens to delay the bureau's start-up. Until a director is officially named, some 18 statutes covering various forms of consumer lending will remain housed in the seven regulatory agencies that currently oversee everything from mortgages to student loans.

"We don’t have a moment to waste on these issues," said David Berenbaum, chief program officer for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. "Consumers are having difficulty accessing credit around the country today. We need simplicity accessing mortgage credit for consumers. And we need to insure they're sustainable and appropriately underwritten."

Senate Republicans have enough votes to block any nominee to head the agency. One option would be for the White House to appoint a temporary director when Congress in in recess — without Senate approval. Alabama's Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, has already warned that such a move would "silence the people's voice."

Though the CFPB will oversee financial products that are most familiar to consumers — from credit cards to mortgages to payday loans — it is just one piece of the much larger financial Dodd-Frank reform package. Hailed at the time as the biggest overhaul in financial regulation since the New Deal, the law left it to existing regulators to write the details of hundreds of new rules called for in the package.

Proponents of the CFPB's independence have argued that those regulators didn't need Dodd-Frank to prevent the excesses that led to the mortgage lending spree that helped produce the financial crisis.

"Over the past three years all of these regulators have realized they need to intervene — the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Controller of the Currency — all are taking a more active role," said Berenbaum. "But where were they over the past decade, when many institutions, both consumer and trade institutions, were warning about issues of safety and soundness?"

By leaving the details of the rulemaking process to those same regulators, Dodd-Frank sidestepped some of the most contentious battles over where and how to rein in big banks. Some observers think the battle over the CFPB is just the tip of a larger political battle yet to be fought over that wider effort at financial regulatory reform.

"The consumer piece is all tangled up in politics," said Cornelius Hurley, a professor of banking law at Boston University. "The systemic risk piece is all tangled up in their inability to get their minds around what a 'systemically significant enterprise' is. And you have the Republicans trying to repeal large chunks of it and browbeat the regulators in to slow-walking large chunks of it backwards. It's a mess."

[JackRiddler]

Thanks Pele'sDaughter, gotta assimilate that in the Wall Street thread.

[barracuda]

[Nordic]

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/marc-f ... -smoke-bre

Marc Faber Is Shocked By How Many Ferraris And Bentleys He Sees In Newport Beach During His Smoke Break

Yesterday Marc Faber first made a guest appearance at the Ira Sohn conference, warning his audience to prepare for war, then promptly shifted to Bloomberg's offices where he discussed his outlook primarily on China, but also on the US, with Carol Massar, once again warning about war. As usual, he did not mince his words, warning of a "recession", and predicting that China is simply not growing fast enough in real terms. Nothing new. He did however branch out into the topic of class divergence in both emerging and developed economies: "in front of far too many luxury hotels there are far too many Ferraris, Maseratis, Bentleys... I see a boom everywhere, except for the working class, except for the lower, middle class. But among the well to do people the wealth that is floating around and the prices you pay for high end properties is incredible, and I think that will come to an end, and a lot of people will lose a lot of money... I was in La Jolla, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, I was in front of a restaurant smoking and I've never seen so many Ferraris, Maseratis, Bentleys and fancy cars anywhere in the world, and this is in America. I am not saying this is wrong, but there is an opulence among a small group of people that is huge when there are lots of people that are struggling. This gives me a bad feeling because I've seen so many emerging economies when they were booming, that was the time to get out." As for the US economy, Faber agrees that the only thing that can help is a massive crisis (or "conflagration" as David Stockman calls it) that jars America out of its hypnotic state. And, sure enough, it will come.

The Fed is basically just giving money away, like Jack Nicholson's Joker in the original Batman movie. If you're lucky enough to have a place at the trough, you can just rake it in. Everybody else? Fuck 'em, they don't matter.

[barracuda]

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, slaughters his own food

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, has started slaughtering his own food, including slicing the throat of a goat with a knife

The 27-year-old billionaire said his decision to kill his own meat was part of a “personal challenge” he had set himself to appreciate food more and understand where it comes from.

Earlier this month he announced on his personal Facebook account: “I just killed a pig and a goat.”

After a series of less than positive responses he explained that he wanted to live more sustainably by only eating what he had personally killed. That has included eating the heart, liver and feet of a chicken.

[gnosticheresy_2]

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, slaughters his own food

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, has started slaughtering his own food, including slicing the throat of a goat with a knife

The 27-year-old billionaire said his decision to kill his own meat was part of a “personal challenge” he had set himself to appreciate food more and understand where it comes from.

Earlier this month he announced on his personal Facebook account: “I just killed a pig and a goat.”

After a series of less than positive responses he explained that he wanted to live more sustainably by only eating what he had personally killed. That has included eating the heart, liver and feet of a chicken.

I've often thought this should be "The Vegetarian Test"TM. If you can bring yourself to kill it*, you get to eat it, otherwise you are not allowed to eat meat. Wonder how many meat eaters there would be if that was the case. Not sure I'd be amongst them.

*no guns, explosives etc allowed

[eyeno]

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, slaughters his own food

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, has started slaughtering his own food, including slicing the throat of a goat with a knife

The 27-year-old billionaire said his decision to kill his own meat was part of a “personal challenge” he had set himself to appreciate food more and understand where it comes from.

Earlier this month he announced on his personal Facebook account: “I just killed a pig and a goat.”

After a series of less than positive responses he explained that he wanted to live more sustainably by only eating what he had personally killed. That has included eating the heart, liver and feet of a chicken.

That whole thing seems kind of strange to me. i went to the lake yesterday and caught a mess of fish. they are in the sink. this morning i stepped outside the door and shot three squirrels and two birds. i'm cooking all of them right now. and i'm getting ready to eat them all. i do it all the time.

[crikkett]

I've often thought this should be "The Vegetarian Test"TM. If you can bring yourself to kill it*, you get to eat it, otherwise you are not allowed to eat meat. Wonder how many meat eaters there would be if that was the case. Not sure I'd be amongst them.

*no guns, explosives etc allowed

I remember reading/being told somewhere that the idea of mankind having souls and animals not having souls grew out of a need for people to justify killing animals for food...

[Stephen Morgan]

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-no ... eing-poor/

[Stephen Morgan]

I remember reading/being told somewhere that the idea of mankind having souls and animals not having souls grew out of a need for people to justify killing animals for food...

Is not bacon justification enough?