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Crony Phones: Million dollar contracts for corporations to supply “Obama phones” paid for by taxpayers
James O’Keefe strikes again. He’s the fellow who brought down ACORN with his “pimp” video a few years back. This time he stings the a couple of wireless carriers who supply phones for the “Lifeline” program, often referred to as “Obama phone” program.
The program actually dates back to the Reagan era but has been greatly expanded in recent years.
Lifeline cost taxpayers $2.19 billion in 2012. That money went largely to a few large corporations such as TracFone, owned by Carlos Slim one of the wealthiest (and best connected) men in the world.
And according to O’Keefe at least some of that $2.19 billion made it into the hands of drug dealers.
View full post on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
Restaurant labor group uses part of a million dollar government grant to increase membership?
Restaurant Opportunities Centers United can’t say this of course. The grant is supposed to go to helping improve the health of people of Asian decent in the restaurant business. However, a good portion of the taxpayer funded grant appears to be going toward a membership drive for its lobbying arm.
The group targets restaurant owners and seeks to increase restaurant regulation. (And costs.)
(From The Free Beacon)
Soon after the subgrant was announced in March, ROC NOLA put out a job posting for it(s) Healthy Foods, Healthy Workers project designed to “engage restaurant owners who employ Asian American workers to 1) sign a pledge to provide healthier food for the workers’ ‘family meal’ or staff meal, and 2) join RAISE.”
RAISE is a trade association of restaurant owners and workers that routinely lobby lawmakers to institute higher pay and benefits for employees and drive up costs for employers.
View full post on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
Restaurant labor group uses part of a million dollar government grant to increase membership?
Restaurant Opportunities Centers United can’t say this of course. The grant is supposed to go to helping improve the health of people of Asian decent in the restaurant business. However, a good portion of the taxpayer funded grant appears to be going toward a membership drive for its lobbying arm.
The group targets restaurant owners and seeks to increase restaurant regulation. (And costs.)
(From The Free Beacon)
Soon after the subgrant was announced in March, ROC NOLA put out a job posting for it(s) Healthy Foods, Healthy Workers project designed to “engage restaurant owners who employ Asian American workers to 1) sign a pledge to provide healthier food for the workers’ ‘family meal’ or staff meal, and 2) join RAISE.”
RAISE is a trade association of restaurant owners and workers that routinely lobby lawmakers to institute higher pay and benefits for employees and drive up costs for employers.
View full post on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
Restaurant labor group uses part of a million dollar government grant to increase membership?
Restaurant Opportunities Centers United can’t say this of course. The grant is supposed to go to helping improve the health of people of Asian decent in the restaurant business. However, a good portion of the taxpayer funded grant appears to be going toward a membership drive for its lobbying arm.
The group targets restaurant owners and seeks to increase restaurant regulation. (And costs.)
(From The Free Beacon)
Soon after the subgrant was announced in March, ROC NOLA put out a job posting for it(s) Healthy Foods, Healthy Workers project designed to “engage restaurant owners who employ Asian American workers to 1) sign a pledge to provide healthier food for the workers’ ‘family meal’ or staff meal, and 2) join RAISE.”
RAISE is a trade association of restaurant owners and workers that routinely lobby lawmakers to institute higher pay and benefits for employees and drive up costs for employers.
View full post on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
Health • Re: Half a million Britons were diagnosed with an STI last y
Deo Vindice wrote:
It seems that God knew precisely what He was doing when he established the institution of marriage back in the Garden of Eden.
And it is the Anglo countries leading the charge against it
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Wed Jun 05, 2013 12:29 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
International News • Eurozone jobless rate expected to hit 20 million
Eurozone jobless rate expected to hit 20 million
The unemployment rate in the 17 EU countries that use the euro is expected to reach 20 million by the end of the year, according to forecasts from the Eurostat statistics office, offering the currency bloc little hope of a quick exit from recession. By Kethevane GORJESTANI (video)
News Wires (text) Unemployment across the 17 EU countries that use the euro hit another record high in April – and appears to be on course to hit 20 million this year in what would be another gloomy landmark for the currency bloc.
Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office, said Friday that the unemployment rate rose to 12.2 percent in April from the previous record of 12.1 percent the month before. In 2008, before the worst of the financial crisis, it was around 7.5 percent.
A net 95,000 people joined the ranks of the unemployed, taking the total to 19.38 million. At that pace, unemployment in the currency bloc – which has a population of about 330 million – could breach the 20 million mark by the end of the year.
Eurozone economies have been suffering because their governments are trying to improve public finances through aggressive spending cuts and tax increases. The problem is they’ve done it at a time when much of the private sector has been unable to plug the gap in activity left by the retreating state, unlike in the U.S., which has opted for a more gradual approach to debt reduction.
The unemployment figures mask big disparities among the euro countries. While over one in four people are unemployed in Greece and Spain, Germany’s rate is stable at a low 5.4 percent.
The differences are particularly stark when looking at the rates of youth unemployment. While Germany’s youth unemployment stands at a relatively benign 7.5 percent, well over half of people aged 16 to 25 in Greece and Spain are jobless. Italy’s rate has ticked up to over 40 percent.
"Youth joblessness at these levels risks permanently entrenched unemployment, lowering the rate of sustainable growth in the future," said Tom Rogers, senior economic adviser at Ernst & Young.
The differences reflect the varying performance of the euro economies – Greece, for example, is in its sixth year of a savage recession. Germany’s economy has until recently been growing at a healthy pace.
As a whole, the eurozone is in its longest recession since the euro was launched in 1999. The six quarters of economic decline is longer even than the recession that followed the financial crisis of 2008, though it’s not as deep.
By contrast the U.S. economy has been growing steadily since the end of its recession in June 2009 and the jobs market has started to improve, with the unemployment rate falling to 7.5 percent in April.
Though the eurozone is the epicenter of Europe’s debt crisis, other countries in the region are struggling to recover as well. Some, like Britain, are also pursuing deficit reduction measures at a time when demand in their main export market – the eurozone – is falling. As a result, the wider 27-nation EU, which includes the non-euro countries such as Britain and Poland, has seen unemployment ratchet higher in recent months. In April it was flat at 11 percent.
One of the reasons behind Europe’s economic decline is governments’ focus on cutting debt aggressively by raising taxes and slashing spending programs. With many governments still pulling back on spending and business and consumer confidence still low, economists do not expect any dramatic recovery to emerge over the coming months.
The sharpest change in unemployment rates among the 17 euro countries was in Cyprus, which saw its jobless rate rise to 15.6 percent from 14.5 percent.
The small Mediterranean island nation became the fifth euro country to seek financial assistance in March. The difference with the other bailouts was that the country was asked to raise a big chunk of its rescue money from bank depositors – a shock decision that led to a near two-week shutdown of the banks and battered economic confidence.
The European Central Bank has sought to make life easier for Europe’s hard-pressed businesses and consumers by cutting its main interest rate to the record low 0.5 percent earlier this month.
Another cut is possible, but most economists say it’s unlikely, even though the inflation rate is still under the ECB’s target of just below 2 percent.
Eurostat said Friday that inflation in the eurozone rose to 1.4 percent in the year to May from the 38-month low of 1.2 percent recorded in April. It attributed the increase to rising food, alcohol and tobacco prices.
Analysts said the ECB is more likely to take measures to shore up lending to small and medium-sized businesses, one of the main job creators in Europe. Such companies are currently not taking out many loans for fear the economy might worsen and because banks are charging high rates.
"So far the ECB’s actions have not translated into lower lending rates for businesses and households, failing to boost activity," said Anna Zabrodzka, economist at Moody’s Analytics.
http://www.france24.com/en/20130531-eur … 20-million
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri May 31, 2013 11:00 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Police State • 10 MILLION PEOPLE
10 MILLION PEOPLE
May 18, 2013 by calamity3039
The Bengal famine of 1770 had dire consequences for the rest of the world. The Bengal providence first became trading partners with the British Empire in the early eighteenth century. Through force, the British military overthrew the government. Since the British East India Company had influence in the region they became the de facto rulers. They had a military, the right to make and enforce laws, and the right to tax the people.
Before the famine began, the land taxes in the region rose sharply. Taxes had gone from 10% to 50% within a decade. To oppress the people more, the Company imposed harsh tariffs on the region. Not being able to compete with the Company, their local economy eroded. Within six months people began to starve. During the same time the Company’s profits grew by 50 percent.
As the famine worsened, the Company started to lose revenue because of a declining tax base. To remedy this problem, they decide to increase the land taxes. The people who hadn’t starved to death saw their taxes go up another 10 percent. Despite a good harvest the people’s starvation increase. The death wave accelerated.
At this point the Company had a serious problem on their hands. They didn’t care about starving people, but they found that dead people are bad for business. They started to realize that dead people don’t pay taxes. The don’t make the best slaves either. Also, dead people are quite costly. Not only do they require resources to be buried, but they tend to spread disease. Unable to bury the dead quickly tends to result in more dead people.
It wasn’t so bad for the Company though, another business venture was presented to them. The Chinese government had banned the growing of poppy plants. This was good for the Company because the Chinese population had an addiction problem. So they decided the best solution to their revenue problems were to expand into the opium market. With limited labor they decided cut back on growing crops. So more Bengals died in the millions.
Even though the Company thought the opium trade was a good idea, they underestimated the Chinese. Despite being addicted to narcotics, but they were very clever businessmen. Instead of trading with the Company based on good faith, they had all commodity prices based in silver. This hindered the Company, they had a hard time making money at fair market prices. They assumed that they would be able to get cheap tea from the Chinese for the West. In exchange, they wanted to make money off the Chinese by hyper inflating the price of opium.
It didn’t work out in their favor. They were going bankrupt. Their influence in the East was deteriorating rapidly. Even though they kept all the Bengals tax money for themselves, they had to be bailed out by their government. To pay for the bailout a tax increase on tea went into effect for all British subjects. The Colonists were paying for the bailout the most. Harsh tariffs on the colonies were imposed at the same time. Just like the Chinese, the Colonists weren’t idiots either. They started a rebellion against their government.
https://timeofcalamity.wordpress.com/20 … on-people/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sat May 18, 2013 10:01 am
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American • More Than 1 Million Baby Boomers Are Secretly Unemployed
More Than 1 Million Baby Boomers Are Secretly Unemployed
By Claire Gordon
Posted May 3rd 2013
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its tabulation of the monthly unemployment rate, showing the jobless rate dipped to 7.5 percent in April. But that leaves out one major segment of the population: Those forced into retirement. While older Americans were less likely to lose their jobs in the recession, it’s well known that they were far less likely to find a new one if they did, in part, because of age discrimination. So some gave up and tapped their Social Security benefits — becoming retirees.
Early Retirees Were Kicked Out Of The Workforce
How many Americans are forced into retirement because they couldn’t find work? At the request of AOL Jobs, Matthew Rutledge, an economist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, calculated that this group that remains invisible to the BLS. What he found: At the height of the recession, as many as 53,000 extra Americans were retiring early each month. In total, the recession has driven around 1.4 million additional Americans to collect Social Security early.
Why So Many?
No agency collects data on early or forced retirement. But Social Security does release how many people have started to claim benefits each month. Rutledge, a research economist, estimated how many people one would expect to be claiming benefits if there hadn’t been a recession, and then looked at the difference between the prediction and the reality. And that difference is stark.
More: Starting A Second Career At Age 60
Between June 2008 and June 2010, an average of 39,100 extra people claimed benefits each month than past trends predicted. In the 12-month period ending in November 2010, the average peaked at 53,192 monthly additional claims. (See the chart below.)
Financial Crisis Causes A Big Jump
The official unemployment rate in November 2010 was 9.8 percent. But in the previous two years, more than 1.05 million extra Americans had claimed Social Security. If these people were added to the unemployment rolls, the jobless rate that month would actually have been 10.4 percent — higher than at any point since 1983. It’s an especially stunning number, given that the trend for almost 20 years has been for people to retire later in life.
More: Retiring Postal Worker Deborah Ford: 44 Years, No Sick Days
But then, in 2011, the number of claims began to go down. In fact, in the 12-month period ending May 2012, an average of 4,000 fewer people claimed Social Security than expected each month. That isn’t because America’s older workers suddenly found lucrative employment, but because so many had claimed their benefits already.
"You’re someone who’s turning 64 in 2012, and you’ve looked at how long you’ve worked, and decided that’s when you want to claim," explained Rutledge. "And the recession happens, and you lose your job, or your stock portfolio goes in the tank, or your family really needs your help, your adult child moves back. So you decide you want to claim earlier."
A Sudden Slump
A person is eligible for full retirement benefits at 66 (if born between 1943 and 1954 — the retirement age is older the younger you are). But a person can claim as early as 62, if they’re willing to take a cut. By 2012, it seems that a lot of those 62-to-65-year-olds had already put themselves on the Social Security rolls, leading to a slump in the numbers. As Rutledge put it: "The elephant has been passed through the snake."
But the snake has left behind a stinking pile. In the summer of 2012, the number of claims once again rose above expectations, and has stayed elevated ever since. This may be because long-term unemployment remains so high. If a person turns 62 and has been without work for a year and a half, Social Security is probably a tempting proposition.
More: Is 48 Too Old To Be Working?
But still, there have been just 133,000 excess Social Security claims in the past two years, a far cry from the wrenching figures of winter 2010. If these are people who would otherwise be unemployed, it would hardly nudge the jobless rate at all. But it still adds up. Between March 2008 and March 2013, 1.4 million more Americans have opted for Social Security than expected.
A bad gamble for a healthy lady
Social Security claims are by no means a perfect way to judge who’s retiring early because they can’t find work. After all, people can start collecting Social Security benefits while still looking for work. Or they may retire and live off other funds before deciding to cash in on Social Security later on.
But multitudes of older Americans clearly did take advantage of Social Security before the official retirement age. And for many, that will come at a cost. Those who start collecting at age 62 see a 25 percent reduction in benefits. If you were to die at 70, that’s a pretty good deal, since you had an extra four years. But if you live into old age, that becomes a sizable cut.
"If you’re a healthy woman, you’re going to end up costing yourself a lot of money," explains Rutledge. "If you’re a man in poor health, it might actually make sense."
If you were laid off in the recession, even better. Research suggests that may have cut your life expectancy by as much as three years.
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2013/05/03 … nemployed/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sat May 04, 2013 9:11 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Congress wants to spend $436 million on new Abrams tanks, Army says it dosen’t want any more
But the tank is built in politically important Ohio and new tanks mean manufacturing jobs stay in a key (Republican) congressional district. So what’s a half billion dollars on a weapons system which is not needed, which the Army specifically says it doesn’t want? Shoot, we’ve spent $400 billion on a fighter jet which can’t even fly in cloudy weather. So why not?
View full post on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
American • More Than 101 Million Working Age Americans Have No Jobs
More Than 101 Million Working Age Americans Do Not Have A Job
By Michael, on April 7th, 2013
The jobs recovery is a complete and total myth. The percentage of the working age population in the United States that had a job in March 2013 was exactly the same as it was all the way back in March 2010. In addition, as you will see below, there are now more than 101 million working age Americans that do not have a job. But even though the employment level in the United States has consistently remained very low over the past three years, the Obama administration keeps telling us that unemployment is actually going down. In fact, they tell us that the unemployment rate has declined from a peak of 10.0% all the way down to 7.6%. And they tell us that in March the unemployment rate fell by 0.1% even though only 88,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy. But it takes at least 125,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. So how in the world are they coming up with these numbers? Well, the reality is that the entire decline in the unemployment rate over the past three years can be accounted for by the reduction in size of the labor force. In other words, the Obama administration is getting unemployment to go down by pretending that millions upon millions of unemployed Americans simply do not want jobs anymore. We saw this once again in March. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 600,000 Americans dropped out of the labor market during that month alone. That pushed the labor force participation rate down to 63.3%, which is the lowest it has been in more than 30 years. So please don’t believe the hype. The sad truth is that there has been no jobs recovery whatsoever.
If things were getting better, there would not be more than 101 million working age Americans without a job.
So exactly where does that statistic come from? Well, the following explains where I got that number…
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 11,742,000 working age Americans that are officially unemployed.
In addition, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there are 89,967,000 working age Americans that are "not in the labor force". That is a new all-time record, and that number increased by a whopping 663,000 during the month of March alone.
When you add 11,742,000 working age Americans that are officially unemployed to the 89,967,000 working age Americans that are "not in the labor force", you come up with a grand total of 101,709,000 working age Americans that do not have a job.
When you stop and think about it, that is an absolutely staggering statistic.
And anyone that tells you that "a higher percentage of Americans are working today" is telling you a complete and total lie. During the last recession the percentage of working age Americans with a job fell dramatically, and since then we have not seen that number bounce back at all. In fact, this is the very first time in the post-World War II era that we have not seen the employment-population ratio bounce back after a recession. At this point, the employment-population ratio has been under 60 percent for 49 months in a row…
Since the end of 2009, the employment-population ratio has been remarkably steady. Just check out these numbers…
March 2008: 62.7 percent
March 2009: 59.9 percent
March 2010: 58.5 percent
March 2011: 58.4 percent
March 2012: 58.5 percent
March 2013: 58.5 percent
We should be thankful that the percentage of working age Americans with a job did not continue to decline, but we should also be quite alarmed that it has not bounced back at all.
If there was going to be a recovery, there would have been one by now. The next major economic downturn is rapidly approaching, and that is going to push the employment-population ratio down even farther.
So why is the U.S. economy not producing as many jobs as it used to? Well, certainly the overall decline of the economy has a lot to do with it. We are a nation that is drowning in debt and that is getting poorer by the day.
But since the end of the last recession, corporate profits have bounced back in a big way and are now at an all-time high. So you would figure that the big corporations should be able to hire a lot more workers by now.
Unfortunately, that is not the way things work anymore. Big corporations are trying to minimize the number of expensive American workers that they have on their payrolls as much as possible these days.
One way that they are doing this is through the use of technology. Thanks to robots, computers and other forms of technology, big corporations simply do not need as many human workers as they used to. In future years, this trend is only going to accelerate. I wrote about how this is changing the world of employment in one of my previous articles entitled "Rise Of The Droids: Will Robots Eventually Steal All Of Our Jobs?"
Another way that big corporations are replacing expensive American workers is by shipping their jobs off to the other side of the globe. Big corporations know that they can make bigger profits by making stuff in foreign countries where they can pay workers less than a dollar an hour with no benefits. How in the world are American workers supposed to compete with that?
For much more on how U.S. jobs are being killed by offshoring, please see this article: "55 Reasons Why You Should Buy Products That Are Made In America".
And of course immigration is having a dramatic impact on the labor market in some areas of the country as well. Cheap labor has dramatically driven down wages in a lot of professions. For example, once upon a time you could live a very nice middle class lifestyle as a roofer. But now many roofers really struggle to make a living.
When you add everything up, it paints a very bleak picture for the future of the American worker.
The cost of living keeps rising much faster than wages do, and the competition for good jobs has become incredibly fierce.
Meanwhile, the government continues to make things even easier for those that are not working. This has caused some Americans to give up completely and to be content with letting the government take care of them. The following is from a recent article by Monty Pelerin…
As we make it easier to get unemployment benefits for longer time periods, more people take advantage of the system. So too with food stamps and disability. All programs are at or near record levels in what is supposed to be four years into an economic recovery. For many, the benefits of becoming a government dependent exceed what they can earn. One study reported that a family of four, collecting all the benefits for which they were entitled, would have to earn $65,000 per annum to have the same after-tax purchasing power.
If you are a product of the government schools and are legal to work (i.e., have skills enough that you are affordable at the minimum wage or higher), at what point do you realize that there is no need to go through the hassle of actual work. You can live pretty well by staying home and taking advantage of the entitlements available to you. That is exactly what a larger and larger percentage of the population are realizing. In many cases, it is economically irrational to work.
This behavior creates a social pathology that only worsens over time. Kids learn from their parents that work is not necessary and the many ways to game the system. In this regard, look for this problem to become worse over time unless these programs are cut back.
In some areas of the country, it actually pays not to work very hard. According to Gary Alexander, the Secretary of Public Welfare for the state of Pennsylvania, a "single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045."
But the truth is that most Americans still want to work hard and would gladly take a good job if they could just find one. The following is one example that was featured in a recent Fox News article…
After a full year of fruitless job hunting, Natasha Baebler just gave up.
She’d already abandoned hope of getting work in her field, working with the disabled. But she couldn’t land anything else, either — not even a job interview at a telephone call center.
Until she feels confident enough to send out resumes again, she’ll get by on food stamps and disability checks from Social Security and live with her parents in St. Louis.
"I’m not proud of it," says Baebler, who is in her mid-30s and is blind. "The only way I’m able to sustain any semblance of self-preservation is to rely on government programs that I have no desire to be on."
And that is how most Americans feel.
Most Americans do not want to be dependent on the government.
Most Americans want to work hard and take care of themselves.
Unfortunately, our economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for everyone and it never will again.
So there will continue to be millions upon millions of Americans that find that they cannot take care of themselves and their families without government assistance no matter how hard they try.
And this is just the beginning – things are going to get much worse during the next major wave of the economic collapse.
Yes, at the moment there are more than 101 million working age Americans that do not have a job, but that number is actually going to go much higher in the years ahead. The anger and frustration caused by a lack of employment opportunities is going to shake this nation.
That is why it is important to try to become less dependent on your own job. In this economic environment, a job can disappear at literally any moment. Anything that you can do to become less dependent on the system would be a good thing.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch … have-a-job
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sun Apr 07, 2013 8:01 pm
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