A Free Market Capitalist System is Supposed Ward Against Monopoly…No?
“No More Media for Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch — the guy who’s under investigation in England for phone hacking, influence peddling and bribery — wants to get his mitts on the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune1,2. These are the major papers in the nation’s second- and third-largest cities (where, incidentally, Murdoch already owns TV stations).
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is trying to change the agency’s ownership rules to pave the way for Murdoch to get exactly what he wants. Worse, Genachowski and Murdoch are keeping this all very hush-hush, hoping you won’t notice.3
These changes wouldn’t just benefit Murdoch. If the FCC proposal passes, one company could own the major daily newspaper, two TV stations and up to eight radio stations in your town. And that one company could be your Internet provider, too. What is the FCC thinking?!?
We can still stop the agency from taking this perilous step — but we have less than a month to do it.
By taking action, you’re joining a movement of millions who are working to stop big media from getting even bigger. Please take action today.
”
I Know You Forgot About Sandy Already, BUT CITIZENS ARE STILL NOT GETTING HELP…WTF???
TO: FEMA, MR. PRESIDENT, & CONGRESS
FROM: SANDY VICTIMS
RE: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU ?
Just saw a clip of Sandy victims trying to still obtain simple information on how to get their lives in gear after being totally destroyed by hurricane Sandy.
A Fema agent on tv is trying to assist victims with info on getting loans from the SBA, or how to get help from the local community. I mean WTF are we paying these losers for. Victims continue to claim about the disorganization, absenteeism, and lack of ability to deliver the proper information to victims.
Meanwhile while trying to obtain food, shelter, and some sense of getting back to the good life; victims of Sandy have to deal with stupid shit like this:
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Deutsche Bank Accused of Hiding $12 Billion in Losses During Financial Crisis
“Deutsche Bank failed to recognize up to $12 billion of paper losses during the financial crisis, helping the bank avoid a government bailout, three former bank employees have alleged in complaints to U.S. regulators.
The three complaints, made to regulators including the US Securities and Exchange Commission, claim that Deutsche misvalued a giant position in derivatives structures known as leveraged super senior trades, according to people familiar with the complaints.
All three allege that if Deutsche had accounted properly for its positions – worth $130 billion on a notional level – its capital would have fallen to dangerous levels during the financial crisis and it might have required a government bailout to survive.
Instead, they allege, the bank’s traders – with the knowledge of senior executives – avoided recording “mark-to-market”, or paper, losses during the unprecedented turmoil in credit markets in 2007-2009.
Two of the former employees allege that Deutsche mismarked the value of insurance provided in 2009 by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway on some of the positions. The existence of these arrangements has not been previously disclosed.
Deutsche said in a statement that the allegations were more than two and a half years old and were publicly reported in June 2011. It added that they had been the subject of “a careful and thorough investigation”, and were “wholly unfounded”.
The bank said the investigation revealed that the allegations “stem from people without personal knowledge of, or responsibility for, key facts and information”. Deutsche promised “to continue to cooperate fully with the SEC’s investigation of this matter”.
The complaints were made at different times in 2010 and 2011 independently of each other. All of the men spent hours with SEC enforcement attorneys and provided internal bank documents during multiple meetings, people familiar with the matter say.
Robert Khuzami, head of enforcement at the SEC, has recused himself from all Deutsche Bank investigations because he was Deutsche’s general counsel for the Americas from 2004 to 2009. Dick Walker, Deutsche’s general counsel, is a former head of enforcement at the SEC. The SEC declined to comment on the investigation….”
Comments »FUGLY Statistic: U.S. is Only Developed County Where Younger Generation Will Receive Less Education than their Parents
Source
“The expectation that young Americans will always be better educated and more successful than their parents is no longer true.
A new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says the United States is now the only major economy in the world where the younger generation will not surpass the preceding generation in terms of schooling.
Andreas Schleicher, special adviser on education at the OECD, told the BBC News: “It’s something of great significance because much of today’s economic power of the United States rests on a very high degree of adult skills—and that is now at risk.”
Today, only about 20% of young adults will reach a higher level of education than their parents, a rate that’s among the lowest rates in the developed world, according to the OECD. Schleicher says that a major problem in the U.S. is that the skyrocketing cost of going to college has created a barrier for many young Americans who do not come from wealthy families.”
Comments »Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” FOUND!
“Good news everyone, after more than thirty years of searching by the news media, Ronald Reagan’s infamous “Welfare Queen” has finally been found. She lives in Bentonville, Arkansas.
“She has eighty names, thirty addresses,” Reagan warned during his 1976 run for President about a nameless, Cadillac-driving woman who’s conning the social safety net. He added: “She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names.” In total, Reagan said, “Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.”
For more than thirty years, Republicans have used the existence of this “Welfare Queen” to justify their attacks on public spending and prove that the “welfare state” has run amok. Yet, her identity has never been revealed. After decades of searching, the best and brightest minds in the field of journalism were never able to discover who’s behind the wheel of the “Welfare Queen’s” Cadillac, or if she even existed.
That is until now.
We now realize our mistake. In our search for this “Welfare Queen,” we were looking for actual people when we should have been looking for corporate people. We should have been looking at Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart is the largest private employer and brought in more revenue in 2011 than any other company in the nation. Wal-Mart pocketed a not-too-shabby $16.4 billion in profits that same year and the six Wal-Mart heirs, the Walton family, own roughly $100 billion in wealth, which is more than 40% of Americans combined.
But, despite making all of this money, Wal-Mart’s business model hinges on mooching from the government. It hinges on being the biggest “Welfare Queen” in the United States.
Because of the “everyday low wages” that the retail giant pays its employees, our government has to step in and provide public assistance to Wal-Mart workers just so they can survive…which is why the Wal-Mart workforce represents the largest recipient of federal aid in the nation.”
Comments »France Gets Serious About Nationalization
“The nationalization debate has been sizzling on France’s front burner since last week when Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg lashed out at the world’s largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal.
He threatened to nationalize its plant in Florange where some old blast furnaces had been shut down for a year-and-a-half. At stake were 2,500 jobs.
“We no longer want Mittal in France,” he told the Indian owners—though the company has 20,000 employees in France.
Breaking into a cold sweat, executives around France reevaluated their investment plans.
Just then, unemployment hit a 14-year high. Creating jobs was needed more than anything. Scaring off investment was not.
Whether his threat was a form of extortion or an announcement of a hostile takeover remains to be seen. But it opened the door for unions at another troubled company to demand nationalization, and the socialist government might not be able to resist.”
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Hostess Brands Inc. Would Like to Cut Employee Pensions While Seeking Approval for Millions in Bonuses
Central Banks & Bubbles
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83sX8Ent4vo 450 300]
Comments »Your Tax Dollars at Work
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv4CQJuANYM 450 300]
Comments »Really?
“A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans’ e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law, CNET has learned.
Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns, according to three individuals who have been negotiating with Leahy’s staff over the changes. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans’ e-mail, is scheduled for next week.”
Comments »Dennis Kucinich: Wake Up to Big Brother
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hixEjeiPtTY 450 300]
Comments »Documentary: We – Arundhati Roy
While not a true documentary it is a moving speech examining the world we live in today.
Cheers on your weekend!
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bCJxquXDXo 450 300]Comments »
FEMA Holds a Fire Sale on Disaster Shelters Moments Before Frankenstorm Sandy Rolled In
Perhaps moments was a bit to much, but none the less your tax dollars go to pay these people. The thought that they did this given all the technology to predict what might happen is a SERIOUS FUCKING PROBLEM.
I mean insurance companies had models telling them years ago that storms would slam into the east coast over the coming years to decades; this prompted them as early as 2004 to start dropping the maximum amount of hurricane and flood insurance policies all up and down the east coast.
Comments »U.S. Budget Deficit Melts Up in October With Over $300 Billion Spent
“Moments ago the MTS released the final October budget report. It was not pretty, although those who read our report on how much debt was added – $195 billion to be precise – in the first month of the 2013 Fiscal Year will know where this is going. The US budget deficit was expected to soar after the September surplus of $75 billion, driven entirely by calendar shifts and pre-election propaganda, to -$113 billion. That was optimistic: the total amount of overspending in October was $120 billion. What is distressing is that this was well above the $98.5 billion deficit from a year ago, and confirms that the long-term trendline of ever greater spending continues.”
Comments »The Central Bank of Cyprus Expresses Needs for a Bailout Before Year End
“NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus’ Central Bank chief says “it’s very important” to sign a bailout agreement with potential creditors by next month in order to calm jittery investors.
Panicos Demetriades says investment firm PIMCO and auditors Deloitte will come up with a preliminary figure toward the end of this month, or early December, on how much money the country’s ailing banks will need to recover from their huge exposure to Greece.”
Comments »How We Take Care of Our Heroes
The Growing Gap in White Collar Bank Crime Prosecution
“The banks run by executives now in prison for crimes related to the financial crisis had a combined $30 billion in assets. That is just one-tenth the size of the largest bank failure in U.S. history, the 2008 seizure of Washington Mutual Inc.’s WMIH 0.00% banking operations.
The gap is a sign of prosecutorial ineffectiveness to critics such as William Black, a regulator during the savings-and-loan crisis who now teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.”
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100,000 N.Y. Homes, Businesses Face Months Without Power
“About 100,000 homes and businesses in New York City and Long Island were so damaged byHurricane Sandy that restoring power to some of them may take months, New York GovernorAndrew Cuomo said.
About two-thirds are on Long Island’s south shore, with 36,000 clustered in Staten Island and the Rockaways where the most flooding occurred, Cuomo said yesterday at a news briefing.
“You have some people who have buildings and have homes that you cannot turn on the power until that building or home is repaired or replaced,” Cuomo said. “Those are going to be the most difficult situations.”
Comments »NY Declares the Need for Gas Rationing, Many Still Without Power
“NEW YORK (AP) — A new gasoline rationing plan that lets motorists fill up every other day went into effect in New York Friday morning as a nor’easter that knocked out power anew to hundreds of thousands of customers erased some of the progress made by utility crews.
Police were at gas stations to enforce the new system in New York City and on Long Island. Drivers were out before dawn to line up for their rations.
“This is designed to let everybody have a fair chance, so the lines aren’t too oppressive and that we can get through this,” MayorMichael Bloomberg said.”
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