Wednesday, February 17, 2016

SAR #16048


Economists spend an inordinate amount of time and effort explaining why things didn't happen. Demetrius
Contractions: According to the Empire State Manufacturing Survey, the contractions continue to be a month apart, as it reports NY manufacturing business activity declined for the seventh consecutive month.
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Maybe: British Prime Minister David Cameron has promised the British people a vote on the 'Brexit' question by 2017, and has set forth changes that might help keep the UK in the EU. Eastern EU nations have made counter-proposals that will be discussed at a meeting in Prague on Thursday. Great Britain is looking for special concessions that the other nations are not eager to provide. Europe's banks are adamantly against a British exit because they are sure it would lead to a complete breakup of the EZ and probably the EU, as well as an economic recession for all.
Finger On The Scale: Donald Trump isn't being paranoid when he accuses the RNC of stacking the debate audience in favor of Jeb! - the establishment's choice. He'd best expect it to continue, as Sanders undoubtedly does, as both the RNC and DNC are preparing for brokered conventions. There also seem to be well-financed mysterious operatives seeking personal data on potential delegates, supposedly to 'influence' their decisions.
Fact: We have already had an election to decide who gets to appoint the next Supreme Court Justice. Obama won by over 5 million votes.
For Whom The Bell Tolls: The paltry handful of American manufacturing jobs that have survived NAFTA, China's inclusion in the WTO and various bilateral trade agreements are unlikely to long survive the TPP – American workers simply can't compete with the $1.70 an hour paid in Mexico and even lower wages in the other TPP conspirators.
Private/Public Cooperation: The federal government now uses private debt collection agencies to pursue student loan dead-beats. These agencies seek judgments in federal court ordering the debtor to pay and then turn to the US Marshal's service to serve warrants and arrest the debtors. So the government pays an middleman to use the federal government's resources to recoup money owed – through what is essentially a system of debtors' prisons.
Paul/Peter: Republican Mary Lou Bruner, running for a seat on the Texas Board of Education, claims that “Obama has a soft spot for homosexuals because of the years he spent as a male prostitute in his twenties.” This undoubtedly tells you more about the Texas Sate Board of Education than it does about Mr. Obama.
The Profilers: Ted Cruz's campaign has a clever mobile app – called 'Cruz Crew' – that is designed to gather personal information from users’ phones, tracking their movements and stealing all the names and contact information on the infected phones. Nor is the Cruz campaign the only one doing this.
Porn O'Graph: Mirror, mirror on the wall.
The Parting Shot:

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Republican Mary Lou Bruner is just reflecting her voter base mentality.

Gegner said...

Re: Mirror, mirror: If one was to imagine what the, there isn't a good word for it but 'atmosphere' would be like if criminals took over the organization we established to fight them (yes good citizen, government exists to combat 'criminality'.) It would look like what we have right now. Rampant criminality with nobody, especially within our crime fighting organization, even acknowledging it.

Start with people baing jailed indiscriminately and cops shooting unarmed, er, 'suspects' (many that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.) And judges that let these criminals walk away and we're all experiencing a kind of endless WTF moment.

THe message is loud and clear, if you don't want to be killed or thrown in jail just because they can then look away and keep your mouth shut.

Which works for most of us until it doesn't. Because sooner or later your going to cross paths with the 'wrong sort' and end up becoming collateral damage in something you had no idea was going down.

It's not new, it how things operated when we had monarchy, they were 'the law' and whatever they said goes.

America WAS unique in introducing the idea of innocence until proven guilty and requiring little things like trials as opposed to summary execution at the hands of whatever badge toting functionary you bumped into.

While candidate Sanders points to the elephants in the room [the money soaked media and the secret outcome of the electoral process] the stakes, when it comes down to reality, is the restoration of your right not to be killed without a trial or jailed due to 'circumstances' with no evidence.

We need to restore the 'rule of law' and elimanate those who think they (and by extension, what they want) ARE 'the law'.

If there is an elephant in the room, that is the biggest one. We need to remove (and in many cases prosecute) those who routinely fail to uphold their sworn duty.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Um, ah... Prosecute. Prosecute. I know I've read about that... Remind me what it is...

McMike said...

Prosecution? That's for little people darling.

Gegner said...

Trite but true, McMike, trite but true!

kwark said...

RE "Finger on the Scale": I'm glad the Democratic Party doesn't fool around like that. . . well, other than the little problem of "Superdelegates" . . . and the steady drumbeat of criticism by a cavalcade of Beltway Democratic heavyweights . . .

RE "For Whom the Bell Tolls": With predictable results as fewer and fewer "consumers" can. Even the old Fascist Henry Ford knew enough, in 1915, to pay his workers enough to afford the output of his factories but 100 years later the con men, embezzlers, and leaches in charge of our economy figure that this time they can do without the workers entirely and expect a positive outcome.

AlanSmithee said...

kwark, if you really think the DNC doesn't pack debate audiences, I've got some land in Florida I'd like to show you.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Well in this rare instance, I must confess to being less than explicit - I certainly intended to tar both National Committees with the same brush. In a few weeks we'll see real panic set in if it shapes up to be Sanders/Cruz.

kwark said...

Jim Dandy - My mistake for leaving out that little elephant in the room. Thanks, I'll pass on the "land" in Florida.