Tag: employment

Economy Jigsaw Puzzle

Normally, you start a jigsaw puzzle with the edge pieces. However, that’s really hard on this one because the fallout of the dysfunctional banking system that resulted in many of our economic issues is in the process of bringing down a foreign nation: Greece.

Mr. Buffett is really good at these puzzles, so let’s let him have a go first. Oh look, he’s put together a housing recovery in 2011 (I think that’s assuming we actually get through all the foreclosures) and a slow recovery. He thinks that something has got to be done to punish the financial whiz kids who got us into this mess, and that our current system of paying for health care is a colossal drain on our economy. This is one of the two richest guys in the world and as nearly as I can tell he didn’t need to defraud anybody to get there, so just maybe we ought to listen to him.

Of course there are other parts of the puzzle that bring into question whether there is really a recovery, even a slow one. We’ve got millions of people who are unemployed, millions more who are “underemployed”, stagnant wages, and just enough inflation to mean the savings rate is going down. Those low interest rates — which were supposed to make businesses borrow money from banks who won’t lend it and renters buy houses they can’t afford (but that are actually tempting people with higher mortgage rates and underwater homes to walk away and buy something nicer and cheaper at a lower rate) — mean that there’s not much point in saving money. That hooks in with lousy consumer sentiment, the continuing (and at least partly bank-caused) bubble and subsequent crash of housing prices, and a trillion with a T dollars in lost economic growth. That’s a million million dollars. $1,000,000,000,000.

See? These puzzles are a lot easier when people work together!

Over by the bankers, brokers, and other financial whiz kids there’s these rumors of “reform” and “consumer financial protections.” Careful, though. If you don’t put that together just right, it’s worse than nothing.

Oh yeah, and in this corner over by underemployment, we unfortunately have government budget deficits. It doesn’t take a financial whiz kid to know that when income is stagnant, unemployment is up, underemployment is high, and not enough jobs are being created, that means tax revenues aren’t what they should be either. That in turn means bigger deficits, even without any sort of spending on economic stimulus. Senator McCain wants to cut that deficit just exactly the way Reagan did, which I suppose means he proposes higher deficits.

The nice people at Forbes think all those government workers need a pay cut. Now riddle me this, Batman: while I understand their sentiment, exactly how is cutting the pay of the guy who delivers my mail or the lady who processes my passport application going to help? That’s just going to exacerbate the “stagnant wages” problem. I feel certain that they can’t really mean cutting pay for high wage workers like our Congressmen and key people in the Executive branch; such a proposal would never make it out of committee. Besides, until campaigns become solely publicly funded, I think you can argue that all those people are underpaid. After all, every one of them spent more to get elected than they will ever make at the job itself!

Of course, state governments don’t have the option of deficit spending. That’s why Nevada is moving most employees to a 4 day workweek. The only way this works, of course, is to make all those offices like the DMV open only 4 days a week. Right, because nobody needs to get a drivers license or car registration on a Saturday, right? That way they aren’t spending money to light, heat, air condition, and clean those buildings all weekend. And I suppose it’s probably good for the environment that all those state workers will be sitting at home instead of getting on the freeway. Maybe they will spend some money on their extended weekends — assuming they aren’t deathly afraid of job cuts.

There’s still pieces missing. I’ll check the box and under the sofa. In the meantime, it’s a pretty ugly picture.

In Closing: How much scientific research is thwarted by harassment that borders on textbook definition terrorism?; the Chile quake actually tilted the Earth on its axis, such that the day is 1.26 milliseconds longer (funny how Pat Robertson isn’t dredging up some made up reason why Chile has a pact! with! Satan! that explains why they had an even bigger quake than Haiti); no **** ***** cuss free week at this **** **** blog!; man accused of selling outdated videogame systems to help a terrorist group; origin of the peace symbol; ok, ok, something on health insurance reform; happy daddies; and your overdue dose of Japanfilter, Cat Costumes. Oddly enough the cat doesn’t look unhappy, and the human has no obvious wounds.

Shorties of Riddick

Let’s start off with the Health Insurance Reform bits: Many thanks to Florinda for noticing this item, the story of the mom who was the only person in the whole Emergency Department with health insurance. However, don’t think that mandatory health insurance would have changed that. And here’s a moving piece on health care — particularly mental health care, as it fits into our nation’s Christian traditions.

Continuing the Bush Economic Tradition: Huzzah, they are now proudly telling us that GDP went up 5.9% in Q4 of 2009. Isn’t that great? The Great Recession is officially over! Of course, that’s only if you ignore the reality of fewer jobs, higher unemployment particularly among people under 25 (many of whom don’t show up in the official statistics), collapsing consumer confidence, and stuff like that. In fact, the Christian Science Monitor has gone as far as to say that the recovery is a scam. Oh well, some jobs cost more to create than others. Real worry that the Senate decided it was more important to go home than to make sure that people on unemployment would be able to pay the rent next month.

Going to the Vitamin Store?: Not sure what to make of this chart of what science really knows about the various supplements you could buy there.

Huh, Maybe Blackwater is Out Of Control: Duh, Senate.

From the Department of WTF: The military thought it important to take time away from 2 overseas wars to spy on… Planned Parenthood? And white supremacists? Why, recruiting?

New USDA Rules on Organic Food: summary here.

“You never know who it used to be”: A local Buddhist temple is in trouble with the city. Why? Too many cats hang out there and the temple is kind enough to see to it they have food and clean water.

Sad but true: The bullet is still mightier than the restraining order. My heart goes out to everybody involved, including the students of the slain teacher. There is still a lot we don’t know about this situation yet. But ladies, one thing I do know is that you don’t owe anybody a “mercy date” or an explanation about why you want nothing to do with them. Stay away from guys that scare you! Stop answering the phone, stop talking to them, stop seeing them, cut them off cold turkey! Telling them more than once that you don’t want to talk to them is still talking to them!

The Water Bottle Saga

Last summer, we made some changes in our exercise routine, such that for the first time it made sense to actually consume some sort of “recovery drink.” A simple glass of water — or refilling one of those water bottles you get at the convenience store — was no longer going to cut it. My requirements for such a bottle included the following:

  • BPA free.
  • Dishwasher safe!
  • No stupid gasket that really should be removed for cleaning or it will get gross, but won’t really fit back in correctly should you manage to pry it out of there.
  • Mouth of bottle must be big enough to fit ice cubes, preferably from the door dispenser on the freezer rather than having to shove them through individually.
  • Must be easy to drink from quickly.
  • Must hold roughly a quart or liter of fluid (I won’t quibble over the small difference between the two sizes)
  • Must not be prone to leaking.
  • Must be translucent.

Why translucent, you may ask? We mix our own recovery formula so we can not only control the number of calories involved (here’s the nutrition panel for Gatorade dust; I can choose to make a “weaker” version). We can add a small quantity of glutamine to the mix, something even Gatorade’s scientists admit may be helpful [Update: here’s what we do and why]. If you can’t see through the bottle, you can’t know if it’s shaken enough. For that matter if you can’t see the insides, how the heck do you know it’s really clean?

So this seems to me like a reasonable enough list. I think most people would agree that these are good things to have out of a water bottle for sport/exercise use. Things like “using recycled materials” and other buzzwords are nice, but not if the product can’t do the basic job.

So then consider this list of “best” reusable bottles from HuffPo. What I see here are a lot of bottles you can’t see through, many of which have teeny necks that you have to manually force an ice cube through, and a lot of bottles that you have to completely remove the lid to have a drink. When you only have a 30 second break for hydration, that just won’t cut it. I actually went to REI (why do I bother, they never have what I need) to look at their selection. It was almost exclusively Nalgene and Camelbak products, and not a darn thing that met all my criteria. For what those products cost, I will not settle for “almost.”

As a stopgap — the bottle I had been using had developed a leak around the base of the drinking spout — I found a Rubbermaid bottle that was clear, dishwasher safe, and best of all cheap. However, it was prone to tipping and did have a gasket in the lid. Moreover, that opening looks pretty wide, but it’s a couple millimeters too narrow to avoid spraying ice cubes all over the kitchen. That’s just something you can’t tell in the store.

Yesterday I happened to be in a supplement store when I stumbled across something called the Blender Bottle. While this thing was really designed for some of the heavier protein mixers and such, it fit what I needed perfectly. The little spring thingy is really kind of optional when we’re talking about something as light as Gatorade. The mouth is wide, the spout generous and easily operated, no gaskets, dishwasher safe, even heat safe. So far so good on this thing.

In closing: on the national debt; here‘s obligatory health insurance reform links; the next incarnation of the iconic 747 flies; more reason to like Alan Grayson; the real filibuster-proof majority; the Social Security “reform” idea that just wouldn’t die; and two items on the changing face of employment. What a shame that someone doesn’t get that women are holding their jobs specifically because they often get paid less for the same work!

Shorties Todd

Well, “free” does appear in the title: someone is suing FreeCreditReport.com for charging them a monthly fee for credit monitoring in order to get that “free” credit report.

“How can payrolls and the unemployment rate both go down at the same time?“: More than you want to know about how those figures are manipulated and tortured.

Data bears out common sense: Layoffs are often very bad for the companies that make them. Not only are there severance costs and bad morale (duh), it’s harder to hire back good people when market conditions improve.

Speaking of employment: The President is still of the opinion that small business hiring can and must get us out of this recession. Specifically, he said “Government can’t create these businesses, but it can give entrepreneurs the support they need to open their doors, expand, or hire more workers.” And what does he want to do about it? He wants to expand a couple of SBA programs designed to help well established businesses that already have debt. You know what would really help small businesses? Leveling the playing field with large businesses when it comes to taxes. Dave’s point is that only profits get taxed, which benefits large companies rather than small ones; tax cuts benefit big businesses while shafting the government that needs taxes to run. But let’s face it, Joe’s Hardware Shop has no leverage with city hall, but Wal-Mart can threaten to open in the next town over unless it gets tax breaks.

5th Amendment takes a beating: apparently the Obama Administration reserves the right to assassinate Americans overseas with “special permission.”

Makes me wonder why I bother to pay my mortgage: Here’s your real “phantom inventory,” banks refusing to foreclose on homes where the owner is well over a year in arrears. People are paying credit cards ahead of the mortgage now, which makes sense in a way. Financial planners have always said to pay down your high interest rate debts first! And, well, if the mortgage company is unlikely to foreclose, what incentive is there to pay?

Shackleton’s Whiskey: it’s been freed from ice near the south pole, and sent off for analysis and hopefully recreating lost liquor formulas.

Speaking of drinking: did you know that a 7-11 Double gulp is twice the size of what your stomach should reasonably be able to hold? And, at 64 oz, it’s the equivalent of 8 servings of soda.

And speaking of serving sizes: the FDA wants to crack down on misleading serving sizes on nutrition labels. You know, the ones that say a bowl of cereal is 2 servings, or 6 chips is a serving?

Glad to see someone holding the banks accountable: Cuomo has filed a lawsuit against B of A and several of it’s executives, charging that they hid information from shareholders and lied to the Feds to get bailout money.

And last but not least: a lesson about inflation.

Stay warm and dry, wherever you are.

Reform. For Freedom.

We have officially gotten to the point where corporations control us.

They control how much money we are allowed to make. They control our finances on the national, international, and personal level — badly. They control our health care in a system that is doomed to collapse under the weight of its own expense real soon now. Worst of all, they play by whatever rules they like while squeezing ordinary people to desperation. Now they have a green light to even more openly control our government.

And unless this worthless Congress remembers that the one thing corporations can’t do — yet, anyway — is vote, things are going to get worse rather than better. We desperately need real financial reform now, the kind that restores rules that worked through most of the 20th century and not the kind so riddled with loopholes as to be a gift to the financial services industry. We need insurance reform that puts more of our health care dollars to work providing health care and curtailing the abuse of patients who foolishly want the care they think they (or their bosses) are paying for, not a “reform” that forces everyone to participate in a broken system through mandatory coverage.

“I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free,” the song goes. Free to do what? Free to get involved in staged protests of issues we don’t understand? Free to loudly proclaim “facts” with no basis in reality? Free to watch propaganda dressed up as news? Free to owe everything to the companies that hire us, care for us, and mis-manage our money with no hope of anything else?

If you don’t mind, I’d prefer a different flavor of freedom.

In Closing: Roman Army Knife; “Um, because it was the right thing to do and we didn’t want any lawyers saying we did wrong later? Was the 5th Amendment repealed while I wasn’t looking?”; nice to see that we are going to count job losses more honestly, but it’s a shame that Mr. Obama will be blamed for “losing” these jobs when he merely counted Bush Administration losses correctly; I couldn’t have said it better either; at least child abuse is down!; where genetic testing and “pro-life” collide; trees are loving global warming (much more so than the polar bears); and Americans are drinking more, but we’re not paying for the Good Stuff. So, uh, maybe the price of Scotch will return to rational levels? No? I thought not.

I can’t believe he said that.

By now I think everyone knows that Haiti had a truly horrible earthquake. Perhaps you have also heard that Pat Robertson said it’s their own damn fault.

How’s that? Did they have substandard building codes that led to needless deaths? Perhaps they didn’t heed some geologist’s warning? Perhaps corruption prevented people from reaching assistance?

No, they “deserved” this earthquake, this unimaginable destruction, because they allegedly made a pact with the Devil in 1804 to obtain their liberation from France.

Now, just so there is no confusion here, I do not want anything to do with a deity who kills innocent children because of something their forebears allegedly did 205 years ago! Maybe such a wild tale would be credible if this earthquake happened in 1805, maybe even 1810. But we are talking about divine retribution for rumored events of over 2 centuries ago. It seems to me an omnipotent God could have arranged a more timely comeuppance. After all, He destroyed Sodom within hours of confirming that the natives would rather gang-rape a couple of visiting men than a pair of underage virgins.

But here is my question. Where is the outrage from Christians?

Back in 2001, moderate Islam figures were encouraged to denounce the kind of extremist thoughts and behaviors that led to 9/11. Why aren’t we demanding that moderate Christian leaders denounce Pat Robertson as the lunatic he is? Can’t the United Methodists make a statement more official than a blog post? Can the Southern Baptist Conference do more than ask for money? Where is the outrage from the Episcopals? Whither the Church of England? Has the Greek Orthodox Church nothing to say? Christian Scientitsts? The Mormons? The Lutherans? How can the Pope remain silent about this inflammatory and theologically dubious rambling?

While I see much talk of help for the people of Haiti — which is both very Christian and very much needed — there is near silence of the issue of Mr. Robertson.

At least the Ambassador from Haiti has his head screwed on straight.

In closing: paid to be stupid; Americans are stupid part 2, many of us think airport security should involve profiling (I guess nobody remembers that Tim McVeigh was a white guy); conservatives and trade policy; real unemployment needs real solutions; with the money they spent on negative ads, the insurance companies could have provided health insurance to 3000 families; Junk Insurance Tax; a picture worth a thousand words on checked baggage fees (between the airlines and the TSA are they actively trying to get me to avoid flying??).

The Shorties Saga: New Moon

Merry Zappadan: It has been brought to my attention that Zappadan began last night. Felicitous greetings those who celebrate, and of course the admonition to dance like a fool and not eat yellow snow.

Can’t He Eat Dinner in the Toilet? Geez!: That is what some ignoramuses are really saying when they tell a lactating mother to go nurse in the bathroom. Get over your bad selves; the original purpose of breasts — God Given if you believe in God — is to feed babies. Why don’t you go eat dinner in the toilet?? Now that being said, most mothers try to be discreet: they nurse at home before going out, they use modesty covers, they pump. But **** you if you disagree, anyplace it’s ok for a baby to have a bottle, it’s ok for him to eat the all natural diet that was intended for him.

Banks do as they please, we pay the fees: 6 more bank failures yesterday. That brings us to 130 for the year and no sign of slowing down in 2010. But the surviving banks aren’t accountable to their customers — an obvious breach of free market thinking, wherein banks that screwed customers should be the first to fail as we take our business elsewhere. Instead, they have to be “pressured” to do the right thing, and “regulated” to keep them from screwing us harder. We can’t just take our business elsewhere because either our small local bank will fold and be sold off to Faceless Conglomerate Bank Co or our mortgages will be bundled and sold piecemeal to them. And while it’s easy to say “I’m not doing business with Chase, close my credit card account and move my checking account”, it’s hard if not impossible to control who owns your mortgage. How nice that B of A suddenly has the money to rid itself of its largest and most meddlesome investor. Since when doesn’t the Fed have the ability to regulate them anyhow?

Say goodbye to all this, and hello to oblivion: (obligatory) Escalation in Afghanistan is teh win… for the bin Laden anyway. Heaven forbid we should learn from those who tried to fight “the good war” there before us.

It’s the Jobs, Stupid: The people want to go to work. They want to work more than they are worried about the deficit or much of anything else, and that’s actually kind of smart: you see, working people pay more taxes than those who don’t work! If we don’t get these people jobs, we risk losing the middle class altogether. (Yeah, I know I swore off HuffPo, but it’s Elizabeth Warren). Here’s a handy fact sheet.

Obligatory Health Insurance Reform Roundup: Remember, if the insurance companies want it, it’s probably bad for consumers — and that’s what Forbes says! Women have unusually high stakes in this thing. Poor Aetna having to cut all those customers so they can remain fabulously profitable! And remember that when they talk about “cost controls” they aren’t talking about controlling your premiums, but rather what your doctor and hospital gets paid. Oh, and this clip, wherein Shatner wishes the Vulcan neck pinch and mind meld were real… and that Nimoy were standing behind his guest.

Why Police Confiscations Must Be Further Regulated: “We think your passenger is a hooker so we’re taking your car… Oops we’re mistaken, you owe us $1400 to get your car back!”

And Last: A handy Wall Street to English translator.