The Real Social Security Fraudsters, He Says

 

Howard Lutnick, late of Cantor Fitzgerald, who is not, by any stretch, a poor man, has sorted out who the real fraudsters and abusers of Social Security might be--the people who would complain if they failed to receive a check. If they failed to receive their check, that they were counting on, because they paid into the system during their entire working life? I mean, say what, now?

“What we have to do is stop sending money to someone who’s not hurt, who’s on disability for 50 years,” he claimed. “It’s ridiculous, and they have another job.”

At one point in the wide-ranging, nearly two-hour conversation, Lutnick also said that if Social Security “didn’t send out their checks this month,” his “mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain.”

“She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining,” the billionaire businessman said.

"If You Go Carrying Pictures of Chairman Mao...."

 

I get it, I think. There's a handful of them in every radical crowd. They're so hip, they're positively pelvic. If you're offended by their t-shirt, the problem is you, etc. And nonetheless, the young folks who have discovered Bin Laden's "Letter to America" are just so disappointing. I always hoped, somewhere out there, that, having grown up with the internet, some kind of extra media-savvy would rub off on them, and they would understand that there is propaganda, everywhere, and just because you've run into something "new to you" doesn't mean it's actually valid. That the youths would seek context.

This is called, me, being overly optimistic about human nature. Also, too, I know a bunch of elderly "leftists" who are likewise suckers for the same sort of thing. 

Bin Laden was a recruiter for terrorism against the US--he peddled horseshit pills for what ailed the world. Lots of bloody-minded assholes do that. It's not special. 

I'm not going to be the one who waves my fist and yells at the kids to get off my lawn or stop making human chains or whatever they do today, even if for the love of the revolution, please consider why you are getting dragged off of private property and whether blocking doors are a fire hazard. And also too, be aware cops will wreck your property and get physical at pretty much any leftist protest--it isn't personal. 

But for the love of fuck, please try not to make actual monsters your fucking mascots--is that TOO MUCH to ask? 

Finally--yes, movements can be discredited by malicious actors from within. There were bad actors embedded in Occupy and BLM, and they are already down in your pod.  Don't be hoodwinked and bamboozled babies. It's a jungle out there. 

Justice Thomas has Very Dear Friends

 

The owlish device of Bohemian Grove says" Weaving spiders come not here" and this is the crux of the story--weaving spiders be everywhere when a Supreme Court Justice is accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts from politically involved billionaires.  Why, yes, that story was from 2011. Clarence Thomas has told on himself when he admits his dear friendship with Harlan Crow has been for something on the order of 25 plus years, when he has been on SCOTUS for nearly 32 years. 

Did he get endeared by this very good friend after having become a SCOTUS? and wouldn't any one of you find the lavishing of multi-million-dollar trips and so on very endearing? Of course, you are dear friends--now. 

Now, where this stands in the current court, where a leak was probably covered up, shouldn't we worry? Don't we respect this court though, all warts and blemishes aside?

Something Inauthentic Here

 

This is wild. Particularly the part where he says "my friends and I coordinated a bank run" followed by "so then I bought shares of the bank thinking I could profit off the run". pic.twitter.com/67iwCrE6yj

— @chimeracoder@mastodon.social🦦 🏳️‍🌈 (@chimeracoder) March 12, 2023

While I appreciate the idea that people with money in SVB aren't necessarily bad actors who deserve to lose their savings (above the insured amount) and that the majority should be "made whole", there is something that feels inauthentic about the collapse of this bank and Signature Bank (which has a lot of crypto money in it).  I don't trust what I'm looking at because of the people I'm looking at. There are people wealthy enough to lose some portion of their vast fortune and still be fine--a bank run is just an investment in fuckery.

I remember back in December I was snarky about a Russian bank run. These things can be precipitated by rumors. I feel like the bank management and certain investors need to be looked at. This bank run has nothing to do with "wokeness" specifically (how do you even connect the dots on that one? A bank certainly could do woke shit and be responsible enough to have a risk assessment officer--these guys didn't) so much as deregulation and gambling in the old savings establishment again. In the meanwhile, the people who served us junk bonds and the dot com and housing bubbles really don't have anything they need to be telling us about moral hazard right now. 

There is no good reason there should be any "contagion" from this thing. Doom-saying about it...feels inauthentic. 

Occupy GameStop?

 

I feel like this GameStop thing has something to do with the bits of "Trading Places" that made no sense to me when I was a little kid, where the Wall Street guys are the Duke brothers and the Reddit traders are Louis and Billy Ray, and honestly if you tried to explain it to me differently I would just get confused again so I made a meme about it. LOL.

Anyway young people are getting interested in economic stuff and paying off their student loans, so I think that's great.

OK, Bloomers

I've been noticing a silly argument on Twitter that I won't link to, because it is silly: whether "Bernie bros" will put people "on a list" if they support or work for former Republican NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Whatever that list might mean, I really don't think people in this country can get shut out of working for campaigns or commenting on politics based on their previous support. My goodness, Jill Stein supporters manage to get attached to Democratic campaigns today, don't they? And the mainstream media doesn't look like it will ever give up it's love affair with Republican-lite/moderate Democrat cross-overs. For the unity!

But let's get real, the country will not be unified over Mike Bloomberg. Sure, he's got a whole lot of money and his ads do nail Trump right in his vanities and failures. But that doesn't equal a plausible Democratic candidate against Trump (it may even have some drawbacks as an outside antagonist, as I hope to demonstrate). 

In the past, I've blogged about my support of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Black Lives Matter, and the Me Too movement. If a Democratic candidate does not have a good record with, or can't demonstrate fundamental understanding of, the impact of economic inequality, the wealth gap, the failures of the system to protect consumers against fraud and predation in ways that harm economic security and mobility (as well as the way it intersects with racial inequality); if a candidate does not have a good record with, or can't demonstrate fundamental understanding of, the impact of racial inequality especially as it has related to the tools of the criminal justice system being used as a weapon against black bodies especially; and if a candidate does not have a good record with, and can't demonstrate fundamental understanding of, the ways men in power deploy misogyny and exercise their privilege against both women and men in sexualized ways, then, this party should not want them. 

Elizabeth Warren is Ready To Fight

If there was anything I wanted from a candidate, it would be that they had a serious interest in crafting really solid policies that would help raise up the personal economy of working people, instead of focusing on the stock market and whether the rich did well, and showing that they were really in the race with the intention to kick ass. Senator Warren has been out here talking about the policies (I've been a fan since Occupy, and as much as I liked Senator Sanders because of his filibuster at the time, she's had me at "hello let's stop the banks from fucking people over").

She did her damndest trolling Trump last election.  That's because she has fight in her. Her "give a shit" dial is set to 11. So her considered opinion that the House should commence with impeachment strikes me as flowing naturally from her wrath that once again, some privileged asshole has gotten over and needs to get put back in his place, and we need some damn standards about what conduct is appropriate in this office.

Right now, I know Warren has the energy and the understanding of how to correct our course. I have never been ready to endorse early, but I feel like we're in a different time and place, and I don't want this weird Swalwell, Ryan, Moulton, whatever. (They are okay people--especially Swalwell--I just think I want someone for president that I have seen being president for a little while longer than yesterday.) I don't give a shit about any damn near moderate white guy lane. I don't want people who just "think they can".  I want a person who goddamn will.   I've already made my Biden feelings pretty transparent. For me, there are two people in this race, and they are Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris. Pete and Beto and 'em need to find value from doing more and better elsewhere.

I will possibly move from this position in the coming months, but this is where I am right now. Warren wants Trump gone because he is bad and all of this looks bad, and she'll fight Mike Pence if that's the guy, too.

I like her fight. She has fight that wakes up the fight in me.

The Hour is Getting Late

BREAKING: young people arrested in Mitch McConnell’s office. Kentuckians need a Green New Deal. https://t.co/4XesRVXZr6

— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) February 25, 2019

A kerfuffle of sorts occurred over a Sunrise Movement video featuring a confrontation of adolescent protesters with Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, which in the truncated version makes the Senator appear condescending and a little hectoring, and in the extended release version still seems kind of awkward even when people try to find ways to remind us that Dianne Feinstein has been really great sometimes and that child activists are necessarily attention-getting and emotion-provoking. And as a good little card-carrying Democrat, one of my first impulses was a full-body cringe: "Why the fuck are activists camping out on Democrats--our folks are the good guys!"

Except I know why--Republicans are not listening to a word and aren't good for a damn. Dianne Feinstein can tell us she won her last election, probably isn't figuring for another one, and that those kids aren't the folks who elected her. But those kids are the people their parents elected her for, and if her safe-seat behind does not understand what they need her to do, let my old-enough pundit ass explain--it is time to go balls to the wall regarding climate change, because we (meaning people with the power) never went hard enough before. It's one thing to patiently explain to kids why there's a thing about legislation that will be voted on and can even pass and all that, and it's another thing to know this process isn't cutting it, and if it means recommitting to go harder and talk more expressively and directly about the crisis we will experience as the climate problem grows worse, then that is the kind of allyship the climate issue deserves. The above video reminds us though, that the Republicans, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are on a whole other level regarding their response to climate activists--they don't mind seeing them arrested. They would prefer that to offending their donors, or maybe, they just can't be bothered to value human lives over dollar signs.

But playing at who is better feels inadequate in the face of the problem we're facing. I've addressed on this blog before about the extremes of weather we're already facing in terms of wildfires and droughts vs. floods and blizzards. even if I've failed to do so regularly lately because of the sheer volume of so much other fuckery. But let me get this straight, the situation regarding the environment is probably worse than we've been thinking, and the most optimistic and radical-sounding (to moderate ears) ideas about what to do are probably still conservative in the face of what we need to accomplish. Disaster threatens to come from a cloudless and clear-blue sky.

We've got to suck every ounce of humorless, joyless, plane and car-grabbing, cow fart-monitoring right-wing accusations up, and holler back. Fuck you, diesel-powered denialists, and get railed, you running-coal shit-signifying smoke throwing annoying fuckshits. We're seeing species dying before our very eyes, even mammals, and you won't even discuss modifying a minimal part of your lifestyle? Just even reducing meat consumption, travel, or adapting to different energy sources to some degree (which we could all do to a degree, and not really even feel constrained). We could certainly do better regarding dumping toxic wastes in delicate and vital ecosystems, and consider renewables like wind and solar as the real future of energy.

Knowing all that is necessary and possible, people need to demand more from our leaders. That doesn't just mean challenging opponents (or defeating them entirely so they can no longer contribute to the prolonged anti-environmental fuckery) but changing the paradigm in which we discuss climate change, and no longer giving credence or quarter to denialism. They need to be shamed. Their sources of fossil fuel funding need to be discovered and dried up.


I'd love it if institutions like Sunrise Movement focused a little bit more on the McConnell kinds of fuckery, than the Feinstein kinds of not so much fuckery as just not being highly motivated just enough. But I understand their urgency, and I will support their goals, even if I hope they stay strategic, and don't frag possible friends in the midst of holding feet to the fire.

This is the Kind of Thing: Part Two

So, regarding the "Democratic operative" who seems to have spilled the beans about planning to bring an aura of violence to Trump rallies: Sigh, it was a former Occupy Wall Street guy. Who apparently has been conspiring to bring this bs for more than a minute, with Breitbart.com, which is where the Trump Campaign's CEO Steve Bannon comes from. Oh. So dudebros who like white privilege more than actual social and economic justice is actually a thing, and not all "Democratic" activists are actually supporters of democracy?

Huh. Good to know. Thanks, Project Veritas. We will keep this in mind. I still think the "Donald Ducks" thing is pretty funny though.  Donald Ducks showing his taxes. Heh! I don't know how many bloggers thought chicken-shit candidates should be followed by some activist in a chicken costume, but it was more than a couple. I feel like if you consider that level of campaigns-manship "too rather" for your blood, you might want to relegate your time to bingo or something.  Was this collusion or "great minds thinking alike"?

I mean really? Ducks! The Trump campaign and super-PAC probably don't want their potential involvement level similarly challenged--is the feeling I have. Such meh.

Your Money or Your Life!

The extortionate view of Martin Shkreli underlines the (im)morality of capitalism--if one holds the means of production of a life-saving drug, then one can claim the price of one life for the supply of that drug. I was half the day trying to search my back issues for what the grim mercenary quality of Shkreli reminded me of, until I just this minute saw Loomis at LGM--and realized--Excitable Boy! This soulless gouger reminded me of the big talk of Alessio Rastani and how it gave me a very good appreciation of the relative psychopathy, or at least, sociopathy, of the mega-wealthy.
In the starkest terms, this is the crux of what health care regulation is about--if one's life is at stake, nothing but law prevents fuckery with the mechanisms of virtually, life-or-death processes. We have people out there prepared to charge a ransom without having the decency to kidnap anyone.

Takeaways--rich people really are different from you or me: I would say Donald Trump probably has a skewed worldview for example because, as Cyndi Lauper explained, "Money Changes Everything". So various groups are subservient to his ultimate ends. Because why not?

That medicinal costs need regulation because this economic power over life or death is monstrous.

And also, using Warren Zevon tunes as a mnemonic will help you in your blog searches.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. The Climate (A Review)

I greatly looked forward to reading Naomi Klein's latest, This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. The Climate, and having read it, I'm pretty happy to recommend it. Klein's book approaches our fossil-fuel dependency as a cultural crisis and an economic fixation on the profit motive--an "extractivist" ethos that insists on exploitation of our natural resources for monetary gain. Her book is, in many ways, a wake-up call, viewing the echo chambers of the denialists and the pie-in-the-sky carbon-fixing schemers as needing to just face reality.

And the reality is grim. We are poisoning our planet with fuels that are not clean to burn in the first place and are increasingly more difficult to extract. We're dumping toxic chemicals into our air and our water, and the possibility that life as we know it right now is in any way sustainable is pretty much foolish.

Which might imply that this is an altogether grim book, but no. Along the way, we are introduced to pockets of resistance across the globe against the extractivist forces. Who, after all, may have the money, the propaganda, the hired security, the ability to purchase government officials by the job-lot and armies of lawyers at the ready--but might not actually be a match for a dedicated local resistance, which comes from, in some cases, even historically disadvantaged people--who are, let's be clear, often disproportionately screwed over by the forces of "progress".

What she shows is an alternative--maybe there's a sustainable future where companies don't make hand-over-fist profits, but people, working together, can discover old and tried methods for  insulating homes against heat and cold, irrigating and fertilizing crops, and mix those things with new technologies like solar panels to live just a bit lighter on the earth. Maybe there's something to the idea that the "quality of life" doesn't have a monetary value, but is precious and should be preserved just because.  Because it's the only way we--humans--even can go on. Maybe we need to see the connections between ourselves and the dying fish and dolphins and coral reefs and caribou and realize we, too, are a part of a chain of being on this planet, and what hurts any creature, weakens us all.

I found this book a wise and engaging read, by no means alarmist, but very clear-eyed and realistic. So if you were wondering whether you'd like this--I'd say if you care about the environment and are skeptical of our Cash Rules Everything Around Me culture, you'd like it rather a lot. I did.

Climate Sunday: Time for a Revolution

There has been a kind of lazy thinking regarding climate change regarding the cost, and as part of my Climate (mostly) Sunday posts, I've often tried to track how the idea that converting our economy to a more sustainable and egalitarian track was proper and necessary.

Oil isn't the future once you've met peak oil--when tar sands or dilbit or whatever you want to call it means more effort and money is put into extracting more polluting fuels. It isn't even the future when you realize burning it is harming the atmosphere. Coal isn't the future when mountaintop removal dumps arsenic into groundwater, and high-sulfur coal produces sickening levels of particulate pollution. Fracking isn't the answer when groundwater is polluted and local farms and residences experience sickness.

The climate science deniers hedge their bets with the refuge that doing something about climate change will cost a lot anyway, so why be out of pocket just for the sake of trees and polar bears and poor people? The answer is that not addressing climate change will cost plenty in the long run. Denialists are basically screwing themselves. It's possible that addressing climate change could very well be beneficial to growth--if we get serious, creative, and on point.

I don't think we have time to waste--I'm enough of a cynic to believe that tipping points are real, and that we could reach a point of no return--but this can not mean that we don't try.

So I have very little time for people who want to blame climate scientists for "being in it for the money".  Seriously? I mean, seriously? Then you can't say addressing climate change is also communism. Sorry. The future might have to be local action, clean energy, water protection, and sustainable food systems. In other words, getting a better quality of life by not supporting pollution and destructive business practices.

And surprisingly, the only ones really hurt by that would be the people disproportionately benefitting from the current tilted and earth-damaging system.

Something has to give.

Cecily McMillan Sentenced to 90 days, time served, 5 yrs probation.

I really don't know what to make of sentencing where the thing I think is--I'm happy it wasn't worse, where, in another part of my mind, I am also thinking--how did she even get charged in the first place?

See, in my mind she was just reacting to being handled roughly by the police. And I don't know that just reacting is a criminal offense. But she did hit the cop, so...uh.

Shit, I wonder what the guys harassing people down at Bundy Ranch might get charged with if they start hassling "the man" physically.

Just saying.

Making an Example of Cecily McMillan

A jury has found Occupy Wall Street protester Cecily McMillan guilty of assaulting an officer, but did they get the full story?

It seems that they hadn't.  Actually, it looks to me like the trial was conducted in a very one-sided way. The prosecution was able to present their entire case against her, including prejudicial information regarding a later, unrelated incident to discredit her,  while the defense was unable to bring forward information regarding any previous excessive force allegations against the officer that McMillan alleges, with photographic proof, grabbed her breast with enough force to create a roughly hand-sized bruise. (Which is a tactic that has been used by law enforcement in their harrassment of protesters in other cases.) Having been found guilty of a felony, Ms. McMillan's future (employment opportunities, etc.) are very negatively impacted.

In the several decisions associated with this trial--denying bail, the dismissal of information that would have added context to her actions, the being held until sentencing, all look to me like she is being made an example of. But what a lousy example this sets.

What it all seems to say is that people exercizing their right to peaceful protest have no expectation of peace from "keepers of the peace." It's saying that law enforcement has the right to physically molest individuals, and they may not attempt, even reflexively, to defend their personal space. And it says that, while you may have a right to a jury trial, you might not always get to have the defense you need. Like...the full truth presented.

It is deeply disappointing.

SCOTUS Shows Love for the Rainmakers and Buckrakers

In the home of the brave, free speech comes with a price tag, as the Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 (No! Really?) decision in the McCutcheon v. FEC case, which basically gives rich folks the license to print ballots. 

Maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but here's the deal--if putting your money where your mouth is, is a form of free speech, then some animals on this farm are obviously more equal than others, if laws that try to keep the rich from drowning out the voices of the not-so-much are seen as onerously violating the rights of the people who can afford to pay for this here microphone and mean to use it.

It kind of says, if you can't afford to pay for the good sound system, you might as well shut up.

There was some dancing around in that decision about whether campaign financing was about quid pro quo--look, I get it. The decision for letting our politicians be bought outright was centered on not making it for each trick they turn out, but letting them perform on a retainer basis.  And that's sweet, but let's call it what it is. And let's not pretend that our transactional political system isn't about quid pro quo because the paymasters don't give direction when our little dears can figure out what they are supposed to do to please Daddy without all that much direction.

Now, there might be an antidote to the influence of money in the form of a critical, tough, independent media who can cut through the "talk" of money and see to it that "bullshit" hits the road. A lot of our mainstream media might not necessarily recognize that cutting through the bull is their job, though. That's kind of why I see blogging as important. Maybe this cosa nostra can strike a little bit back at the pezzanovantes that want to make peasants out of us. But otherwise, I encourage everybody to vote the fuck out of the GOP, because, let's be honest, they are the most boughten and paidest-for. I'm all for kicking the Koch-machine--how'bout you?

(Add--do I lie?)

Know Your Class War: Take Peter Schiff (Please!)

I've been doing my "Know Your Class War" series for a long while now, usually pointing out that working people are being, well, screwed by the "The Man", but I don't think I've ever explained what the title "Know Your Class War" is about. Basically, it's sort of tongue-in-cheek: the Strangely Blogged working definition of "Class War" is "the term used by wealthy people when they have been uncomfortably reminded that they are outnumbered". I started noticing this particularly when the OWS movement brought income inequality as an issue out on the street instead of talking about it in "quiet rooms".  The apparent concern that criticism of the inequities of the capitalistic system was tantamount to war is pretty evident in the awkward Godwin violation of Tom Perkins. But the flip-side of the "class war" is real hostility that impacts the lives of working people--and to show an outstanding case of it, why, here is Peter Schiff on The Daily Show.



It takes a special kind of person to suggest that the intellectually disabled should be economically exploited because, hey, that's what they are worth! It probably takes an even more special kind of person to later on complain that his interviewer could have tipped him off to the proper politically correct term (his word was "retarded"--and pro-tip to Mr. Schiff, the job of making yourself not look like an asshole should never be outsourced) and that "Others may disagree, but I believe a job for such a person at $2 per hour is better than no job at all.”

Which is very probably why people take jobs for less-than-living wage--being half-starved is better than being all the way starved and a leaky roof is better than none. But it seems like he's missing something--people don't work for fun, but to make a living. If something is to be worth someone's time at all, it has to be renumerative enough to be worth it, otherwise an employer is basically stealing something of value from their worker--time. People don't do jobs at, for example, McDonald's, because they long to be near sizzling tallow. They do it because they could use the money--because food and rent and utilities are not free. Saying that people should not be paid enough to live on is like saying they do not perform any function that makes living worthwhile for them.  That strikes me as a very low opinion of human dignity. 

One could counter that any person is free to not take a job that does not pay them a reasonable sum, but what a person is not free to do is have nothing and live--people are born dependent. They need food and water and warmth. If the idea that people work for "a living" and that it genuinely means they need gainful employment to live is an abstract concept to someone like Mr. Schiff, at the risk of not being politically correct, I would say he is stupid.  If he recognizes it as a concrete reality but simply does not care, he's an asshole. In any case, the "freedom" to work for less that he extols is not far from the economics you'd see under, say, Rand Paul. 

So, class war? Maybe not a war with live ammo. But a political struggle? Yes.

What Did *You* Do During the Class War, Daddy?

You know, I feel a bit silly blogging about a letter to the editor of the WSJ from 1%-er billionaire Tom Perkins, even one given an intriguingly tasteless title like "Progressive Kristallnact Coming?"  But it really tweaked a nerve with me. Here we go:

Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

I'm thinking about how dreadful it his, him writing that from someone's attic where he's hiding  a luxury penthouse, probably, with an utter lack of perspective regarding his own privilege and a thorough failure to imagine the lack of privilege of the people he just compared himself to.

He goes on:

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

Pure ingratitude people have these days. After all, when Marie Antoinette recommended starving peasants supplement their diets with pastries, the grateful French peasants offered her a free haircut. Sure, they made her wait a bit, and botched it by about a foot (or a head) but it was hardly as bad as being called "a snob".  There wasn't any such a thing as class consciousness before Occupy and them, these days. (I wonder if he thinks "conspicuous consumption" is that thing where someone makes a nasty racket coughing into one's handkerchief and then inelegantly expiring on the floor?)

I'd say he'd be the one of the first against the wall when the revolution comes (in jest) but I'd only be making his point.

A Turd-Polisher Lacking Grit

Many bloggers have already expressed their feelings (mostly schadenfreude) regarding the profile of spinmeister Frank Luntz in The Atlantic, who looks morosely into a political atmosphere so bitterly divided that words can no longer reach the mass of people, yet seems a bit confused, I would say, about just how that came to be.  Political writers are a funny old lot--we think words matter, and I think more than a handful of us hate it when words are used to obfuscate rather than inform, and turn people off from discussion or even thinking rather than inviting them to engage.

He can imply that this is a problem that came in with the Age of Obama, but I don't think you can necessarily blame the President for being something of a polarizing symbol--he was made one by people who do what Luntz does. What offends his sensibilities I believe is that this symbol talks back and does engage people to think and invites them to react. Some people disagree with him. He won two elections on 1) enough people agreeing with him and 2) a complete meltdown of what once was a serviceable message machine on the right.

Requiem for A Snack Cake?

I approach the story of the demise of Hostess Brands with some trepidation because I am just not a fan of their foodstuffs. It's not the food I was raised on. It's not that I never ate Twinkies or Wonder Bread--I've eaten them. But I come from the land of TastyKake and Amoroso rolls. A Twinkie is like nothing compared to even a Butterscotch Krimpet. Please! Can Wonder Bread contain the glory that is a cheesesteak or a meatball sub?

No.  These just aren't the foods of my youth, and although I understand the nostalgia other people may have for them, their feeling of loss is not mine. And these days, unless I have the opportunity to eat some freaking great pizza, I'm not all that that hot on gluten, anyway.  Or, for that matter, mass-produced baked goods that contain petroleum products. But leaving aside my developing consciousness about factory foods, how they are made possible by factory farming, and how we've come to accept highly refined chemical products as ingredients in our foods with little regard to how it impacts our bodies (whew, am I a freaking killjoy, or what?), the story of the supposed death of Twinkie the Kid is probably premature and more a story about (cake) makers and (money) takers.

If you were to ask the owners of Hostess Brands, they would have you believe that the union (read: the people who make the bread, cakes, etc.) are to blame for the demise of the company, due to a strike that impaired the company's profitability*. The actual story is a bit more complex than that--and a good take on it is found at Forbes.

Hostess has been sold at least three times since the 1980s, racking up debt and shedding profitable assets along the way with each successive merger. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004, and again in 2011. Little thought was given to the line of products, which, frankly, began to seem a bit dated in the age of the gourmet cupcake. (100 calorieTwinkie Bites? When was the last time you enteredMagnolia Bakery and asked about the calorie count?) 

As if all this were not enough, Hostess Brands’ management gave themselves several raises, all the while complaining that the workers who actually produced the products that made the firm what money it did earn were grossly overpaid relative to the company’s increasingly dismal financial position.

In other words, while the employees were in the business of making the products (and they actually did make compensation concessions in previous rounds), the management took. They rewarded themselves for failure. And in the long run, the employees are the ones out of a job.

And yet the brand names or properties of "Twinkies" or "Wonder Bread" still have saleable value. Other companies will compete for the rights to make those products, and they probably will be manufactured outside of the United States and shipped all over the world. And for some reason, they will sell. People will buy them. As if nothing had happened.

Lesson:  employees are disposable, managers should be paid regardless of performance, and Twinkies are immortal (even if their indefinite shelf life is an urban legend).

Is that the way it should be?  Meh. It is the way it is. I'm ready for "Occupy Cake".  Make your own Twinkies and Wonder-like bread at home, if that's what you like. Or patronize your local bakeries.   (Or even discover the gustatory wonders of your local loam; motto "Locavore, locavore, locavore"--Washington apples like a baby's head. Cranberry preserves on cheese from a dairy farm near you. Honey complete with comb in a clean little jar from your nearest co-op.  Figs from your own tree, crepes from eggs whose chickens you have personally met.)

I know that isn't a possibility for everybody owing to availability and price issues. But it would be neat if the business model Hostess followed was eaten out of house and home.

*NB: A strike actually is supposed to impair the profitability of a company, to smack the management over the head with the realization of who actually does the heavy lifting around here. This smack came too late for Hostess. Just a thing to chew over.

(X-posted at Rumproast.)

Know Your Class War: You Might be Some Kind of 1%-er

Half Of American Households Hold 1 Percent Of Wealth

That's what it says. Or to cite another mind-blowing thing, just look at the Walton family, and they have wealth = to 41% of lower class Americans. 

Now, the founder of Walmart is long deceased, so we're talking about his heirs and assigns, who didn't do much more to get their fortunes but fail to be disowned. 

So, the next time someone lays a rap on you about how big a percentage of the total tax debt gets paid by rich people--just keep in mind that they retain a larger share of the wealth than they ever did. And after tax, they still have an awful lot to roll around in, because naturally, they have more money post necessary expenses, dig?

And if you look at the example of Mitt Romney, they have access to investment vehicles you wouldn't even think of for making passive income.   That is to say, even when you're working for all your money, guys like Romney can be sitting on their ass and their money is working for them. 

So, cheers. you might be some kind of 1%-er.  

You know--you people.