TWGB: The Quality of Mercy is Priced at $2 Million

 

So, lawsuit against Giuliani just got really graphic, and if you want to read the whole thing, I recommend having a sick bag or bucket handy because the parts where he emotionally and physically abuses a female employee is nasty and I wish my read on him didn't feel validated. She says she has texts and emails and even recordings of his abusiveness and more.

But the part I notice is the claim that she can validate that Giuliani was asking $2 million for pardons, because this wasn't new. It's just amazing we have validation now. Also, it appears that as early as 2019, Trump was scared enough of Dark Brandon that he was going to have a plan for losing, but claiming the election was stolen anyway. 

Wow: In *Feb. 2019*, Giuliani had "voter fraud" claim planned if Donald Trump lost the election, according to the complaint.

"Giuliani told Ms. Dunphy that Trump’s team would claim that there was 'voter fraud' and that Trump had actually won the election." pic.twitter.com/qU0pDJUwIK

— Frank G. Runyeon (@frankrunyeon) May 15, 2023

And if that doesn't remind me of anything?   

Yeah. We knew. It was always about fuckery. Undermining democracy. Damaging what makes our democracy effective and unique. 

Trump Slump

The last handful of days have been a little bit of heart-in-mouth time for some traders on today's market, as record sell-offs have been occurring, causing as of just today the largest drop in points in the Dow's history--which is not really saying a lot, yet. This probably is reminiscent for some of the point drop in September 2008, but that had been building for some time, and had a lot of other poor indicators--I don't know if this is the same thing at all. I don't think it's directly ascribable to Trump, although he likes to take credit for the economy, so...

Job creation has slowed here in the US--but that's not surprising as we are nearly at full-employment, and wages are going up, which did not just start happening in the Trump era, thanks, but when labor starts to have an edge, capital worries. As a wage earner myself, I like stronger wage and employment figures, and prefer my investments and pension plan to be about the long-term index, and I don't yet see a problem there...

Except the deregulation thing. See, I have noticed that Trump is trying to pry the brakes off what he sees as "the economy" because he and Republicans in general seem to think that rules make the game harder, and then nobody wants to play. However, what they do is fuss about currency and capital, and make stupid choices like tax plans that favor the rich. Companies like to take profits and pay dividends. This doesn't go into the hands of the people who will turn around and spend it--labor.

I don't know. This is a little correction. The dollar is weaker in anticipation of inflation, but the job market is still strong and the consumer confidence is there, but I feel like there is a certain level of volatility that might be political in nature.

The market doesn't like instability or insecurity. I feel like our US leadership is just a beehive of instability and insecurity, not because of the fundamentals, but because of the intangibles. Like, the current president of the US does not understand why nuclear first strikes are bad or why you invest in disease control or why sowing racial animosity here or abroad is stupid.

I'm bullish on anxiety and bearish on returns. Keep your money where it is if you are in a conservative fund. But day traders are going to be falling out in this mess at least this week.


EDIT: The Nikkei and tomorrow's futures do not really make one feel confident though.

Is this Peak George Will?

So, this column makes me feel a little bit like I'm stuck in an absurdist sketch.

GW: When some people are living hand to mouth, we all do better.

VS: Well, except those living hand-to-mouth.

GW: But they get a raise when they shop at Walmart!

VS: With food stamps, that they hand over to employees who also qualify for food stamps.

GW: Low wages lower prices for all consumers.

VS: But wages obviously can go so low that one can't buy anything at all, no matter how cheap.

Minimum Wage: The Huey Lewis Rebuttal

I've started blog posts a handful of times this week regarding things Republicans are saying about the minimum wage versus things that are, well, so. I keep jettisoning those posts because it's intricate, and repeats things I've said in my "Know Your Class War" posts anyway.  So when FL Gov. Rick Scott indicates that wages are set by the private sector (which as a businessman, he knows nothing about, hmm?), or WI Gov. Scott Walker indicates he doesn't know what the minimum wage is for (and how low should it be set, dear--room and board? There's a name for that set-up) they get my hollow, jaded laughter. Sure, NJ Gov. Christie is tired of hearing about the minimum wage; he knows what the Republican governors whose races he's supporting have said on the record about it--and it's kind of not-so-good.

But even in campaigns for other state positions, GOP candidates have said some interesting things--like minimum wage jobs aren't "real jobs".  If you get out of your comfy bed, put on some dress-code duds--especially if it's a uniform, and punch a time clock to do something you're scheduled to do, that sounds like a real job to me. The idea that the realness of a job is based on what it pays and not on the employee being a real person with expenses and basic needs, is a big part of the problem. Sure, maybe parents might prefer their kids get better jobs than minimum wage ones, but if minimum wage jobs are what they can get, maybe they'd like it to be enough to actually live on--to say nothing of what minimum wage earners' kids might feel about their household security.

Sure, people take jobs that offer lower wages than they can live on--half a loaf is better than none, right? They are basically taking what they are given because they are working for a living.

Labor Day: America, the Overworked

The face of this Labor Day, for me, is Maria Fernandes, who died at the age of 32, in her car, overcome by fumes from her running car and spilled gasoline inside of that car, while she was trying to catch some sleep between the shifts of her four low-paying jobs. Four. Part-time. Low-paying. Jobs. How in the hell can four jobs be so crappy in pay and hours, that one can or even has to fit all four into their schedule?

Well, the Star Ledger story does explain:

New Jersey has tens of thousands of people working multiple jobs, said Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

"These are are folks who would like to work full-time but they can't find the jobs," Van Horn said. "They wind up in these circumstances in which they are exhausted. More commonly it creates just an enormous amount of stress," he said.

Many people have been forced to work two or three part time jobs after losing a full-time position in the recession of 2008.

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 7.5 million people nationwide are working more than one job, Van Horn said, and those jobs still leave people with less income than their full-time work.

But this isn't just a New Jersey story. Millenials are liable to start out in low-paying service jobs and work at many jobs over a lifetime, and our economy has, since my generation (X) wandered out into the McJob landscape, mainly offered increasingly crappy pay, depressingly shabbier benefits, and it even looks like retirement has become a thing of the past for many older Americans--a past they didn't get to know.

Know Your Class War: Working for...A Living?

Information via: National Coalition for the Homeless.  Graphic via   OWS Posters.

Just as a continuation on Wednesday's piece, activist/employees continue to fight within their organization for better wages. Those who can may want to use direct action to stand with them. Otherwise, one can consider boycotting Walmart ( as a resident of a densely built-up urban area, I can and have been avoiding Walmart, even though there's one across the street from me, with ease, but I understand for some areas, Walmart has become something like the "only game in town", making avoiding patronizing them challenging). Apparently people boycott McDonald's all the time for all kinds of reasons (I just despise fast food for all the things so, there you go), but may be sensitive to feedback.  These aren't the only two major corps that pay minimal wages and have crappy attitudes regarding their workers--you may have noticed that there is an ongoing "War on Thanksgiving".  You can boycott doing any shopping on Thanksgiving, or for that matter, not participate in the gross consumer frenzy Black Friday has become.

Also we can contact our elected officials to show our support for a living wage (via petitions if you must, because clicktivism is a thing or use this widget to send them a more personalized statement), and make sure we work to elect people who will do just that.

If people are trying to work for a living, and not making it, maybe we can all work for a living wage. (I know that sounds awkward. I am not a great sloganeer.)

Know Your Class War: The Pay Gap Widest since 1928

Here's the scoop:

The income gap between the richest 1 percent and the rest of America last year reached the widest point since the Roaring Twenties. 

The top 1 percent of U.S. earners collected 19.3 percent of household income in 2012, their largest share since 1928. And the share held by the top 10 percent of earners last year reached a record 48.2 percent. 

U.S. income inequality has been growing for almost three decades. But it grew again last year, according to an analysis of IRS figures dating to 1913 by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, the Paris School of Economics and Oxford University. 

 Now, before I saunter off declaiming "And you know how the '20's ended," or something like that...well, we had a recession in 2008.The article points out that the wealthy were hard hit by the recession, but you know what? The income gap still got wider. The well-off got a recovery, the less well-off got crappy jobs with suppressed wages. 

I humbly submit that all this has to do with the rents being too high and the wages being too low, but I feel like a broken record, so I'll just stop, already.

A Labor Day Message from Robert Reich

Sounds good to me.  Sign on regarding decent wages here.  (And nevermind the blather of people who say raising wages kill jobs--it ain't necessarily so.)