brainiac conspiracy

Breaking: One Awful, Horribly Run Company to Buy Another

We used to have antitrust laws in this country. I wonder whatever happened to them.

---Baron V

Absentee Landlords

They have a reputation---richly earned, one suspects---for being greedy bastards who don't give a shit about the welfare of their tenants as long as the rent checks arrive on time, and who won't make any capital improvements to their properties until the government forces them do it. I don't know how well our next generation of absentee landlords will fare, but given how efficiently they managed their investments in the last decade, I am guessing the odds are good we'll be seeing a big uptick in rental-home evictions by the end of this one. You heard it here first!

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Barack Obama:

Repeating points made in the AFJ’s recent report on the federal judiciary’s excess of former corporate lawyers, Warren noted that 71 percent of Obama [judicial] nominees’ prior experience was chiefly defending corporations. Just 3.6 percent of Obama’s nominees, according to the report, have previously worked mainly for public interest organizations.

I just don't get it---this attitude that so many of the technocrats in our government have that the private sector is where you find the real experts on virtually any subject when they're the same exact people who steal our wages, bust our unions, keep millions of us laboring in a permanent state of poverty, and whose workplace abuses are defended in court by some of our most awful human beings. What terrible thing could we ever have done to deserve such incompetent leadership?

---Baron V

What They Saved

It's amazing what all that quantitative easing can do:

British bank Barclays will pay up to 2.4 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) in bonuses to staff for 2013, Sky News said, a year when it asked shareholders for nearly 6 billion pounds to bolster capital, and an 11 percent rise from 2012.

Barclays will release pay details alongside annual results on Tuesday, and Sky said it will pay between 2.3 billion pounds and 2.4 billion pounds in incentive awards.

Meanwhile, incentive awards. Anything but prison, I guess.

---Baron V

Got an Easy Answer For That

No.

Under the rules our leaders currently abide, the game is over and the oligarchs have won. The only way to change future outcomes is to change the rules of the game. I'm not sure how to best effect these changes, but mass mobilizations and general strikes might be a good place to start.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Eric Garcetti.

Another day, another fake progressive. Whoodathunkit.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Persons

The General Motors persons.

To be fair, Mary Barra broke a huge glass ceiling when GM's board---which has traditionally made safe, predictable picks when choosing new leadership---appointed her to run the company, and they deserve a lot of credit for that. But come on already, she's paid her dues at the company, so pay her accordingly.

---Baron V

And Another Thing

Elaborating on the previous post, you can't stake a claim for progressive activist government and simultaneously push for policy that will drive down wages, weaken the power of labor, hasten the demise of the environment, make capital controls impossible to impose on banks, extort billions from consumers in the form of higher prices, and undermine the principles of democratic self-government. But that's exactly---ahem---what the President is doing!

---Baron V

Public-Private Partnerships

It's worth recalling that they were originally a concept that came out of conservative think tanks in the '70s. And as with most every conservative idea, it was a bad idea that overpromised and underdelivered. Or at least, for the publics. For the privates, hey, it's easy money, which is exactly the purpose of these grift schemes. So why is our liberal Democratic President promoting bad Republican ideas?

---Baron V

Call it Theft

It's all well and good for those of us in the liberal wonkosphere to talk about income inequality as a failed neoliberal policy experiment, and while it's undoubtedly true, it's a lousy way to make the case to the general public. It's a fault too many of us on the left have, i.e., that if we discuss causes and effects using rational discourse, voters will behave rationally and vote in their own best interests. Unfortunately, our actual lived experience shows that this simply isn't the case; that as many people---if not many more!---vote with their emotions as with their intellect. Team Republican understands this a lot better than our side does, and that's usually how they win elections. That's how they ended up with the crazy Congress: Because they gauged---quite accurately---the national mood at the time, and they channeled the anger and rage that people were feeling over the banks and the bailouts, and the fear and despair over losing their jobs, into voting irrationally against their own best interests. I'm not saying that our side needs to adopt their strategy, i.e., lying to voters, but we could learn something from their tactics. So instead of using antiseptic language like "income inequality" or "neoliberal economics," we should consider making arguments that appeal to people's hearts, not their heads. How to proceed? Try this:

1. We need to raise the minimum wage to retrieve the billions of dollars your employers steal from you each year;
2. No one should go hungry or homeless in the wealthiest nation on the planet, and that's why a job should be a right, not a privilege;
3. Fifteen grand a year is not enough to live on, and that's why we need to increase Social Security;
4. Crime is crime, no matter who commits it, and that's why crooked banks need to be shut down, and the homes they stole returned to their rightful owners;
5. Education should also be a right, and that's why public education should be free from pre-K to grad school;
6. We have the wherewithal to accomplish all of these things. We simply need to revise the tax code so everyone is subject to progressive taxation, not just middle-class Americans.

Yes, I know that these are all "populist" arguments, and that only Republicans are ever allowed to make populist arguments in official Washington, but our side really should give it a whack sometime. A lot of people in this country are still pissed off and angry about the damage that banksterism and crony capitalism has inflicted on them. We just need to give them some reasons to vote for us.

---Baron V

Nothing Happens by Accident

Well, okay, some things do happen that way, but our chronically high unemployment rate is no accident. It's happening because it is in the economic best interest of America's job creators. When millions of people are desperate for work---any kind of work!---and there's only one job opening for every three job applicants, people will work for any wage they can get, which drives down labor costs and increases profitability. There are, and have always been, policy options available to level the playing field, but the people who govern us have concluded in their wisdom that they have done all that they can and that the invisible hand will take care of the rest. Yeah, I know that some members of Team Democrat make noises about raising the minimum wage, but they had ample opportunity to do it four years ago, and they didn't even discuss it. So, collective failure.

---Baron V

People Can't Spend Money If They Don't Have Money To Spend

In a way, it's not a bad thing, inasmuch as people are relying less on credit cards and are spending on a cash-and-carry basis, living within their means, etc. But the fact remains that many millions of Americans have less disposable income than they had, say, five years ago, so if you're expecting consumer spending to drive economic growth, it ain't gonna happen. Rich people can only buy so many Bentleys and McMansions. After that, it's up to everyone else to buy stuff, but everyone else is tapped out!

---Baron V

The Spirit of Entrepreneurism

Elaborating on the previous post, clearly it's time for another round of tax cuts:

OSHA found that inadequate training was a major factor in the death of Samir Storey, a 39-year-old father of three who suffocated from hydrogen sulfide gas on his first day on the job at Resolute Forest Products, one of the largest paper and pulp producers in North America.

Every nine months, Resolute shuts down part of its South Carolina paper mill for several days to clean a 78.5-foot-tall tank used in the power and utilities area of the plant. In January 2013, Resolute hired a subcontractor, Industrial Piping, to do the job. But Industrial Piping didn’t have its workers do the job. Instead, it hired temp laborers from Tradesmen International.

Storey was one of those temps, and he was inside the tank suspended from a harness at about 1:21 a.m. when a toxic vapor seeped into the tank. OSHA found that Resolute failed to inform Industrial Piping of proper procedures and that Industrial Piping had failed to effectively train the temp workers in using respirators and working in confined spaces. Jermel Storey, Samir’s cousin, who was also working at the plant that night, said at a press conference after the accident that the training was cursory and that the instructor had given them the answers to the safety test.

Inadequate training also played a part in the death of Daniel Collazo Torres, 28, in December 2011. He was killed at Nestlé-owned Tribe Mediterranean Foods in Massachusetts when he got caught in a hummus grinder he was cleaning and was crushed between two large rotating screws. OSHA found that Tribe had not trained Collazo and other temps how to properly shut down the machines [..]

In Massachusetts, temp workers at fish processing plants said they were assigned the messy job of gutting fish, but none were given safety glasses to keep fish blood out of their eyes. Some temp workers in Chicago said they were brought to a work site in T-shirts, only to find that they would be working in a refrigerated warehouse. Sometimes companies provide safety gear, but the temp agency deducts the cost from the employees’ paychecks---as OSHA found when it investigated a large waste management company after a Houston temp worker died from heat stroke.

Travis Kidd, 24, died when he was run over by a trash compactor while directing traffic at a county landfill in North Carolina in 2010. OSHA inspectors found that, unlike direct employees, Kidd, a temp from WorkForce Staffing, was not provided with steel-toe boots for the slippery conditions or a phone to communicate with the drivers.

“Landfill management felt they were not responsible to require or provide Mr. Kidd with the same PPE [personal protective equipment] because they considered him a temporary employee and not their employee,” OSHA wrote in its report.

We should remind ourselves that none of this would be happening were there not a lot of money to be made from it, and the only reason it is happening is because lawmakers permit to happen. It is, in other words, one of the many abject policy failures that define our Republic in its decaying last days.

---Baron V

Hale Fellows II

Continuing from the previous post, another potential reason why our political leadership has gone soft on financial miscreants is that the protocols of official Washington dictate that our leaders construct enormous monuments to their own vanity once their term of office is up, and monuments cost money, and financiers have lots of it. Not insinuating there's any quid pro quo in this particular case, but if you need to shake out a half a billion dollars from rich people to build your library, you won't make the job easier by threatening to put rich people in prison. Just a thought.

---Baron V

Hale Fellows Well Met

There are plenty of conceivable reasons why no bank executives have been held to account for their firms' fraudulent financial dealings since the Great Recession began: Lack of resources or manpower might be one, and another could be the fear that criminal prosecutions would run the risk of exposing government's complicity in the financial crisis, i.e., by embracing a deregulatory enforcement regime which, along with deflationary monetary policy, incentivized criminal behavior, liars' loans, etc. And sure, there is also the "revolving door" syndrome to consider. But I think the real reason we haven't seen any high-profile prosecutions is because the people who've been running the show in Washington for the last five years just don't have a prosecutorial instinct. It's not their style, in other words. Rather than pointing fingers at guilty parties and calling them out for shaming, they prefer to invite all the "stakeholders to the table" to see if they can work things out amenably behind closed doors---after which, it's time to look forward, not back. It's an utterly inadequate form of leadership, given the era in which we live, and one that virtually ensures another, bigger, financial crisis down the road. But it's the form of leadership we are stuck with for the next three years. One suspects that history will not be terribly forgiving of it.

---Baron V

The Private Sector Can Do Things More Efficiently

It's a shibboleth amongst the members of our neoliberal governing elites, that somehow the people who run our private-sector economy possess some sort of hidden occult knowledge that's unavailable to government employees, and that allows them to do things faster, quicker, cheaper. If our political leaders had spent even ten minutes actually working in the private sector, of course, they'd realize that it's just self-serving bullshit that our job creators use as an excuse to get their hands on our money. Maybe we should think about letting Mr. Market create wealth on his own, and hire government workers to perform government work. Just a thought!

---Baron V

Speeches About Income Inequality Are Groovy

Stocking the federal bureaucracy with people who profit from it, however, less so:

The Obama Administration is close to nominating Sharon Bowen, a Wall Street securities lawyer, to become one of five commissioners on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to multiple sources who have learned of the nomination. Bowen would replace outgoing commissioner Bart Chilton, an outspoken voice for tougher regulation; he was instrumental in beating back bank lobbyists and writing unexpectedly robust rules for derivatives and restricting proprietary trading. But advocates for tighter rules on Wall Street, who are working on the nomination and requested anonymity, expressed concern to The New Republic that Bowen, a partner in the New York office of Latham & Watkins, which has represented several big financial institutions, has little background in derivatives, commodities or agricultural markets---the core subjects of CFTC regulation---and no track record for reform.

This is why, among other reasons, it's difficult to take the administration seriously on its newfound populism. I mean, if you really want to strengthen the regulatory regime, how about appointing someone with experience in, like, regulating instead of someone whose experience---most likely---is in finding legal loopholes to dodge regulations? That's what corporate attorneys get paid to do, you know! Sure, this could be an "It takes a thief" appointment, but it also highlights the recurring tendency of this administration to rely on corporate persons to solve problems that corporate persons created.

(Via.)

---Baron V

We Are The Greatest Democracy in The World

Except, of course, when we aren't:

The most important issue for the majority of members . . . is the proposal by the U.S. to apply ISDS to Investment Agreements and Investment Authorizations. The United States, as in previous rounds, has shown no flexibility on its proposal, being one of the most significant barriers to closing the chapter, since under the concept of Investment Agreement nearly all significant contracts that can be made between a State and a foreign investor are included.

Ir covers important concessions including mining, administrative or special operating contracts for hydrocarbon exploration, public works concessions (roads, highways, bridges, infrastructure, etc.), and it would override the choice of forum provisions in these contracts . . .

Only the U.S. and Japan support the proposal, while the rest expressed their objections to the proposal and have tried to explore ideas to refine the concept and make some reservations about the choice of forum in contracts, but the U.S. has shown no signs of flexibility.

I am guessing you can figure out where this is going, but for those not keeping score at home, we are essentially trying to bully a bunch of smaller countries to effectively immunize U.S.-based multinationals from the laws of nations that host them. What it means is, if some democratically elected foreign government---like, say, Bolivia---decides to nationalize its mining operations and kicks out the Acme-American Mining Company that's been extracting billions of dollars of wealth out of the country, Acme-American Mining Company would have the right to sue Bolivia for damages before an offshore arbitration panel consisting of corporate lawyers, one of whom might happen to be an employee of Acme-American Mining Company. The arbitration hearing would occur in secret, and there would be no right of appeal. If this sounds like an outrage, well, guess what? It's already happening because this provision is embedded in a lot of existing "free-trade" agreements. It's depressing to think that a "liberal" Democratic administration is playing hardball for a provision that is so morally repugnant, or that we would need to rely on the opposition of countries like Mexico and Peru to preserve our own national sovereignty. But it appears as though our little brown brothers aren't sold on the idea, and if we're lucky, they'll kill it. But it won't be easy since Uncle Sam generally doesn't take "no" for an answer.

---Baron V

Missed Opportunities

It's hard to document all of the things that needed to be done---and weren't---in the administration's first hundred days or so, but one thing I recall the zanies getting particularly excised about early in the game was the fear (unfounded, naturally) that the new President would suggest reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. I seem to recall Beck or Rush or someone of that ilk prattling on at length about it the day after Barack Obama was inaugurated. They were genuinely afraid that he was throw a wrench into the noise machine! Of course that didn't happen---like most good ideas, it wasn't even discussed---and neither did antitrust legislation that might have enabled greater diversity of media ownership. Too bad, really, because while no one was looking, our public airwaves have become effectively monopolized over the last couple of decades, and there's only one voice the monopolists want you to hear.

---Baron V

Speeches About Income Inequality Are Inspiring

But needless to say, you can't eat a speech:

Almost a third of the country’s half-million bank tellers rely on some form of public assistance to get by, according to a report due out Wednesday.

Researchers say taxpayers are doling out nearly $900 million a year to supplement the wages of bank tellers, which amounts to a public subsidy for multibillion-dollar banks. The workers collect $105 million in food stamps, $250 million through the earned income tax credit and $534 million by way of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to the University of California at Berkeley’s Labor Center [...]

Profits at the nation’s banks topped $141.3 billion last year, with the median chief executive pay hovering around $552,000, according to SNL Financial. In contrast, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics pegs the median annual income of a bank teller at $24,100, or $11.59 an hour.

None of this needs to be happening, and if Team Democrat had any intestinal fortitude and the ability to interpret the meaning of the 2008 election, it wouldn't be happening now. One didn't need to be a spiritual adept five years ago to have realized that the minimum wage needed a hefty increase, and that the tax code would need to be substantially revised so that our rentier class would need to give back many of the billions of dollars they had extracted from us over the years. What we got instead, of course, was a brand of neoliberal corporatism that wants to have it both ways, i.e., a thriving middle class and a thriving billionaire class coexisting side by side. But as we know, you can't have it both ways, so instead we spend billions to make monthly asset purchases from them, and hundreds of millions more to feed their employees. This is not a sustainable model of governance.

---Baron V