brainiac conspiracy

Demystifying

Our time in a single sentence: A handful of people in this country have too much money, and tens of millions of people have no money at all. You can probably run a civil society this way, but to keep the unwashed masses fearful and meek, it will probably have to be at the point of a gun. We're getting there!

---Baron V

Unpaid Internships Are Also Frequently Illegal

If only there was an agency of government that could curb the most rampant abuses.

---Baron V

It Isn't Only Me Who Notices This

But it really does seem as though the decline of the Republic, while noticeable for some time, has accelerated rapidly over the last decade or so. In my neighborhood in the Marxist dystopia, there has been an explosion in the number of homeless street people over the last five years, and their numbers seem to grow every week. Since I live in a community filled with million-dollar homes, I can only imagine what conditions must be like in poorer parts of the city. Why didn't we do something about this when we had the opportunity?

---Baron V

Got an Easy Answer For That

Odds of an impeachment vote approach 100 percent.

Too bad we didn't make better use of those supermajorities when we had them. Oh well!

---Baron V

Homeless People

Don't know what your experience has been, but here in the Marxist dystopia, there seems to have been a considerable increase in their number---and I'm not talking about the last five years, I'm talking about the last six months. Kinda surprising since, you know, the recession is over and we're on the road to recovery and all that . . . and bear in mind, the value of a typical house in my neighborhood is north of a million, so it's not like we're a magnet for the poor and indigent. Then again, maybe the recession isn't really over, or is just barely coming to an end, and there has been no meaningful economic recovery. It certainly seems that way with most people I know.

---Baron V

It Gets Old

Having to write (essentially) the same post every day, but it bears repeating until the people who govern us come to the realization that for a variety of reasons, there are going to be more working-age people than there are jobs for them to perform for as far into the future as anyone can see:

And this is why we need to keep talking about a massive government make-work program or a guaranteed annual income unless we're simply going to say we're powerless to do anything about this, and we just have to accustom ourselves to chronic high unemployment and an epidemic of poverty in America. To me, that's utterly unacceptable, and any policymaker who's accepting of the status quo is worthy of nothing but derision and scorn.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Persons

Team Democrat:

“This bill proves that by working across party lines we can reform programs to save taxpayer money while strengthening efforts to grow our economy,” said Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat. The Senate is expected to pass the legislation later in the week [...]

Despite resistance from some corners of the Democratic Party, the Farm Bill cruised through the House and will likely face very little resistance in the Senate. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., both voted in favor of the legislation, along with 87 other Democrats.

Well, now we know that punishing the poor for the sins of the banks is a sign of bipartisanship in official Washington. Thanks for reminding me why I decided to leave the party.

---Baron V

So Many Golden Opportunities

And so many opportunities squandered.

You'd almost think they were trying on purpose to discredit liberalism for all time, these people.

But that's all from this week's edition of Evil or Stupid?

---Baron V

Call it Theft II

Following up on the previous post, more populist unseriousness:

7. Two dollars and 13 cents an hour was not enough to live on in the 1980s, let alone now, and we can't expect to remain a developed nation if are paying our workers Third World wages. Just a thought!

---Baron

Unemployment Insurance Costs Too Much

If only there was a way we could find the money.

Now I'm not saying that this particular policy approach is some panacea that would cure what ails us, or that it wouldn't produce some unpleasant side-effects, e.g., decreased demand, capital flight, etc. But the point is, we used to have a similar tax code in this country and it worked just fine, so there's no reason, given certain economic conditions and capital controls, that it couldn't work again. More to the point, there are policy options available to the people who govern us that could ameliorate the suffering of the poor and unemployed, and they are not even being discussed, let alone debated. Blaming one party or the other for this sad state of affairs may gird the loins of the faithful, but it's not an honest assessment.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Matt Yglesias.

Because, you know, it's not dignified to allow the unwashed rabble to share the same dining room with people like me. They should be content with the Happy Meals they more richly deserve.

---Baron V

Too Bad About Those Unemployment Benefits

If only there was a way to find some money in the budget:

J. Walter Thompson, Atlanta, Ga., is being awarded an undefinitized contract action in an amount not-to-exceed $170,000,000 for an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity bridge contract under a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (M00264-08-D-001). Task order 0001 in the amount of $77,433,499 will be awarded concurrently. The bridge contract is for the Marine Corps Recruiting Command's (MCRC) Advertising and Recruitment Services Program's requirement. This contract provides for services to furnish the supplies and services customarily provided by a full-service advertising agency in order to support recruiting programs for MCRC at Quantico, Va., and other locations throughout the United States.

---Baron V

Christmas in America

Greatest. Nation. Ever:

At the San Antonio Food Bank, where she comes for help with her resume and to register for its work force program, Acosta, 36, a mother of four children aged 14 and under, described how being laid off from her job as a healthcare administrator seven months ago had caused an immediate family crisis. 

An $800 medical bill, no longer covered by insurance, meant Acosta quickly fell behind on the $1,200 monthly payments on her house, then the car. She lost both, and was forced to move in with her sister in Edinburg, Texas, 200 miles south, until her unemployment benefit came through. The strain of having her income slashed has taken its toll [...]

In October, the family's Snap benefits were $113 a month, a sum that lasts them about a week and a half. A letter Acosta received warned her of a Snap cut of $11 for each family member in November. Acosta has learned to be creative: with the children's meals, with juggling bills, with trying to keep the kids from noticing the dwindling food on the table and in their schoolbags as her job search drags on. 

“They are always starving, the boys have a very high metabolism---I don't know where the food goes. I used to buy Lunchables [lunch packs] for snacks, now I get a big pack of ham and cheese and we make our own. They say: 'Why can't we have Lunchables?' I tell them, 'This way they get more.' I buy larger packs of cheaper meat and stretch it out. We buy the cheaper brands of cereal now.

“If I don't have enough food, the older ones are harder to please. The younger ones will have a tuna sandwich or Roma noodles, around 19 cents a pack. The older ones say 'This isn't even a meal.' I do my best to make sure they don't see a difference. I don't want it to affect them as much as it's affecting me.”

Sure was worth making that sequester deal instead of minting the coin,  now, wasn't it.  Yeah, I know it would have generated a great deal of controvery---maybe even an impeachment vote?---if the White House had chosen the latter policy option. But at least not so many poor people would need to be begging for food at soup kitchens, and Christmas would be a little brighter for millions of hungry Americans. Of course, if they'd done what needed doing four years ago when they had the votes, the ungrateful little moochers could pay for their own food and we wouldn't be having this discussion now.

---Baron V

Housing is a Right

Or it should be, at least. Seriously, we could solve the problem of homelessness tomorrow---if we wanted to---and probably save ourselves a bunch of money in social services if we simply gave homeless people, you know, like, a home. Sure, it won't work for everyone---there will always be some people who prefer to vagabond on the streets---but think of all the people who would take advantage of such a program. There are probably many thousands of them!

But in the end, if all comes down to our priorities and our ethics: whether we want to treat the poorest among us with compassion and dignity, or whether we shrug our shoulders, tell them it's their own damn fault, and leave them to die in the cold. We have the resources to fix this. If they can do it in freaking Utah, there's no reason why it can't be done everywhere.

---Baron V

Midday Music Blogging

Because poor people like to go Christmas shopping too, but they can't because, well, they're poor! Think of how much more prosperous we would all be if someone would just give them some money.

---Baron V

Hale Fellows III

Continuing yet again from the previous post, a lot of our fellow Americans are running out of money. If only there were someone in Washington who could raise some more funds for them.

---Baron V

Welcome to Obamaville

Cruel, perhaps, but if it was fair game for Herbert Hoover, it's fair game for Barack.

Reading that piece, snark aside, it's interesting that so many of these homeless people---and this is probably true with homeless people everywhere in America----suffer from some sort of mental illness: Schizophrenia, clinical depression, etc. If only there were a way to get them the medicine they need.

---Baron V

Let Them Eat Happy Meals

Going out on a limb and guessing that maybe someone got pranked here:

The tipping guide post on McDonald's website lists several high-ticket suggestions for givers during the holiday season, including "a gift from your family (or one week's pay), plus a small gift from your child" for an au pair, "one day's pay" for a housekeeper and "cost of one cleaning" for a pool cleaner.

The site also lists suggestions for dog walkers, massage therapists and personal fitness trainers.

In an email, McDonald's Spokesperson Lisa McComb said, "This is content provided by a third-party partner and quotes from one of the best-known etiquette gurus, Emily Post. We continue to review the resource and will ask the vendor to make changes as needed."

Then again, this could just be advice for McDonald's executives, so there's that.

---Baron V

A Job Well Done

It's getting increasingly difficult to say for certain why we bother having elections anymore. I mean, Paul Ryan's team lost a year ago---by five million votes!---yet Team Democrat votes to give us the Ryan budget anyway, enshrining failed austerity policies as the new normal for as far into the future as we can see. Heckuva job! Those million people who are going to lose their unemployment insurance after New Year's will appreciate how hard you fought for them!

On the bright side, Republicans only got 98 percent of what they wanted, so it's a fair compromise.

---Baron V

Speeches About Income Inequality Are Cool

But actual policy aimed at reducing inequality is even cooler. One place to start would be to acknowledge that while America has not yet descended to the level of a Third-World country, there are millions of people in America who live in Third-World conditions and who suffer from Third-World illnesses, and maybe, just maybe, when you're formulating health-care policy, you should bear that fact in mind. It's bad enough that people in the world's richest nation are afflicted by intestinal worms and dengue fever. Whatever medicines or treatments they need should be free to them at the point of delivery. Come to think of it, so should the rest of our health care.

(Via.)

---Baron V