Unionized China

Hooray! Go, unions, go! Stand up for yourselves! You can do it! Stick it too the man!

Companies brace for end of cheap made-in-China era

Costlier labor, currency are ending cheap made-in-China era; manufacturers struggle to adapt

SHANGHAI (AP) -- Factory workers demanding better wages and working conditions are hastening the eventual end of an era of cheap costs that helped make southern coastal China the world's factory floor.

A series of strikes over the past two months have been a rude wakeup call for the many foreign companies that depend on China's low costs to compete overseas, from makers of Christmas trees to manufacturers of gadgets like the iPad.

Where once low-tech factories and scant wages were welcomed in a China eager to escape isolation and poverty, workers are now demanding a bigger share of the profits. The government, meanwhile, is pushing foreign companies to make investments in areas it believes will create greater wealth for China, like high technology.

Many companies are striving to stay profitable by shifting factories to cheaper areas farther inland or to other developing countries, and a few are even resuming production in the West.

You know, that last part might help the U.S. economy, too. Bonus!

Colorado by Night

Colorado Springs has a "great" idea on how to save money. First, they've canceled evening and weekend bus service. Then, they removed every third streetlight to save on energy costs. Let's think this through... Since you can't take the bus as easily, more people end up in cars and on foot at night, in the dark. Oh, well, at least that will help the local hospitals see an upswing in business during these trying economic times.

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Targeting the actual criminals for once.

For many years, the admitted focus of IRS audits was on people who made less than a certain amount of income. According to some news program I saw a couple years ago, a larger percentage of "random" audits was on people who reported income below the poverty line. The idea being that if you were reporting less than a certain amount of money, you must be lying.

Since we all "know" that the rich lie, cheat and steal their way to riches, it felt like a misallocation of IRS resources to be searching for criminals and tax evaders amongst the poor. (Forgive me if I'm confusing tropes for reality, it's not like I actually know any rich people. All I know about the rich I learned from TV and movies.)

You can imagine how happy it made me to read the following bit of news, concerning a new special unit within the IRS:

"We will take a unified look at the entire web of business entities controlled by a high-wealth individual," Shulman said. "At least initially, we will be looking at individuals with tens of millions of dollars of assets or income."

"The high-wealth unit will focus on trusts, real estate investments, privately held companies and other business entities controlled by rich individuals. While use of sophisticated legal structures are at times legal, there are other instances where they 'mask aggressive tax strategies,' he said."

"You cannot assess compliance among the nation's wealthiest individuals by looking only at their 1040s [tax returns]," Shulman added. "Our goal is to better understand the entire economic picture of the enterprise controlled by the wealthy individual and to assess the tax compliance of that overall enterprise."

It's about damn time. Anecdotal common sense suggests the rich cheat the government at a higher percentage than the poor. Even if that widely-held belief doesn't prove true, the amount of income the government stands to gain by making one rich man pay his fair share is a lot more than the amount some poor sod might be hiding. So if you can only afford to perform N audits this year, why not put the majority of them on the rich? From the money that shakes loose, you'll be able to perform N + X audits next year. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Congressman proposes rate hike on unsafe sex

The article is too short to even be worth linking to, but I'll do so just for completeness.
In summation - some politician proposes we can fix health care by raising the insurance rates on anyone who doesn't use a condom.

Just think about that. Joe Bloe is buried under some big debt or health bill, and he's filling out some paperwork. The paperwork asks if he uses condoms, and as it turns out, they chafe his little joey, or maybe his girlfriend of 16-months is on the pill. If he admits he doesn't use rubbers, he'll have to pay more money every month. Joe Blow is gonna lie.

It's not gonna save the nation money by making some unrepentant paraphile pay an extra $20 a month on insurance. It's not gonna make him any safer, either, because when he's hoping to get lucky he's not thinking about insurance paperwork. All such a law would do is make Joe Bloe commit fraud, and never think twice about it.

And these conservative idiots in congress worry that videogames desensitize us.

Leveling Up

WHO upgrades the Swine Flu to a Level 6 Pandemic amid reports that the UK is inaccurately reporting the number of British cases. Panicked crowds in Argentina stone a bus that was rumored to have an infected person aboard. A doctor in Texas says swine flu cases number at least ten times the official numbers. Right Wing blogs say that the Level 6 status will trigger the Force Majeure clauses of business contracts and put the final nail in the ecoffinomy.

WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan made the announcement Thursday after the U.N. agency held an emergency meeting with flu experts. Chan said she was moving to phase 6 — the agency's highest alert level — which means a pandemic, or global epidemic, is under way.

"The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century," Chan told reporters. "The virus is now unstoppable."

Emphasis mine. Man, what an unfortunate sentence. Somebody's losing a job over that one. Or, we're all gonna die. I'm not sure which.

I was going to rant on conspiratorially, but plenty of other folks have already done it for me. Take a moment to read this exchange at yahoo answers, where it's all a plot to sell shares in Tamiflu or prevent us from going to the movies. They even mention zombies. Or this website alleging the Flu is being spread intentionally to justify the NWO's take-over. Other folks have already made the bizarre connections I was going to. Mexico is kinda close to Dulce Base, so I'm sure someone's suggested the Intergalactic Warfare angle already.

Reading over those links and pages, I'm left with just one angle that hasn't been proposed: "Swine Flu Eats Shoe Walrus Polka Orthagonal!" I'm relatively confident no one's said that yet. But I wouldn't bet money on it though, since I included a verb.

Man, I liked the good old days, when the alarming world-shattering thing that made the cover of every newspaper, magazine, and website was just the freakin' Octomom.

Worst bailout proposal yet

As bad as the idea of giving more money to corporate robber barons is, there's still the possibility for these bailouts to get even worse.

"As recently as last week, Democrats in Congress were discussing the wrinkles of a proposed bailout for struggling newspapers like the Times.
...

Business Week suggested wiping out newspapers' debt or subsidizing news digitization through a government-run purchasing program backed by Amazon's Kindle."

As if the major media weren't already a tool of the power elite, now we're talking about having the government pay off their debts. You think maybe they'd be unlikely to ever criticize said government again? Why not establish a new cabinet-level position called the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, while we're at it?

Never mind, I should quit my bitching. I'm 8 years late and several trillion dollars short. The major media is already beholden to the evil secret masters of the corporate state. More bribes from (or for) the power structure won't have an impact on their non-existent journalistic integrity. Instead, it's obvious that there's only one real problem with this plan, or at least only one real problem that John Q. Public will give a rat's ass about:

"But really, would you want to be forced into buying a Kindle just so a poorly managed daily paper on the other side of the country can continue to pay it's gossip columnist and Ann Coulter's syndication fee? I don't."

Perish the thought. That would be a real freakin' tragedy.

I'm not to worried about it, though. The Federal Government couldn't manage to get the majority of us to redeem coupons for free converter boxes on our all-important television sets by the time the first deadline for that came and went. How the hell does anyone think they can motivate us to all buy some kinda fancified readin' doohickey?


(quotes from Raw)

AIG's 9 Million Dollar Bribe to Congress

Dear Congress,

Wake the fuck up, and quit being a Two-Bit Whore. They gave you $9 Mill, and that seems pretty good, till you realize that it's divided between several hundred congressmen. Worse, you gave them $170 Bill in exchange, of which at least $165 Mill went straight to the slimy bastards' pockets. Even if you're a dumbass capitalist pig-fucker, you should realize that they only paid for a hand job, yet you let them fuck you every which way they wanted. Repeatedly. Quit givin' away the real prize for cheap, or your Pimps (the American people) are gonna slap you silly, bitches.

Larry Lessig and Change Congress asked me to pass the following message on:

As you probably know, insurance giant AIG sparked national outrage by paying $165 million in executive bonuses after receiving a $170 billion taxpayer bailout.

What fewer people know is that AIG gave more than $9 million in campaign contributions to Congress. AIG split its money between those in both parties who could help them the most.

Will just recouping $165 million solve the AIG problem? No. We need to solve the underlying problem of special interests investing millions of dollars in political campaigns to reap billions in rewards from taxpayers.

You joined the Change Congress donor strike--now, can you help bring others into this critical movement for reform?

If you're on Facebook, can you "share" my Huffington Post piece from today about this issue? Here's a link: http://twurl.nl/a0l8ik

If you're on Twitter, can you Tweet something like, "Want to help solve the AIG problem? Check this out: http://twurl.nl/ze0t32 #aig #change #reform #congress"

Or, you can just email your friends and ask them to join the strike at www.Change-Congress.org

Now's the time to push hard for this reform. In the midst of national debates over how to regulate Wall Street, members of Congress should not be begging special interests for $2,400 checks.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Apparently the theory has been around since the 60s, but I'd never heard of it before today. The Wizard of Oz may be a parable about the economic depression of the late 1800s, and the gold and silver standards.

Littlefield's theory has been hotly debated. He believed the characters could represent the personalities and themes of the late 1800s,with Dorothy embodying the everyman American spirit.

...

"The Tin Woodman represents the industrial worker, the Scarecrow is the farmer and the Cowardly Lion is William Jennings Bryan."

Bryan was a Democratic presidential candidate who supported the silver cause. But he failed to win votes from eastern workers and lost the 1896 election. In the same way, the Lion's claws are nearly blunted by the Woodman's metallic shell.

The Wicked Witch of the West is associated with a variety of controversial personalities, chief among them the industrialist Mark Hanna, campaign manager to President William McKinley.

In this scenario, the yellow brick road symbolises the gold standard, the Emerald City becomes Washington DC and the Great Wizard characterises the president - and he is exposed as being less than truthful.

I thought the Emerald City was Seattle. Damned if I'm moving to The Other Washington! I hear their munchkins have cooties.

AWPC: Positive

Another round of massive lay-offs at work in this stinking economic crisis/Great Depression 2.

Boss: You're looking extremely positive today, Jake.

Jake: I am. In fact I figure today is the perfect day to ask for a raise. They're obviously freeing up a lot of resources.