Hanover Direct Mail Order Distribution Center (Virginia) Laying Off 189

Here's another sign of the slowdown in the economy and probably a contributing factor to the Postal Service's latest announced massive losses, from Roanoke.com:

Mail-order distributor Hanover Direct is laying off 189 employees from its Roanoke County distribution center, according to the Virginia Workforce Center website, which lists closures and layoffs.
The layoffs at the 750,000-square-foot center on Hollins Road are effective April 27, according to the website.

Hanover Direct's brands include The Company Store, Domestications, UnderGear, Scandia Home and Silhouettes.

Here is the reaction from the county:

Roanoke County's acting economic development director, Jill Loope, said the county is saddened by the job losses.

"We are working with Hanover Direct on these developments," Loope said. "We'll continue to help the company and their employees through this transition."

It doesn't sound to me like the company needs any help from you there, Ms. Loope. They seem to be able to lay off their employees quite easily on their own.

Potomac Supply (Virginia) Files for Bankruptcy

Looks like we have another housing crash victim. Here is the Northern Neck News with the details:

After announcing its temporary closing two weeks ago, Potomac Supply has now filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Under Chapter 11, Potomac Supply will attempt to reorganize its business structure to pay off creditors and reopen the business. The company filed for bankruptcy last Friday.

“All options are on the table that are afforded by this petition,” said Bill Carden, CEO of Potomac Supply. “Our goals remain to find solutions that will benefit our employees, creditors, community, shareholders and our bank.”

The petition will have to be heard in a bankruptcy court. Any creditors that Potomac Supply may have will be allowed to make a statement in the court and a judge has the final say in approving any reorganizational plan Potomac Supply develops in the Chapter 11 proceedings.

County officials have also been working with Potomac Supply since August in an effort to help the county’s largest employer keep its doors open.

“We are limited in what we can do since it is a private business,” said County Administrator Norm Risavi. “We’ve put them in contact with other organizations that may be able to help.”

Some of those organizations, Risavi said, are the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development and other small business groups.

Risavi said that even though the county cannot provide financial assistance, it does have a stake in the future of Potomac Supply.

“They are a big taxpayer in the county,” Risavi said. “That would have an impact on the county’s resources.”

Irritatingly, I had to do a Google search on the company to find out a little bit more about it (and get the above photo):

Potomac Supply Corporation in Kinsale, VA is a private company categorized under Lumber-Treating. Our records show it was established in 1946 and incorporated in Virginia. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $23,500,000 and employs a staff of approximately 200.

Hmmm...66-year old company that is the largest taxpayer (and probably employer) in its home county. Yet another sad tale of the collapse of small town America.

Yes, Virginia, Our State Fair Has Declared Bankruptcy

image: The Virginia State Fair in better times, circa 2010

You know that times are getting tough when state fairs start to declare bankruptcy:

Many residents of Richmond, Henrico and her surrounding counties have found memories of the State Fair. We remember going when it was located off Laburnum Ave, and most of us can still conjure up the aromas of cotton candy and hot dogs, mixed with the earthy smells emitting from the livestock exhibition buildings.

Today it was announced in the Richmond Times-Dispatch that VASF will be filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. According to President and CEO Curry A. Roberts, this is a one-time financial event, and is a responsible step to take.

Most of the problem is in the repayment of the principal and interest in the organizations' financial portfolio, of which half of the loans have already been repaid since 2007. The drop in the stock market in 2009 was a major factor in creating the financial disparity leading up to the filing today.

Who knew that state fairs were heavily invested in the stock market? Actually, I have to admit I really don't know all that much about state fairs. I haven't attended a fair of any kind since I left my small Illinois hometown for good nearly a quarter-of-a-century ago, although I used to have a lot of fun at the annual local county fair when I was a kid.

In these modern times with most family farms having been bought out by giant agribusinesses, state fairs seem like quaint relics of a bygone era. Looks like soon they will just be gone.

Friday Rant: Yes, Virginia, Our State Will Suffer Most from Defense Spending Cuts

I'm a 20-year resident of the Old Dominion, but I don't expect anyone to play the world's smallest violin for my state upon reading this recent article from Bloomberg.com:

Virginia, Hawaii and Alaska may suffer the most economic harm from defense cuts of as much as $1 trillion during the next decade, a Bloomberg Government study shows.

Those three states are the most dependent on U.S. military spending, the study found. Virginia, home of the Pentagon and the Norfolk naval base, tops the list with 13.9 percent of its gross domestic product derived from defense spending. Hawaii ranks second, at 13.5 percent, and Alaska is third with 10.7 percent. All other states are in single digits, the study showed.

Bloomberg Government examined military spending by state as Congress considers budget cuts that might threaten the economies of states such as Virginia, where the Defense Department spent $56.9 billion in fiscal 2009, the last year for which comprehensive data were available. The spending came in the form of payroll, contracts and grants.

“It is a big-ticket item for Virginia,” said Richard Brown, the state’s secretary of finance. “That would be quite a blow to Virginia if there would be a major hit.”

So where is the bulk of all that cash to Commonwealth going, anyway?

The Defense Department awarded $38.7 billion in contracts in Virginia in 2009, including $5.3 billion to Northrop Grumman Corp. of Falls Church, Virginia, $1.6 billion to Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. of McLean, Virginia, and $1 billion to CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Virginia.

Ah, so that explains all the damn McMansions they seem determined to build on every square foot of undeveloped land around here, or why the upscale Tysons Corner shopping mall is chocked full of the types of overpriced, useless shit people who have too damn much money to spend like to buy. Oh, well, that's the way is goes. Let's get hacking on that defense budget shall we?

Why no, we can't do that or the terrorists will win, or your children will be forced to speak Chinese, or something like that. Or so sayeth Obama's Secretary of Defense:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned of a “hollow force” if a congressional supercommittee fails to produce a 10- year plan that can pass Congress, which would trigger automatic spending cuts. Defense budget cuts might reach $1 trillion in that scenario, which the Pentagon says would hurt national security.

“It’s a ship without sailors,” Panetta said at a Nov. 10 Pentagon hearing. “It’s a brigade without bullets. It’s an air wing without enough trained pilots. It’s a paper tiger.”

Fucking-a, Leon, and it's about goddamned time America stops speeding towards bankruptcy at 200 MPH just to appease you fuckers in the Pentagon. Or perhaps you've never taken in the wisdom of the 16th President of the United States. You know the one...waged a war in which over 600,000 Americans became casualties? Got himself assassinated in the process. Yeah, that guy knew a thing or two about war making. Here's what he he had to say:

“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.” - Abraham Lincoln

And guess what, Leon, that is just as true today as it was when Honest Abe said it more that a century-and-a-half ago...even more so. Yeah, some madman in Russia or China could someday decide to launch the nukes in our direction, but all they would get out of that is atomized, not a drink from the Ohio River. Instead, we ARE committing suicide, just like Lincoln warned. Only it is FINANCIAL suicide and you and your ilk are the ones holding the gun to our collective temple and squeezing the trigger.

If there are any of you out there reading this blog who still maintain event a latent bit of support for Obama, I want you to read and reread scumbag Panetta's quotes above until they sink in. Whether you meant to or not, THAT is what you voted for, not peace and love and hope for all mankind.

And don't say, "but it wasn't Obama who said it," or I swear I take you over my knee and paddle your behind. Obama appointed this fucker. Panetta is now the official spokesweasel for the military-industrial complex. He is mouthing Obama's true policy position of defense war spending at the expense of everything else. Vote for President Hopey-Changey again next year, and THIS is what you'll be voting for, only without the excuse that you had no idea what Obama was going to do once he got into office.

So don't cry for us here in Virginia. Even though my state stands to suffer the most from proposed cuts in defense spending, I still have one thing to say to soulless cretin Leon and his perverted array of push button generals entrenched in that five-sided monstrosity on the banks of the Potomac River: Bring 'em on!

It's Election Day in Virginia--and Once Again I'm Not Voting

image: the fall colors are in full bloom on the byways of Northern Virgina

One of the drawbacks of living in the Old Dominion is that for some reason we insist upon having our state and local elections in odd numbered years--which means that there is not an autumn that goes by when thousands of ugly campaign signs for various candidates for office don't spread like an invasive plant species upon every inch of grassy roadway median around here. Even this year in which the highest office up for grabs is merely in the state senate, this blight upon the landscape has spread far and wide throughout my neighborhood. I've sometimes wondered just who it is going to the polls that is such a dimwit that their vote is actually influenced by the presence of these signs. And then I quickly decide that I don't want to know.

Our unfortunate insistence on having elections every single year means that it will now be the third consecutive set of contests in which I will not be exercising this particular constitutional right. Which is a pretty big change in outlook for someone who received his Bachelor's degree in political science, worked on several campaigns, once served as an election judge and had been dutiful about participating in every election since becoming eligible to vote in 1984. Never would have I imagined when I was younger that I'd eventually become so disgusted that I would extend a middle digit at the local polling place as I drive past it on election day.

The last time I cast a vote was when I reluctantly pushed the button for then-Senator Hopey-Changey and his running mate, Senator Credit Card Company Puppet. I'll admit that I had a brief flirtation with the odious Obama in the spring of 2008 when he was running for the Democratic nomination and I gleefully voted for him in his quest to dethrone Queen Hillary and put an end to America's eight-year run of hereditary monarchy in the White House. But then the Great Pretender turned around and put the dimwitted Biden on the ticket and enthusiastically supported the hideous TARP law, so that by the time November rolled around I was once again holding my nose and voting for the lesser of two evils evil of two lessers.

Since then, I've decided I'm not going to play that fucking game anymore. Obama has managed to greatly exceed even my worse expectations of the man. In fact, I've reached the point where I really think it would have been better had Senator Get Off My Lawn and Governor Vacuous Attention Whore won the last presidential contest. At least then we wouldn't have millions of delusional liberals out there still supporting what is essentially President Chimpy Bush's third term while actually "thinking" they managed to accomplish something three years ago because the charlatan in the White House now spreading the three American evils of of globalism, consumerism and militarism throughout the world is in fact NOT a pudgy, pasty old white guy.

Being a partisan in modern day America is a severe form of brain damage that prevents one from making a serious assessment of what ails the nation and then being able to act on it. I have no doubt that some of the people running for the local offices today here in Virginia might actually have at least some good intentions. Our current state senator, who was swept into office in 2007 in the leading edge of the political tsunami of revulsion against Bush that turned Virginia at least temporarily blue, actually seems like a decent guy. But maybe that's just because on the one occasion in which I met him in the flesh he didn't make my skin crawl.

Nevertheless, I won't be voting for him for reelection today because he carries that little capital "D" next to his name on the ballot. Anyone who wins the nomination of either major party is at this point automatically compromised to a greater or lesser degree. Even Dennis Kucinich caved in to the Mighty O on the latter's corporate giveaway health care plan after previously asserting that he could never support a plan that didn't take the profit motive out of the system. They may TALK and good game like they are on your side, but when push comes to shove they will ALWAYS dance to the tune played by their campaign contributors. That's just the way the game works.

Despite my extreme cynicism, however, I'll once again state my hope that the Occupy movement will be able to develop into a legitimate political force. So far, it has avoided being co-opted by partisan politics and is drawing strength from disaffected Americans from across the political spectrum. If that keeps up, it might just be enough to draw me into the voting booth again.

Nevertheless, the rubber will not meet the road, as they say, until it comes time for the Occupy movement to face up to the fact that what is needed is a genuine change in America's mindless consumer culture. Anyone out there rallying against the 1% whose real motivation is that they want to live the same materialistic lifestyle that their parents did and thinks the movement is going to bring that about is in for a rude disappointment.

So, I wish the best of luck to my fellow Virginians who are traipsing off to the polls today in another futile and masturbatory exercise in so-called "democracy" thinking that this time their votes will really count and that their guy or gal will bring about the change they so desperately seek. As for me, the few extra minutes of sleep I got this morning by not joining them will no doubt prove to be far more valuable.


Bonus: George Carlin - "If you vote you have no right to complain"

The “Beltway Bandits” are Making Out Like Bandits

Last week, in my post, “Corporate Welfare for Dummies: the Federal Government Overpays Private Companies for Contract Employees,” I wrote about how even in this supposed age of “austerity,” the federal government continues to shell out big money to private contractors (known as "Beltway Bandits") who would not be in business were it not for all that federal largess. Yesterday, a friend sent me a Washington Post article from last month that drives home the point even more dramatically:

Millions of dollars worth of federal contracts transformed Anita Talwar from a government accounting clerk into a wealthy woman — one who can afford a $2.8 million home in the Washington suburbs with its own elevator, wine cellar and Swarovski crystal chandeliers.

Talwar, a 59-year-old immigrant from India, had no idea that she and her husband would amass a small fortune when she launched a company providing tech support to the federal government in 1987. But she shrewdly took advantage of programs for minority-owned small businesses and rode a boom in federal contracting.

By the time Talwar sold Advanced Management Technology in 2004, it had grown from a one-woman shop to a company with more than 350 employees and $100 million in annual revenue — all of it from government contracts.

Talwar’s success — and that of hundreds of other contractors like her — is a key factor driving the explosion of the region’s wealth over the last two decades. It also has exacerbated the gap between high- and low-wage workers, which is wider in the D.C. area than almost anywhere else in the United States.

Washingtonians now enjoy the highest median household income of any metropolitan area in the country, and five of the top 10 jurisdictions in America — Loudoun, Howard and Fairfax counties, and Falls Church and Fairfax City — are here, census data shows.

The signs of that wealth are on display all over, from the string of luxury boutiques such as Gucci and Tory Burch opening at Tysons Galleria to the $15 cocktails served over artisanal ice at the W Hotel in the District to the ever-larger houses rising off River Road in Potomac.

But nowhere is the region’s wealth more concentrated than the place where Talwar purchased her 15,000-square-foot white-brick estate home: Great Falls, a once-rural enclave of about 15,000 residents 17 miles west of the White House.

Sixteen percent of Great Falls households earn $500,000 or above a year, and more than half make at least $250,000, according to Nielsen Claritas. By comparison, 11 percent of households in Potomac earn $500,000 or more, and McLean and Bethesda each boast 10 percent at that level.

Talwar’s neighbors are entrepreneurs, lobbyists, CEOs, tech moguls, financiers and defense contractors for whom two wars have been very, very good business. Their portfolios take hits when the stock market plummets, as it did this month, but the setbacks are usually temporary.

While others have struggled to recover from the recession, many of the residents of Great Falls have continued to launch new business ventures, enjoy easy access to venture capital and reap the benefits of bonuses and deferred compensation plans. Median household income there has increased 32 percent in the last 10 years, helping to widen the divide between those at the top and bottom of the economic ladder to a record high in Virginia.

The whole article is quite lengthy and well worth reading in its entirety. I also encourage you to take a look at the accompanying slideshow of pictures showing the luxurious living conditions in and around Great Falls. I live about ten miles from there and have driven through that area many times, so I can attest to the accuracy of the article’s description of it as a swanky enclave. In fact, I always used to wonder exactly who was making the kind of dough that allowed them the conspicuous wealth on display there. Well, now I know.

If you want to know why our so-called “leaders” are having so much trouble wrestling with reducing the federal budget deficit, this is a big part of the answer. These are the people who live in the same neighborhoods as our Congressmen and Senators. Their kids go to the same elite private schools, they all play golf at the same ritzy country clubs and they network over $200 bottles of wine and hors’doeuvers at the same fashionable parties. The chart above also tells you all you need to know about why the DC-area economy continues to boom while much of the rest of the country remains mired in recession.

It should go without saying that any system that enables people who do government work to purchase multimillion dollar homes and live a lifestyle of the rich and famous at a time when so many Americans are out of work and destitute is fundamentally broken. Sadly, it is exactly the sort of thing you would expect to see in a third world banana republic. So far, public anger in the U.S. has mostly been directed on the left at Wall Street and the big banks, or on the right at beneficiaries of government entitlement spending. The Beltway Bandits have largely avoided public scrutiny, except for occasional notorious incidents like when some Blackwater operatives shot innocent civilians in Iraq.

I also find Ms. Talwar’s story to be interesting. Back on May 17th, I wrote a post entitled, “Whatever Your Ancestry, Being an American Means the Freedom to Consume as Much of the Planet's Resources as Possible,” in which I asserted that the delusional American Dream of having the big house, the big cars and all of the luxuries in life in a resource limited world is what really draws people to the United States rather than any naive notion of this supposedly being the land of the free. Clearly, Ms. Talwar is living that dream, even if it was underwritten by the U.S. taxpayers.

Remember this story next month when the deficit reduction commission delivers its recommendations and the next big round of budget battles begins in Congress. An obvious starting point for reducing government spending would be to greatly reduce government contracting. But I’m willing to bet you right now that it is not going to happen any time soon.

Yes, Virginia, Our Attorney General is an Idiot

It's one thing for global warming denying conservative politicians to demagogue on the issue. That's to be expected from a bunch of self-interested greedheads who are bought-and-paid shills for the oil, gas and coal industries. But it's another thing entirely when their grandstanding starts to cause real world harm.

Like many other states, the Commonwealth of Virginia where I reside is financially strapped and has had to make deep cutbacks in vital services in recent years. Given this fact, you would think the the so-called "leaders" of the Old Dominion would be mindful of incurring any unnecessary or frivolous expenditures. Sadly, you would be wrong in that assumption.

In 2009, Virginia was a political bellwether state in the age of Obama when we replaced our Democratic governor with a hard right conservative Republican. Riding the new governor's coattails was a even farther right conservative named Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II (I guess "Junior" ain't good enough for this hayseed), who was unfortunately voted in as our new Attorney General. I say "unfortunately" not because I particularly care about his outmoded ideology, but because he is exactly the kind of political attention whore who can't resist throwing his weight around in inappropriate ways.

Like many on the far right, Cuccinelli is a obstinate global warming denier. Of course, environmental issues are not normally the purview of a state Attorney General, but for the fact that one of America's leading global warming researchers happens to be employed by the University of Virginia. I think you can see where I'm going with this. Here's the Washington Post with the gory details:

A judge has delayed making a decision on Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II’s most recent request to Virginia’s flagship university for documents related to global warming.

Albemarle County Circuit Judge Cheryl Higgins granted a stay Friday until after the Virginia Supreme Court rules on a related case.

Last year, Cuccinelli (R), a vocal skeptic of global warming, issued a civil investigative demand, essentially a subpoena, for documents from the University of Virginia. He is seeking five grant applications prepared by former professor Michael Mann and all e-mails between Mann and his research assistants, secretaries and 39 other scientists from across the country.

But a judge dismissed the subpoena. Cuccinelli re-filed a new, more specific demand pertaining to just one $214,700 state grant, but also appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has not set a hearing date.

In an unusual step, U-Va. hired its own attorney and is fighting back, arguing that the demand exceeds Cuccinelli's authority under state law and intrudes on the rights of professors to pursue academic inquiry free from political pressure.

So to recap, because of one asshole with a partisan agenda that extends well beyond the normal duties of his office, the taxpayers of the State of Virginia are now forced to fatten the bank accounts of lawyers on both sides of a completely frivolous court case. The article does not mention this, but no doubt the cost to the state in legal bills has likely already far exceeded the relatively puny (by government expenditure standards) cost of the particular grant in question.

Make no mistake. Attorney General Cuccinelli II didn't file this suit because he believes Professor Mann committed grant fraud. He did it instead to spruce up his conservative credentials as the man who led the "crusade" against the evil climate scientists and their anti-American Exceptionalism agenda. Even if the dumb bastard manages to get the documents he subpoenaed, it's not like an anti-science cretin such has him is even going to understand what it is that he's reading.

For all that you do, Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, to burden the taxpayers of Virginia with onerous and unnecessary legal fees at a time of severe budgetary distress just to further your own narrow partisan political agenda, I hereby declare you to be a Real Attention Whore of Genius.