Strauss Discount Auto Shutting Down All 46 Stores

From North Jersey.com:

Strauss Discount Auto, the 93-year-old company founded in Newark, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the fourth time, closing all 46 of its stores, including 24 in New Jersey.

The troubled auto-parts retailer formerly known as R&S Strauss abruptly shuttered its retail outlets - including two shops in Wayne, and others in Bergenfield, East Rutherford, Lodi and Passaic - and filed its petition in federal bankruptcy court in Newark Tuesday. The company also dismissed 580 employees, according to the Chapter 11 filing.

On Wednesday afternoon at the Strauss Auto store on Route 23 in Wayne, two signs on its doors said, "This store is closed." The signs also advised customers with inquiries to call 800-787-4554, Strauss's regular customer-service line.

The recording didn't mention the Chapter 11 filing. It merely said, "You have reached Strauss Auto ... We are on the line right now attending to other calls, but want to address your issue." It then asks customers to leave a message.

In Wayne, where the parking lot was empty and no one was inside, the signs also advised store managers to contact their "DM," district manager, and for store associates to contact their store manager.

In addition to its New Jersey shops, Strauss Discount Auto closed 19 stores in New York City metro area and three in Pennsylvania, according to the filing. Strauss president Joseph Catalano also explained some of the reasons for the company's latest financial woes.

"Increased power, gas and fuel costs have caused consumers to delay vehicle service and replacement expenditures," Catalano said in a filing. "Mild winter weather also resulted in a disappointing 2011-2012 winter selling season and a subsequent decline in spring business due to a lack of winter driving conditions."

One would think that with people not being able to afford to buy as many new cars and keeping their old ones longer that car repair would be a booming business. Not so much, however, if drivers are becoming financially tapped out. It's scary to think that many people are putting off vital maintenance and that their cars may thus be more likely to break down in heavy traffic. Chalk it up as yet another dire example of our crumbling transportation infrastructure.


Bonus: From my You Tube channel - another little ditty about driving

Nursing Home Operator In New York Laying Off 100

Medicare and Medicaid cutbacks were the reason for this mass layoff story. Here is a local New York television station with the details:

Central New York’s largest operator of nursing homes is cutting 100 jobs as part of a restructuring plan. Loretto says the move is necessary to ensure its future.

Most of the layoffs are at the management level, while others include clerical and financial positions and don’t involve those who work directly with the residents. The cuts are across the board and do not impact any isolated facility.

With 18 different locations in addition to specialized programs for the elderly, Loretto serves more than 6,000 Central New Yorkers and their families.

“Most of the families who go into our facilities on a day-to-day basis are going to see no difference whatsoever…really the positions affected are not resident-care oriented,” said Loretto Senior Vice President Steve Volza.

While Loretto leaders say no further cuts are planned right now, they are continuing to work with a health-management firm to improve their efficiency as they adjust to new financial difficulties. Those challenges are tied directly to Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements from the government.

“Today, our funding levels are at 2006 levels. While everything is moving forward, ours has moved back. The reason why is to move people out of institutions and into more community-based settings and we understand what that message is about and that's what this change is about,” Volza said.

The company says the layoffs won't hurt the quality of care at its facilities. Sorry, but I don't believe them. It's also worth notingthat even with cutbacks like this, the costs of Meidcare and Medicaid have still been exploding. So what will happen to these nursing homes when the cuts REALLY start to bite?


Bonus: Not the best video quality, but here is Bill Burr on getting old

Orion Bus Company (New York) To Lay Off 538

Just when we should be building more buses for public transportation systems, one of the domestic manufacturers is shutting down. Here is a local New York television station with the details:

The employees union for the workers at Orion Bus in Oriskany says that all 538 workers will be laid off sometime in the next two years, and that the layoffs are only a matter of when.

Tim Banas at the United Auto Workers Union said that at least 12 employees at Orion were laid off Thursday morning and that the company expects to lay off more in the days to come.

On Wednesday, Daimler announce that it would stop all production on new bus orders at the Oriskany-based company, but would continue bus maintenance work.

This is why I am so convinced we are heading towards collapse. For years now we have been making all the wrong decisions at the worst possible time, and I see no reason why that will not continue.


Bonus: Today is the day for Lou Reed's New York album here at TDS

Betsey Johnson Files For Bankruptcy, Will Close Most of Its Stores

I guess I'm just not hip, because I had never heard of this fashion chain before reading this story. Here is New York magazine with the details:

Sad news: Betsey Johnson LLC has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will close the majority of its 63 stores, according to WWD. Betsey Johnson the person will remain at the helm of the brand, which is still owned by Castanea Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm that took over the company in 2007. Moving forward, the label will focus on its lower-priced range of clothing, which is sold at Macy's and other mass retailers. Meanwhile, Steven Madden, Ltd., which has owned all of Betsey Johnson's intellectual property since assuming her $48.8 million in outstanding debts in 2010, estimated that the bankruptcy will cost about 350 jobs overall. Steve Madden himself assures WWD that there won't be any interruption in wholesale deliveries or e-commerce.

This development isn't a huge surprise (the Betsey Johnson brand has wallowed in debt for years), but it's really too bad. Johnson's wacky fashion shows — which she always concludes with her trademark cartwheel — are always a highlight at fashion week, and she's a beloved character in the New York fashion industry. Best of luck to her and her employees.

This development isn't a huge surprise because in the middle of a never ending economic recession very few people need overpriced clothes, no matter how stylish they are.


Bonus: Something tells me that notoriously gloomy New Yorker Lou Reed doesn't attend a lot of fashion shows.

Gallup Poll Names Binghamton (New York) Least Optimistic City In The Country

One man's pessimism is another man's realism, I always say. Here is the story from Pressconnects.com:

Maybe it's the weather, even with the relatively mild winter. Maybe it's the region's long-term economic woes. Maybe it's fallout from last year's flood that left some people and businesses struggling to rebuild or relocate.

Whatever the factors, the Gallup polling organization says we're one pessimistic bunch.

Residents of the Binghamton metropolitan area, which covers Broome and Tioga counties, are the least optimistic in the country about whether their community is becoming a better place to live, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday.

Residents in 190 metro areas were polled for the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being index, which tracks community satisfaction and optimism on a daily basis.

The Binghamton region ranked dead last in terms of optimism, with 27.8 percent of residents expressing a positive feeling about the community's direction in 2011. By contrast, Provo-Orem, Utah, led the list with 76 percent of residents expressing optimism.

People can point to the weather and the economy as reasons for pessimism, and those are valid points, said Benjamin Perkus, a psychologist licensed by the state and practicing in Binghamton.

The literal lack of sunlight does affect brain chemistry, with people suffering the doldrums from Seasonal Affective Disorder, he said.

But people's perceptions may also be a factor, he believes. "The community is rather conservative and not very open-minded, so it's stuck in the old paradigm of big industry, which is gone now, Perkus said.

This is actually kind of funny given peak oil author James Kunster's repeated assertions that upstate New York will be among the best places in the country to reside after the oil crash. I'm not saying he's wrong, just that plenty of his fellow citizens don't seem to agree.


Bonus: Patton Oswalt is NOT optimistic

Credit Suisse To Lay Off 109 Workers In New York

Okay, normally I do try to be sympathetic to people who are losing their jobs because of the economy. But I have to admit that right now I'm playing the world's smallest violin after reading this story from Huffington Post Business:

Wall Street keeps shrinking.

Credit Suisse will begin laying off employees in New York the second week of March, according to a company filing with the New York State Department of Labor and an item on the website Dealbreaker on Friday.

But...but...but, I thought we were in a rip roaring bull market. How can Wall Street be SHRINKING? Tell me more.

The fresh layoffs at Credit Suisse -– which is Switzerland’s second-largest investment bank behind UBS -- comes amid a broader contraction among Wall Street banks, as top dealmakers at Goldman Sachs begin to make an exit, and as other financial institutions shrink departments (such as proprietary trading) that brought in considerable amounts of money during the boom years.

Zero Hedge has been reporting repeatedly how all through this recent amazing market levitation that volume has been at an unprecedented low. I guess these investment banks don't need a huge staff to just borrow money from the central banks at zero percent interest and pump it into the stock market. Turn the volume up on that fiddle for me, will ya?


Bonus: Tell me this scene doesn't resonate even more today than it did 20 years ago. Mr. Pink could have been an investment banker. World's smallest violin, indeed

Broke Buffalo School District Provides Free Plastic Surgery To All Teachers

You can't explain this. No, I mean really, you can try all day and you will never come up with an explanation for this story from a local Buffalo television station that makes any sense whatsoever:

As thousands of teachers face layoffs across the country, teachers in Buffalo, New York are getting lipo? Yep. And nose jobs and whatever else they want. All on the taxpayers' dime. How is this happening?

This Buffalo plastic surgeon has a lot of happy patients. Dr. Kulwant S. Bhangoo says, "Let's just suppose I was a woman weighed 300 pounds, and I lost 150-160 pounds."

Indeed, that's what happened to Buffalo school teacher Valerie Akauloa, but it's not just the results that make her happy, it's the sweet deal that she gets.

The sweet deal that all the 3,400 teachers in Buffalo are eligible to get under one of their insurance plan options, they are billed nothing for any plastic surgery procedure, such as botox, liposuction, tummy tucks, and there is no deductible.

Linda Tokarz teaches second grade and says she gets regular treatments. She says, "I think its great for us. I wouldn't want to see it taken away."

Dr. Kulwant Bhangoo has been a plastic surgeon in Buffalo for almost four decades. He says, "I feel the teachers have paid their dues and it would be wrong to take it away from them."

While he does have plenty on non-teacher patients, Dr. Bhangoo does say three out of every 10 are Buffalo teachers and the school district's insurance covers every single penny. They will come in for hair removal on their face, liposuction, breast enhancement, and rhinoplasty.

Dr. Bhangoo is one of many plastic surgeons who advertise in where else the teachers union newsletter.

Last year, Buffalo's schools spent $5.9 million on plastic surgery which is also known as a cosmetic rider. And Buffalo teachers have had this rider for nearly four decades.

Now you might think Buffalo's school district must be flush with cash to be offering perks like free plastic surgery, right? Wrong. Louis Petrucci, the president of the Buffalo Board of Education says he is projecting a $42 million deficit in next year's school budget.

You don't have to be a brain surgeon to know that a plastic surgeon or a teacher would like this policy more than the typical taxpayer. But the teachers will tell you there is more to the story. They say the teachers contract with the city expired nearly a decade ago negotiations for a new one have failed.

And they add they are woefully underpaid.

That last sentence might be true, but its hard to feel any sympathy for a group of people who didn't long ago demand that this utter frivolous benefit be dropped so that maybe they could get a better pay raise. The story doesn't explain it, but I would really like to know what brainiac thought providing free plastic surgery to the teachers was a good idea in the first place.


Bonus: This video is dedicated to the Buffalo public school teachers

States Doubling Down on Bad Gambling Bets

I've posted several stories here on TDS about recent decline of the gaming gambling industry in the United States as the throngs who used to fill the casinos find themselves unable to come up cash to throw away on the slots or at the Blackjack table. And yet despite all of the evidence that the industry is in deep trouble and no longer the cash cow it used top be, there are still plenty of localities lining up, hoping to boost tax revenues by overcoming their previous resistance to legalizing gambling and opening casinos of their own. MSNBC has the details:

A Malaysian company's plan to build a $4 billion convention center and big-time casino on the outskirts of New York City could be the biggest shot fired yet in a tourism arms race that has seen a growing number of Eastern states embrace gambling as a way to lure visitors and drum up revenue.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last week that he would work with the Genting Group, one of the world's largest and most successful gambling companies, to transform the storied, but sleepy, Aqueduct horse track into a megaplex that would eventually include the nation's largest convention center, 3,000 hotel rooms, and a major expansion of a casino that began operating at the site in October.

The proposal came less than two months after once-puritanical Massachusetts passed a law allowing up to three resort casinos, plus a slot machine parlor, at locations around the state.

Ohio is poised to see its first commercial casinos open this year, after voters approved up to four gambling halls in 2009. Maryland's first casino opened last year, with more on the way. Pennsylvania's first casinos opened in 2006, and already the state is threatening to surpass Atlantic City as the nation's second-largest gambling market.

And in Florida, lawmakers are hotly debating a whopper of a bill that would allow up to three multibillion-dollar casinos, plus additional slot machines at dog and horse tracks. Genting appears confident the law will pass. It has already spent around $450 million to acquire waterfront property in Miami, where it wants to build a $3.8 billion complex that would include a casino, dozens of restaurants and a shopping mall.

States have embraced casinos, after years of trepidation about their societal costs, for two simple reasons: a promise of a rich new revenue source, plus the possibility of stimulating tourism.

The article itself actually does a very good job of raising questions as to whether this latest desperate revenue grab by the state governments is at all advisable:

Some experts, however, have questioned whether revenue bonanzas that large are realistic, and say states should be cautious about giving up too much to lure these projects. Competition for a limited pool of gambling and tourism dollars is already fierce, and recent years haven't been kind to casinos.

Nevada's larger casinos lost $4 billion in 2011, according to a report released this month by the state's Gaming Control Board, as the state continued to feel the effects of the global economic slump.

As gambling options have increased in the East, revenue has slid substantially at the pair of Indian tribe-owned casinos in Connecticut and declined by a dramatic 30 percent in Atlantic City, which has lost customers in droves to the new casinos in nearby Philadelphia, according to David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

So the latest players in the legalized gambling game plan to spend billions of dollars to spread the wealth that much thinner even as the slowly collapsing economy continues to squeeze the mass of players suckers they need to be able to make a profit.

How much more proof do you need that the so-called "leaders" of our society are completely out of ideas and have resorted to merely shuffling the deck chairs on the titanic?


Bonus: Wait a minute, is that music I hear on the promenade deck?

Long Beach (New York) to Declare a Fiscal Emergency

The newsreaders and reporters stenographers who dominate the mainstream media can continue to blather on about "recovery" all they want. In the real world, things just keep getting worse, as demonstrated yet again by this article from Newsday:

Long Beach's newly appointed city manager, Jack Schnirman, and the new five-member City Council are poised to pass a resolution Tuesday night to declare a fiscal emergency, which would give Schnirman more authority to tighten and veto spending.

"We will scrutinize and sign everything by hand," he said. "We are not shy about sending things back for more information, more documentation or just plain saying no."

Long Beach owes $48.3 million in general obligation debt and last month was downgraded five investment rating levels by Moody's Investors Services to Baa3, the lowest investment-grade rating that Moody's issues.

Schnirman said the extent of the city's financial crisis becomes more apparent each day. One recent report, for example, showed nine departments already had exceeded their overtime budgets only halfway through the fiscal year.

Holy crap! Long Beach was downgraded by FIVE investment rating levels? I don't know about you, but if I had any of the city's bonds in my portfolio, I'd be selling them off, pronto.

So how did they manage to get into such a predicament?

John McLaughlin, the new council's lone Republican, said communication has been solid so far.

"As a minority member, I can't complain about being left out in the cold," he said. "Jack has been keeping me up to speed. And I think this council meeting will show we really have to tighten our belt."

But as a lifelong Long Beach resident, McLaughlin said he knows taxpayers are used to a high level of services, which he expects will be cut back this year.

"This is a tough town to keep everybody happy," McLaughlin said. "The same way the rest of the country has adjusted to it, we'll have to adjust to it."

So typical of Me First Nation. We want a high level of government services, but we don't want to pay for them. That's been the mantra for more than 30 years in this country, ever since Proposition 13 passed in California and Ronald Reagan was elected president two years later. Now the bills are coming due for three decades of childishness, and the spoiled brats aren't happy about it.


Bonus: Yep - Life's a Beach

Maybe the World Really IS Going to End in 2012

image: it's a little known fact the the picture above originally appeared on the last monthly page of the famous Mayan calendar

New Year's Eve, which I spent with my in-laws and a small army of nieces and nephews, was the last of three family gatherings for me this holiday season. All things considered, I made it through relatively unscathed. No major family arguments broke out and nobody got too wasted or acted in an overly inappropriate manner.

For me, the worst part was having to greet the new year by suffering through a couple of hour's worth of the most grueling of all the many cultural train wrecks on television these days, Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, which my relatives insist upon watching every year. The producers of this hideous annual spectacle could hardly have done a better job were they TRYING to put together a lineup guaranteed to make me desperately wish for large pile of sharp objects with which I could poke out my own eyeballs, puncture my eardrums and then end the agony with an emphatic self-disembowelment. When about the least offensive person to appear on the screen the whole night is an American Idol host, you KNOW you're in for a long evening.

It's bad enough that they resurrect the mummified corpse of the eponymous host and prop him up in front of the camera every year. For about half a decade now, each time I've seen Dick Clark's decrepit form I keep saying this has GOT to be his last year doing the show. And yet the following year there he is again, looking ever more like his own caricature as designed by makers of the Spitting Image puppets from the rock band Genesis' famous "Land of Confusion" music video back in the mid-1980s.

This year we turned on the broadcast just in time to see Ryan Seacrest interviewing billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg was in full "I'm just a regular guy" mode, wearing a cheesy white sweater with an American Flag embroidered on the front instead of the Brioni suit, Rolex watch and Testoni shoes you know the sonovabitch normally prefers to wear. Bloomberg, of course, is trying to repair his image after the (ahem) beating it took from siccing Officer Tony Baloney and his thuggish cohorts on the Occupy Wall Street protesters. But sacrifices have to be made, and forcing himself to dress up like one of the unwashed masses was just the first one Bloomberg would make on this particular winter evening.

Seacrest then threw the proceedings over to Jenny McCarthy for some totally insipid street level interviews with various clods who had been wasting their lives standing around Times Square the whole day waiting for their fifteen seconds of camera time. McCarthy, of course, is a former Playboy playmate who somehow thinks that getting famous by taking her clothes off means she knows more about medical science than the legions of physicians who have actually studied in the field. I wouldn't begrudge McCarthy for her persistent ignorance about the benefits of childhood vaccinations, but for the fact that she has somehow managed to convince a large number of other dimwitted Americans that she actually knows what she's talking about. How did Mike Judge ever manage to avoid casting her in the movie, Idiocracy, anyway?

As midnight approached, all of the "musicians," that had been playing in Times Square earlier in the evening joined Seacrest on the main stage for some inane blather about what the new year's celebration meant to them. I put the word musicians in quotes because other than utter has been Carlos Santana, none of the rest merited having the word attached to what it is they do for a living, particularly that little cougar-bait twerp, Justin Bieber. The highlight of this portion of the show was a "song" performed by the culturally omnipotent Lady Gaga, wearing some absurdly hideous costume that made her look like a mentally challenged space alien, and was, I gather, meant to detract the listener's attention away from the utter vacuousness of her actual performance.

But the highlight of the evening, or the lowlight if you prefer, came with the inevitable dropping of the big ball. Not that ringing in the new year itself is so bad, but did we really need to be treated to the nausea-inducing sight of Ms. Space Alien and Mayor One-Percenter in full lip lock? I know it was late, and all, but this was supposed to be a family show and we had impressionable young children in the room with us.

Almost as bad was the subsequent image of the aforementioned over-the-hill centerfold for some bizarre reason playing tonsil hockey with a recent New York City police academy graduate. I half expected McCarthy to say, "That was just a reminder, Big Boy, of what exactly it is you'll be protecting the first time Boss Bloomberg calls you out to put a few uppity Occupy protesters in their proper place. Oooh, hey, is that your retractable baton right there, or are you just happy to see me?"

A few minutes after midnight, a collection of talent-free cretins called LMFAO then took the stage. When the live audience didn't take their band name literally and actually started to get into the alleged music, I excused myself for the evening and went upstairs to hit the rack. As I did I reflected on the fact that the only good thing about starting off the new year by observing such an awful spectacle is now it really has nowhere to go but up.


Bonus: "Because this is the world we live in...and these are the hands we're given"

Public Transportation Service Cuts/Layoffs Coming to Buffalo

As the peak oil era stretches on, and high oil and gasoline prices become the norm, one would think it should be obvious that the last place state and local governments should be making budget cuts is in public transportation. Sadly, that is not the case, as this story out of Buffalo shows:

The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority has approved a budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year. Cuts in state aid and dwindling revenue from NFTA owned properties have left the transportation authority with a 15 million dollar budget gap. To fill that hole the Board of Commissioners has approved several deep cuts in personnel and service routes.

- 50 positions are being eliminated. 20 of those positions come from the NFTA's police force.
- 81 bus service routes will be eliminated.
- 14 other routes will see reductions in service.
- Metro Rail service will be eliminated on Sundays after 8:00 pm.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown was at the budget meeting and addressed the Board shortly after the vote. Brown says up to 80 percent of the NFTA's bus customers are city residents and many rely on the bus system as their only source of transportation. Brown added that he has reached out to the state legislature, the Governor's office and the New York Power Authority for assistance. The NFTA will be holding several public hearings on the budget cuts in the coming weeks.

At least Buffalo's mayor is cognizant of the negative effects these cuts are going to have on the citizens who have to ride the buses to get around. The scary thought is contemplating what is going to become of these people when the day finally comes that the buses stop running altogether.


Bonus: looks like the boys from ZZ Top may be waiting for the bus a bit longer

Stryker Buys Gaymar, Then Shuts Them Down

There has been quite a wave of layoffs/closings stories in the news the past few days. This one was about as appalling as the one I posted on Saturday about Hanes buying up a rival factory and moving it to Mexico:

Just a little more than a year after Gaymar Industries was acquired by Stryker Corp. in a $150 million cash deal, the company is now shutting its area operations.

The closings in Orchard Park and West Seneca will put approximately 160 people out of work.

The privately-held Orchard Park medical manufacturer, which specializes in support surface, pressure ulcer management solutions for the health-care industry, was bought by medical devices giant Stryker of Michigan in a deal announced in late summer 2010.

A statement from the company issued Thursday said the process of closing down production lines and relocating equipment to other Stryker sites or supply chain partners will take place in phases and will be completed by the end of 2012.

Okay, that's bad enough, but then there is this little tidbit:

When the transaction was announced, Gaymar CEO Kent Davies said, "We've been working with them for 10 years. It's always a subject to talk about how things can get better and where we can take the relationship."

"Where we can take the relationship," huh? That sounds like the kind of "relationship" a serial killer has with one of his victims, which I think is quite an apt metaphor in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court case declaring corporations to have the same "free speech" rights as human beings. Things certainly got better for the 160 Gaymar employees about to lose their jobs, all right. But that's okay, I'm sure former Gaymar CEO Kent Davis got HIS golden parachute while his employees were getting their golden showers from Stryker.

I just don't understand why people put up with the destruction of their livelihoods like this without so much as a peep of protest. Someone needs to go Occupy Stryker headquarters. That's it in the picture above. They're in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in case anyone is interested.

Rising Pension, Health Insurance Costs Cause Layoffs at Nassau Hospital

This story from Crain's New York Business is like the perfect storm of issues I've been writing about for months here at TDS:

NuHealth System, which runs Nassau University Medical Center, announced a $50 million deficit caused by a $25 million rise in employee pension costs, a $15 million fall in Medicaid disproportionate share hospital reimbursements, and a $10 million hike in health insurance, pharmaceutical and supply costs.

NuHealth cut 175 employees, mostly from the Civil Service Employees Association, and the tally included 15 doctors—on top of another 77 workers who took an incentive for early retirement in late October. The cuts will save about $20 million at NuHealth, which had been profitable in 2009 and 2010.

“A $25 million increase in pension costs is not sustainable, at current staffing levels, for a public benefit corporation with a $553 million annual budget,” Arthur Gianelli, NuHealth's president and chief executive, said in a statement.

With the corporation's new 2012 pension bill, contribution costs will have risen by $25 million, to $42 million. It now pays an average of 18.9% of payroll to the New York State Employee Retirement Fund, an amount it said far exceeded the contribution levels of its competitors. “The cost of a public-sector workforce is simply too great to sustain at current staffing levels of 3,800 employees,” Mr. Gianelli said.

The takeway lesson here should be pretty simple: even though the economy has at least temporarily stabilized thanks to the massive amounts of federal deficit spending, good paying jobs are still being destroyed because of fast-rising health and pension costs. In this environment, how many such jobs are likely being created out there or are going to be created anytime soon?

As long as the federal government can continue to borrow a trillion and a half dollars (or more) every year, it will continue to prop up the creaking facacde of the real economy (note too, that cuts in Medicaid payments were another factor in these layoffs). But all it can do is delay the eventual day of reckoning rather than prevent it.

One Photograph that Sums Up America Today

Image: In the midst of protests, New York City police officers stand near barricades surrounding "Charging Bull", the 7,100 lb bronze sculpture that symbolizes Wall Street and New York's financial district. September 17, 2011. Courtesy, Atlantic Magazine

So there you have it, the foot soldiers of the Empire defending the hideous symbol of the criminal elites' right to strip mine the wealth of the working and middle classes. You have to wonder what these cops will be thinking when the day finally comes that THEY are the ones who receive their pink slips.