Saturday Night Video - Patton Oswalt Skewers KFC

KFC announced this week that there will be layoffs at the company's corporate headquarters, as reported by Courier-Journal.com:

Burdened by lackluster results in its U.S. business, KFC Corp. laid off an unknown number of employees on Thursday at Yum! Brands headquarters in Louisville.

Being one of America's biggest purveyors of obesity and death, you just knew this particular corporation would be well versed in corporate FlackSpeak:

“We made the difficult but necessary decision to reorganize KFC to reduce cost, maximize efficiencies and better reflect our current business needs,” said Karen Sherman, senior director of communications at KFC Corp. “While we have increased investment in some positions, we also have eliminated others at our corporate offices and in the field.”

But wait...there's more:

“We are doing everything possible to help support those affected by the reorganization in their transition,” Sherman added in her emailed statement.

Yeah, I'll bet.

Actually, I have to hope that if someone at KFC is getting laid off, it will be the diabolical genius who invented the KFC Famous Bowls. Though I've never had one, their absolute sheer nastiness was brilliantly captured a couple of years ago in a very funny bit by comedian Patton Oswalt.

"Just make me a failure pile in a sadness bowl."

Enjoy!

Weather Shield to Close Window and Door Plant in Wisconsin

Sorry, Wisconsin, but even if your attempted recall of your idiot governor is successful, as reported last week by Woodworking Network, it isn't going to help these people:

MOSINEE, WI -- Weather Shield's factory dedicated to vinyl window and door production here in Mosinee will permanently close by Aug. 31, putting more than 500 people out of work.

Workers, many of them members of United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, were informed of the decision by Schield Family Brands to shutter the plant last month. Layoffs are to begin Feb. 7 and continue through the summer as operations are scaled back and then ceased. Schield of Medford, OR, is parent company to Weathershield, SNE Enterprises and Peachtree Doors and Windows.

Central Wisconsin Business reported that Schield cited the ongoing housing crisis and refusal of union workers to extend its current contract, including accepting a pay freeze, as major factors in deciding to close the plant.

And the housing crash carnage just keeps on piling up, even as the mainstream media acts as if it is yesterday's news. You residents of The Badger State should stop worrying about that largely meaningless political kabuki theater show going on in Madison and instead look around at what is happening to your economic livelihoods. Scott Walker may by a psychopathic asshole who hates unions, but even so he wasn't the one responsible for closing this factory down. The corporate flacks are trying to blame the union, but ultimately it is the economy that's responsible.

DSC to Lay Off 130 in Roanoke, Texas

image: DSC is "ready for anything," except the continuation of the economic downturn

Texas has been getting hit pretty hard with layoff notices lately. Here is the Dallas Business Journal with the latest bad news:

DSC Logistics plans to lay off 130 employees at its Roanoke facility.

The Des Plaines, Ill.-based company told the Texas Workforce Commission that it notified employees about the layoffs on Wednesday.

Verlyn Suderman, DSC vice president and general counsel, told the commission in a letter that a “significant loss of business affecting the facility” prompted the layoffs.

Hey, at least DSC Vice President and General Counsel Verlyn Suderman didn't try to sugar coat it. Business is bad, which is the reason for the firings. There, now was that so hard?


Bonus: "Is it any wonder I'm not a criminal? Is it any wonder I'm not it jail?"

New Navy Minehunter Ship Can't See or Stop Mines

Despite having massive and unsustainable federal government deficits, we just CAN'T cut the Pentagon's budget...or the Red Chinese hordes will descend upon upon us and um, eat our babies, or something. That's what the many Congresscritters who are bought-and-paid for appendages of the military-industrial complex want a gullible public to believe so they have an excuse to keep lining those defense contractors' pockets (and hence keep the campaign cash a-flowing). Meanwhile, as reported this last week by Danger Room, the Pentagon continues to waste that taxpayer money in massive quantities:

It’s bad enough that the Navy’s newest ship has had wicked problems with corrosion, missed out on the latest naval wartime missions and is generally something of a Frankenstein’s monster. Now the Pentagon’s top weapons tester has found problems with its abilities to find and withstand mines — which is a big problem for a ship that’s supposed to be the Navy’s minehunter of the future.

That’s the assessment of the director of the Operational Testing and Evaluation office, summing up a year’s worth of trials for the Littoral Combat Ship, the Navy’s cherished — and expensive — next-generation ship for warfare close to a shoreline. Little wonder that defense analysts think the ship is headed for the budgetary chopping block, even though the Navy wants 55 of the things and only has three.

The report finds that the Littoral Combat Ship’s systems for spotting mines, the AN/AQS-20A Sonar Mine Detecting Set and the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System, are “deficient” for their primary task. That deficiency, if uncorrected, will “adversely affect the operational effectiveness” of a ship that’s already “not expected to be survivable in a hostile combat environment.”

And here is what a military blogger had to say about this latest boondoggle:

So, we have a warship design that is not expected to fight and survive in the very environment in which it was produced to do so. Poorly-armed, poorly-protected, with an over-abundance of speed that will eat through a fuel supply in half a day.

Yet, the Navy leadership on whose watch this abomination was delivered is hypersensitive to criticism of either their performance or the LCS itself. That such a questionable and limited capability will cost taxpayers UNDER $500 million per copy is a seeming source of pride for them.

Warships remain the single most expensive combat system a nation can buy. Has been so since the beginnings of the iron warship. Those who run the United States Navy (not just NAVSEA) are entrusted with billions of this nation’s treasure. And this is the result. A half-billion dollar counter-drug and counter-piracy platform.

Combat in the littorals is characterized by fierce and unexpected engagements, from small and fast surface vessels, submarines, shore-based weapon systems, missiles, mines, and aircraft. Putting US Navy Officers and Sailors on a platform such as LCS borders on criminal. It is an act of sheer folly, or one of desperation.

Actually, you left one out. For what it really is represents is an act of sheer greed on the behalf of the defense contractors who build these expensive-but-useless pieces of shit and don't care that they are ripping off the taxpayers in the process. Moreover, the Navy is hardly alone in such fraudulent procurements. The war machine marches on, devouring around one-trillion dollars in direct and indirect federal spending every year because it is profitable to everyone involved in getting these projects approved. If this country still had any common sense, the defense contractors are the people we'd been hauling off to Guantanamo, for they are doing far more collective damage to America as a nation than the terrorists ever did.


Bonus: "Listen son, said the man with the gun, there's room for you inside"

"Thank You, Sir. May I Have Another?"

image: "For the Better" - unless you happen to have been employed there.

At first glance, this story from the Hartford Courant looked like just another routine tale of American manufacturing jobs being shipped overseas:

PerkinElmer, a global manufacturer with more than 500 employees in Shelton, is eliminating close to 75 jobs as it moves four product lines to England and Singapore.

The company, headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, lauded the Shelton location for its safety and environmental stewardship in its last corporate social responsibility report.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and other state officials visited the Shelton plant in July as part of the governor's jobs tour, but no one from PerkinElmer talked to the state before choosing to transfer jobs overseas. The company told its employees Wednesday about the layoffs.

But then, someone had the bright idea to go interview the local Chamber of Commerce flack to get his opinion:

Bill Purcell, president of the Valley Chamber of Commerce, which invited the governor and Economic and Community Development Commissioner Catherine Smith to visit, said: "It's not an accident that we invited the governor there because they do represent — and they still do represent — all the best Connecticut has to offer; innovation, progress, globalization, exporters, and good global citizens."

Yeah, fat lot of good that did, Mr. Purcell. You sound like an abused spouse telling the policeman she doesn't want to press charges. You got any more inane blather for us?

Purcell said the layoffs will begin in the second half of 2012, and continue into the early part of 2013.

"Obviously it's disappointing to hear, we're grateful for what will remain, and know they'll continue to be big players here, not only in our state and in our region but on the global stage."

Thank you, sir. May I have another?

"Their tagline is 'For the Better,' and they are making the world a better place as a result of the important work they do," Purcell said. The instruments the company designs and manufacturers are used in medical and environmental testing.

Bend me, shape me, any way you want me.

Purcell said PerkinElmer "made a very, very substantial investment in that property. They've been just a terrific company, a great employer, great innovator, a great exporter, a wonderful and gracious corporate citizen."

Holy crap, what a pathetic, craven, simpering little worm. If this guy is what passes for a "business leader" in America these days, no wonder we are headed right down the shitter.

Average Vehicle Age in U.S. Reaches a New Record of 10.8 Years

When people can't afford to buy new cars, they drive the ones they have for longer than they might have otherwise. As a result, the average age of the vehicle fleet rises. That's just common sense, as reported on Tuesday by North Jersey.com:

The average age of a car or truck in the United States hit a record 10.8 years last year as job security and other economic worries kept many people from making big-ticket purchases such as a new car.

That's up from the old record of 10.6 years in 2010, and it and continues a trend that dates to 1995, when the average age of a car was 8.4 years, according to a study of state vehicle registration data by the Polk automotive research firm.

However, despite the fact that gasoline prices have been over $3.00 per gallon for more than a year now, and many analysts expect it will top $4.00 or even more by this coming summer, hope still springs eternal in the auto industry:

However, Polk analyst Mark Seng says that a rebound in sales last year and expected growth for the next couple of years will likely lower the average age of cars as a whole in America. The aging of the American auto fleet has been a big boon for repair shops and companies that sell replacement auto parts.

In 2011, auto sales rebounded a bit to 12.8 million vehicles, especially in November and December, when sales were unusually strong. Last year, sales in the United States totaled 11.6 million. Many analysts expect this year to be better than 2011, anywhere from 13.5 million to more than 14 million vehicles. Even 14 million is still below what industry analysts consider a normal sales rate of close to 15 million per year, and far lower than the U.S. sales peak of 17 million sales that was reached in 2005.

I have proposition for Polk analyst Mark Seng. My prediction is that auto sales for 2012 will actually lag behind last year because of the continued high gas prices and the likely global economic slowdown. That's called reality-based analysis, rather than wishful thinking. So if I'm right, Mark, can I have your cushy job?


Addendum: There's nothing more gratifying than running acrosss another news story which confirms my post's thesis before I even hit the "publish post" button. Here is Bloomberg with a report that U.S. fuel consumption has sunk to the lowest level in 10 years:

Oil traded near a one-week low after gasoline stockpiles rose and consumption fell to the lowest in 10 years in the U.S., the world’s biggest crude consumer.

Futures were little changed in New York after slipping 0.2 percent yesterday. While crude inventories declined, gasoline use dropped to the lowest since September 2001, and supplies of the motor fuel increased to the highest level in 10 months, according to a report yesterday from the Energy Department. U.S. demand for oil products in the latest four-week period was down 7.2 percent from a year ago, according to Societe Generale SA.

“This is an ominous sign for the U.S. economy,” Mike Wittner, head of oil market research at Societe Generale in New York, said in a report dated yesterday. “Gasoline fundamentals remain weak. The market is anticipating firmer future fundamentals due to Atlantic Basin refinery closures. We are skeptical.”

It sure is, Mike. Sorry, Mark, but you might as well be wishing for unlimited unicorns and lolipops at this point.


Bonus: "I wish I was a messenger, and all the news was good"

Book Store Blues

I've covered the rapid demise of America's brick-and-mortar bookstores several times here at TDS. Booksellers are now disappearing so fast that I wonder how long it will be before they vanish from the landscape altogether. It struck home for me again this past Sunday when, passing by my favorite Northern Virginia used bookstore, I was dismayed to see a big Going Out of Business banner hanging in the front window. I've been regular visitor to that particular store ever since it first opened in 1994, and most of the staff have worked there for many years. And now, just like that, poof--gone.

It shook me up enough that I decided to drive on over to the Barnes & Nobel location that is nearest to my house. I've never been a big fan of B&N because of how the chain drove so many mom-and-pop bookstores out of business, but other than the remaining used bookstores, they are about all that is left in Northern Virginia these days.

I hadn't been there in about six months, so I was very much relieved to see it was still open and actually had quite a few cars outside in the parking lot. When I went inside, however, there were changes afoot. Immediately inside the front door, right where the featured new releases used to be on display, was a brand new information booth where you could learn all about the Nook, and even take one of about a dozen display models for a test drive. Reacting as if a diamondback rattlesnake had just slithered into my path, I avoided eye contact with the two young salesgirls behind the counter and skirted around it as quickly as I could.

To my dismay, however, that wasn't the only change to the store. Literally about half of the space that used to contain books now no longer does. Instead, shelf after shelf was filled with toys and games and other useless crap that has absolutely nothing to do with actually reading. The non-fiction New Arrivals section had maybe a couple of dozen titles, whereas it used to occupy several bookcases and could take me a hour alone to browse through. The physical quality of the books that were present also appeared to have declined. The bindings these days are cheap, and even the hardbacks look they'll start to fall apart in just a few years.

Another distressing thing I noticed was just how shitty many of the titles were that were actually on the shelves. Celebrity biographies, teen vampire nonsense, self-help clap trap, romance novels and guides to spiritual living by teevee preachers seemed to be everywhere I looked, while serious works of either fiction or non fiction were in very short supply. Fittingly, in the bargain section there was one lonely copy of a cheapo hardback collection of reprinted classic short apocalyptic fiction stories that I almost bought just because of how perfectly apprpriate it looked sitting there on the shelf.

In the end, I merely grabbed a couple of deeply discounted titles because of how little there was that I actually wanted to read. The checkout clerk was a young guy probably not long out of college who was cheerful enough, considering, but when he asked me if I had a Barnes & Nobel membership card I had to restrain myself to keep from bursting out in a cynical cackle. No, I wanted say, but I'm good. I figure it's about a 50-50 chance at this point that your store will even still be here a year from now. Perhaps he knew what I was thinking, because when I merely said I did not have membership card, he didn't try to push one on me.

By the time I got home I was depressed. Despite what I write on this blog every day about America falling apart, I just can't imagine living in a world without bookstores. Sadly, that day is coming very soon. In fact, other than maybe making an occasional special trip to one of the two remaining independent booksellers down in the District of Columbia, visiting the bookstore has already almost become just a memory for me. It sucks.

Why are we as a culture in such a goddamned hurry to get rid of our physical books and replace them with these damn electronic readers? It's bad enough that the lingering effects of the recession were already killing the publishing industry.

You can't call it "progress," because that is complete and utter bullshit. We're maybe 20 years or so at best from the power grid breaking down on a widespread basis. So what happens to all those e-books then? They'll disappear into the ether, that's what. It's madness. But that's where we are as a culture these days.

Old Country Buffet/Ryan's Restaurant Chain Files for Bankruptcy

Back when I was in college, I ate dinner at the Old Country Buffet a few times. The food was cheap, and there was a lot of it. A perfect night out for a college student on a limited budget, in other words. A few years ago, I stopped at one for old times' sake and was very sorry I did. There was still plenty of food, but nearly all of it was virtually inedible. I don't know if it was because my palate has become more discriminating over the years, or if they've kept their prices low by ordering cheaper and cheaper ingredients, but it was an awful dining experience.

Nevertheless, I realize that a visit to the OCB or a Ryan's restaurant is what constitutes a great night out in many parts of the country. So this story from the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal seems rather important:

Buffets Inc. said Wednesday it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and plans to close 81 restaurants nationwide — the second time the company has filed for reorganization in four years.

Buffets, which owns 494 restaurants in 38 states, operates under the Old Country Buffet, HomeTown Buffet, Ryan's, Granny's Buffet, and Fire Mountain brands.

So, what's the story, morning glory?

Buffets emerged from its first bankruptcy in April 2009 after shedding $700 million in debt. Riggs said the company decided to file again because of lease restrictions that limited the number of locations it could close in the 2008 filing. He also said the recession has hurt the chain badly over the last four years.

And, given that Buffets caters to that segment of our society that is hurting the most from the lingering effects of the Great Recession, it's not going to get any better.

Endgame: Close the Prison, Kill the Town

Yesterday I posted a story about the latest factory closing in my hometown of Freeport, Illinois, and the devastating effect it is going to have on the local community. Like many rust belt towns, Freeport was chosen as the site of a state prison back in the 1990s, which was built there in part to try to make up for some of the factory jobs that were leaving thanks to rampant globalization. One could question the effects on the self-esteem of former factory workers who are used to building useful things being relegated to warehousing the worst elements of hour society for half or even less of their former salary, but that's a discussion for another day.

Instead, I'm more concerned with what happens to those factory workers-turned prison guards once the state decides it can no longer afford to maintain such a large prison population. That is happening to one Florida town in particular, as reported this week by Tallahassee.com:

Jefferson County officials told a House budget panel Tuesday closing their state prison will be an economic death sentence for the small, struggling rural community.

But the head of Florida’s prison system said there can’t be any reprieves for the seven prisons and four work camps he announced last week will be closing before June 30. Department of Corrections Secretary Ken Tucker said a detailed business analysis was used to evaluate each institution and that his agency will do all it can to transfer some employees and help find jobs in other state or local agencies for others.

“We are a community on life support and this decision will equate to pulling the plug on us,” Kirk Reams, the clerk of court and chief financial officer for the county, told the House Justice Appropriations Subcommittee.

Jefferson Correctional Institution, with 177 state jobs, was on the list Tucker announced last week. It is the county’s largest employer, with an $8.2 million payroll.

Julie Conley, executive director of the county’s Economic Development Council, said that figure multiplies by four as the money is spent in the Monticello area. She said the county’s budget is about $20 million.

County Commissioner Stephen Fulford said hundreds of Jefferson County residents work at state jobs in Tallahassee. He said many of them are fearful of losing their jobs in Gov. Rick Scott’s new budget proposal, which is projected to result in about 600 layoffs statewide next June 30 — apart from the prison closings.

How sad is it that a community has become so destitute that its last life line depends upon the state continuing to pay to keep people locked up? Sadly, this is the entirely predictable end result of 30 years of unfettered globalization now combining with the effects of peak oil to create a perfect economic shit storm.

Still, some will yell and scream that it isn't fair:

“If you don’t consider the economic impact on people who live in an area, I think that’s a serious flaw,” said Rep. Leonard Bembry, D-Greenville, a committee member who represents Jefferson County. He said JCI accounts for 5.5 percent of all employment in Jefferson County and that, while Hillsborough or Broward County might be able to absorb layoffs in big urban areas, Jefferson cannot.

“That would be like Orlando shutting down Disney,” said Bembry.

But frankly, my Dear Mr. Bembry, reality doesn't give a damn:

Tucker said the department considered personnel impact, along with other dollars-and-cents realities of its decision. The closings are projected to save $14 million in this fiscal year and $75 million in the year starting July 1.

“It’s hard to make the case that we need to maintain personnel and beds for inmates that we’re not going to have,” said Tucker. “We’re holding empty dorms at this prison and that prison, all across the state.

Bonus: Todd Snider with the best prison song this side of Johnny Cash

Five Years in the American Gulag

As the 2012 presidential election draws nearer, those who supported President Hopey-Changey back in 2008 in the expectation that he would end the wars and restore sanity to American governance must reflect on his sorry record of broken promises. Probably none of said breaches of his supporters' trust is more outrageous than his failure to close the American military prison in Guantanamo. There is no greater symbol of just how far America has strayed from its supposed democratic values than the Gulag established on the island of Cuba a decade ago.

There is also no excuse for holding anyone, no matter how heinous their crimes, indefinitely without trial. After World War Two the surviving Nazi leadership, including Hitler's deputy, Herman Goering, were promptly given a fair trial for all the world to see and then given appropriate punishments. If it could be done for the likes of Goering, it can be done for today's terror suspects, the severity of whose crimes (assuming they are actually guilty) utterly pale by comparison. Throw in the routine torturing of prisoners that has occurred in Guantanamo, and you have a stain on our national honor that like slavery, the genocide against the American Indian, the detainment of Japanese-Americans in World War Two and the McCarthy-era communist witch hunts, will never be eradicated.

It is bad enough that some detainees with legitimate connections to Al Qaeda have been tortured and held for years in utter isolation. But what's even worse are the cases of those who were rounded up indiscriminately despite being completely innocent. One such former detainee is now telling his story, as reported in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

I left Guantanamo Bay much as I had arrived almost five years earlier -- shackled hand-to-waist, waist-to-ankles, and ankles to a bolt on the airplane floor.

My ears and eyes were goggled, my head hooded, and even though I was the only detainee on the flight this time, I was drugged and guarded by at least 10 soldiers. This time though, my jumpsuit was American denim rather than Guantanamo orange.

When we landed, the American officers unshackled me before they handed me over to a delegation of German officials. The American officer offered to reshackle my wrists.

But the commanding German officer strongly refused: "He has committed no crime; here, he is a free man."

Strange, I thought, as I stood on the tarmac watching the Germans teach the Americans a basic lesson about the rule of law.

We've just marked the 10th anniversary of the opening of the detention camp at the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

I am not a terrorist. I have never been a member of Al-Qaida nor supported them. I don't even understand their ideas.

I am the son of Turkish immigrants who came to Germany in search of work. In 2001, when I was 18, I married a devout Turkish woman and wanted to learn more about Islam and to lead a better life. I did not have much money.

Some of the elders in my town suggested that I travel to Pakistan to study the Qur'an with a religious group there.

I made my plans just before 9/11. I was 19 then and was naive and did not think war in Afghanistan would have anything to do with Pakistan or my trip there.

I was in Pakistan, on a public bus on my way to the airport to return to Germany when the police stopped the bus. I was the only non-Pakistani on the bus -- the police asked me to step off to look at my papers and ask some questions.

The police detained me but promised they would soon let me go to the airport. After a few days, the Pakistanis turned me over to American officials.

At this point, I was relieved to be in American hands; Americans, I thought, would treat me fairly. I later learned the United States paid a $3,000 bounty for me.

I didn't know it at the time, but apparently the United States distributed thousands of fliers all over Afghanistan, promising that people who turned over Taliban or Al-Qaida suspects would, in the words of one flier, get "enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life."

A great number of men wound up in Guantanamo as a result.

I was taken to Kandahar, in Afghanistan, where American interrogators asked me the same questions for several weeks: Where is Osama bin Laden? Was I with Al-Qaida?

No, I told them, I was not with Al-Qaida. No, I had no idea where Bin Laden was.

They dunked my head under water and punched me in the stomach; they don't call this waterboarding, but it amounts to the same thing. I was sure I would drown.

At one point, I was chained to the ceiling and hung by my hands for days. The pain was unbearable.

After about two months in Kandahar, I was transferred to Guantanamo. There were more beatings, solitary confinement, freezing temperatures and extreme heat, days of forced sleeplessness.

The interrogations continued, always with the same questions. Nothing I said satisfied them.

I looked for ways to feel human. I have always loved animals. I started hiding a piece of bread from my meals and feeding the iguanas that came to the fence. When officials discovered this, I was punished with 30 days in isolation and darkness.

I remained confused on basic questions: Why was I here? With all its money and intelligence, the United States could not honestly believe I was Al-Qaida, could they?

After two and a half years at Guantanamo, in 2004, I was brought before what officials called a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, at which a military officer said I was an "enemy combatant" because a German friend had engaged in a suicide bombing in 2003 -- after I was already at Guantanamo.

I couldn't believe my friend had done anything so crazy but, if he had, I didn't know anything about it.

A couple of weeks later, I was told I had a visit from a lawyer. They took me to a special cell, and in walked an American law professor, Baher Azmy. He did not believe the evidence against me and quickly discovered that my "suicide bomber" friend was, in fact, alive and well in Germany.

Azmy, my mother and my German lawyer helped pressure the German government to secure my release. Recently, Azmy made public American and German intelligence documents from 2002 to 2004 that showed both countries suspected I was innocent.

Now, five years after my release, I am trying to put my memories behind me.

Still, it is hard not to think about my time at Guantanamo and to wonder how it is possible that a democratic government can detain people in intolerable conditions and without a fair trial.

I defy anyone who has supported the insidious War on Terror to give me a reasonable justification for such an atrocity to be committed by Americans. Through our out-of-control reaction to 9/11, we did Osama Bin Laden's bidding for him and destroyed that part of ourselves that the propagandists tried to tell us he supposedly hated. If that statement enrages you, well then all I can say is that, sadly, you can't handle the truth.


Bonus: You tell 'em, Jack

Another Globalization Blow to My Home Town

image: The Lincoln Mall in Freeport, Illinois. Built the year I was born, the mall was anchored by Sears and JC Penney when I was growing up and along with the downtown business district was the city's prime shopping destination. Like Freeport's downtown, it is now virtually abandoned.

Back on August 12th of last year in my post, "Friday Rant: A Half-Century at the Local Tire Factory in a Globalizing World", I wrote about the history of the factory in my hometown where my father spent his entire career as a middle manager. The factory in question is currently operating at about one-fourth the capacity it was when my father retired, and just recently ownership locked out the workers to win more wage concessions from the union.

Well, the hits just keep on coming for my hometown of Freeport, Illinois, as reported this week by the Freeport Journal Standard:

As the plan to phase out roughly 170 jobs at the Sensata Technologies/Honeywell plant in Freeport continues to move ahead, local workforce officials are meeting with affected staff in an effort to keep them employed in this region.

“We want to make the transition for them as quick and pain-free as possible,” said Stephenson County Board Chairman John Blum, who is a member of the Local Workforce Investment Board (LWIB). “It’s definitely upsetting a lot of lives.”

In early 2011, Sensata announced it would be closing its local plant at the end of 2012, and relocating the jobs there to a plant in China. Normal operations will continue at the Freeport plant until then, but roughly 170 jobs are being phased out gradually.

About 25 employees at the plant are expected to be laid off over the next six weeks. However, many of these employees have chosen to extend their employment at the local plant by moving to another production line there. Still, all the plant employees will be let go by late 2012, at which time the facility will be decommissioned.

I really have one question for the American management officials who make decisions like this. How the fuck do you sleep at night? Seriously, I really want to know. Has corporate America been completely taken over by psychopaths at this point?

Freeport is a small city of around 25,000 mostly blue collar souls who were already struggling from the loss of much of the town's manufacturing base. This action is going to be a real kick in the nuts for the city.

Sadly, this was all predicted back in 1994 by the late James Goldsmith, who ironically was the financier whose attempted buyout of the Goodyear corporation in 1986 caused my father to be laid off for about six months. His subsequent appearance on the Charlie Rose show a few months after NAFTA was passed in 1994 is a rare example of must-see teevee. Goldsmith very presciently warned that globalization was going to destroy the lives of working people in the United States, even as Rose pooh-poohs the idea.

I've posted this video before, but it deserves to be spread as far and widely as possible:

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?