Northwest Community Healthcare (Illinois) Lays Off 104 Workers

More bad news from the health care industry. Here is Crain's Chicago Business with the details:

Northwest Community Healthcare laid off 104 employees this week after the Arlington Heights-based system lost $13.2 million on operations in 2011, the third-straight year of losses.

The job cuts represent about 3 percent of the workforce, said Jackie Speckin, Northwest's director of strategic marketing, who confirmed the layoffs.

Employees were laid off on Monday and Tuesday, she said. Most of the jobs were eliminated at the 496-bed Northwest Community Hospital, where average occupancy fell to 67 percent during the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, from 70 percent during fiscal 2010.

Nothing terribly remarkable there, but check out this passage:

Ms. Speckin blamed the performance on industry trends.

“We're experiencing what every other hospital nationwide is experiencing, and that's a decrease in the amount of inpatient volume,” she said.

A decrease in inpatient volume, eh? Given that the population continues to both grow and the average age is gradually increasing with the graying of the Baby Boomers, why do you suppose that would be? More people losing their health insurance who can't afford hospital stays?

That would be my guess.


Bonus: In light of this story, here is a good sentiment from the late, great Warren Zevon...too bad he didn't manage to avoid it himself

Startup Company Converts Plastic To Oil

I'm always wary of any energy related story put forth by National Propaganda Radio, but this NPR article on a company that has apparently figured out a feasible way to make oil from plastic waste is interesting:

Only 7 percent of plastic waste in the United States is recycled each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. A startup company in Niagara Falls says it can increase that amount and reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil at the same time.

It all starts with a machine known as the Plastic-Eating Monster. Thousands of pounds of shredded milk jugs, water bottles and grocery bags tumble into a large tank, where they're melted together and vaporized. This waste comes from landfills and dumps from all over the United States.

"Basically, they've been mining their piles for us and sending them here," says John Bordynuik, who heads his namesake company, JBI Inc. He invented a process that converts plastic into oil by rearranging its hydrocarbon chains.

So how much does the process cost?

Each barrel of oil costs about $10 to produce. JBI can sell it for around $100 through a national distributor. The young company is already producing a few thousand gallons of oil a day. It has signed lucrative deals to set up operations next to companies with large volumes of plastic waste.

So what's the bottom line here?

"We don't make a synthetic 'other' product that has problems," he says. "We make an in-spec fuel like everyone else. If anything, the word 'alternative' has a stigma attached to it, more so because of prior attempts."

If JBI has its way, plastics will become a significant source of domestic fuel that reduces the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. But just how "green" is JBI's recycling, when it produces a fossil fuel that pollutes just like any other?

"To enter themselves into this industry, I think that they've all bought into the idea of producing a fuel," says Carson Maxted of Resource Recycling, the plastic recycling industry's trade journal.

Maxted says he's not sure whether converting plastic to oil can be considered recycling, or even environmentally friendly. But he says JBI's methods can co-exist, and even complement, current recycling practices.

"They're getting value from something that would otherwise go to the landfill," he says, "because the plastics most of them are looking for, the plastics that are not easily recycled, they're of low quality or mixed-plastic types, or they're dirty — things that wouldn't be accepted into a recycler."

And because there's no lack of waste-plastic supply, and no lack of demand for oil, Maxted says the technology has the potential to transform both industries.

Some issues that were not addressed by the article that I wish they would have covered are: exactly how much plastic does it take to make a barrel of oil? Are there significant environmental impacts to be considered should this technology become widely used? How does the energy density of a barrel of this oil compare with a barrel of crude oil? How scale-able is this technology, really?

On the one hand, it is gratifying to see that someone may have successfully figured out a way to put those mountains of plastic garbage to good use. On the other hand, the fact that we are considering mining our own landfills to get more oil just shows how desperate we really are. It will be interesting to see if this company continues to be successful whether this process becomes touted by the media as the latest great technology that is going to "save" our happy suburban, consumerist lifestyles. If so, it will become yet another pipe dream pumped out by the Hologram to keep the masses thinking that everything is going to be just fine.


Bonus: "Everything is going to be all right...rock-a-bye"

Friday Rant: Liberal Media Whore Michael Kinsley Defends Goldman Sachs

The other day I took Atlantic Wire scribe Jen Doll to task for writing an op-ed piece defending the Morgan Stanley banker who stabbed a cab driver over a disputed fare. I called out the ridiculously named Ms. Doll for using her media platform to defend a rich scumbag who certainly didn't need any help from her supposedly liberal publication. But I now feel I must offer Ms. Doll an apology, for she really is far too low in the media food chain for me to be picking on the way I did. Nobody really cares about the opinions of a glorified blogger who apparently spends a lot of her time when not kissing Wall Street ass writing about mindless pop culture.

Instead, I'd rather readjust my aim and go for some really big game. That means it's your turn, Michael Kinsley, formerly the house liberal on CNN's long departed but unlamented political debate show, Crossfire. Kinsley left CNN to become a founding editor for Slate, yet another in a long line corporate propaganda outlets masquerading as part of the supposedly "liberal media." Working for billionaire Bill Gates (and being married to another Gates flunky) must really agree with Kinsley, because he recently took a new job as a mouthpiece for billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as an editor of his eponymous business publication.

First, let's set the stage. Everyone knows by now that former Goldman Sachs employee Greg Smith made quite a splash last week when he wrote a damning op-ed piece for the New York Times called "Why I'm Leaving Goldman Sachs." Almost immediately after the article appeared, Michael Bloomberg was, not surprisingly, condemning it and heaping praise upon the "vampire squid." Meanwhile, Bloomberg the magazine published an unsigned editorial blasting Smith:

It must have been a terrible shock when Smith concluded that Goldman actually was primarily about making money. He spares us the sordid details, but apparently it took more than a decade for the scales to finally fall from his eyes. ...

...[W]hat an employee! He worked at Goldman as an intern in college and worked there continuously until today. “I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world.” Then there was being “a Rhodes Scholar national finalist” and “winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics.”

We have some advice for Smith, as well as the thousands of college students who apply to work at Goldman Sachs each year: If you want to dedicate your life to serving humanity, do not go to work for Goldman Sachs. That’s not its function, and it never will be. Go to work for Goldman Sachs if you wish to work hard and get paid more than you deserve even so. (Or if you want to make your living selling derivatives but don’t know what a derivative is, as Smith concedes in passing that he didn’t at first.)

Wow, pretty harsh, eh? Probably written by someone who worked in the business and is taking umbrage at his old buddies being attacked, right?

Wrong. The author of the hit job on Greg Smith was none other than Mr. Resident Liberal on Crossifire himself, Michael Kinsley. Here is Politico with the details:

Michael Kinsley, the former editor of the New Republic and former columnist at the Washington Post, is the author of the recent Bloomberg View editorial that chastised former disgruntled Goldman Sachs employee Greg Smith, he confirmed by phone today.

"I just proposed, and the editor-in-chief David Shipley liked it, so I did it," Kinsley, now an editor at Bloomberg View, told me.

The editorial is attributed to "The Editors," which led to some speculation that Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- owner of the Bloomberg media empire -- had been behind the editorial, given his own public defense of Goldman Sachs last week. But Kinsley said Bloomberg (the man) had nothing to do with it.

"Any thought that this was Bloomberg protecting his friend [Goldman CEO] Lloyd Blankfein is ludicrous," he said.

Yeah, that's Michael Kinsley, a real man of the people all right. This is what happens when you've been whoring yourself out to billionaires for so long that you don't even recognize it as whoring anymore. Kinsley didn't even need his new boss to tell him to write a blistering editorial defending the biggest enemy of working and middle class people in America, he just instinctively KNEW that it would please Mayor .0000001 Percenter. Note the sly way he chides Smith by saying, "If you want to dedicate your life to serving humanity, do not go to work for Goldman Sachs," as if Smith was a naif who had no idea what he was getting into when he went to work for the firm. In this way, Kinsley can plausibly claim that he wasn't actually defending Goldman Sachs, but merely blasting Smith for having an unrealistically idealist world view.

But here is the quote from Kinsley that is particularly galling:

"I didn't know it would be such a big deal when I wrote the piece," he added. "I just read Smith's piece and thought it was funny."

Yep--it was pretty damn funny, Micahel, you fake liberal fuck. Just like it was pretty damn funny when those derivatives Goldman Sachs was pedaling to its clients KNOWING that they were dodgy helped crash the whole fucking economy back in 2008 and cost millions of working and middle class Americans their jobs. The same working and middle class Americans that liberals like you profess to actually give a shit about. And it was even funnier when those same working and middle class Americans were asked to fork over $700 billion of their tax money to save the very same financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, from their own bad acts. And goddam if isn't just hysterical that NO ONE from Goldman Sachs has been prosecuted for all of this rampant fraud and that they continued to receive millions of dollars in bonuses even after the taxpayer bailouts. I'm sure the 46 million people on food stamps, the numerous college graduates with six-figure student loan debts who can't find a decent job, the retirees whose pensions are being gutted, the underwater homeowners and the increasingly desperate wage earners whose 401K accounts have been bouncing up and down like a yo-yo are laughing their asses off right along with you.

It would be one thing if this drivel had been written by a conservative cretin like your fellow Crossfire alum, the late Robert Novak. You expect a life long toady to power like him to carry the water of billionaire assholes. But when it comes from someone with a reputation as a respected liberal commentator, it is far more insidious. With the likes of you inside the tent, the liberal and progressive movement can truly make use of the Walt Kelly saying from the old comic strip, Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."


Bonus: At least when The Who sold out, they still fucking ROCKED

Community Colleges Downsize Programs

This story interested me because I am myself a proud graduate of a community college (the one eventually built at the site in the photo above, in fact, although it was later renamed "Highland"), with the Associates Degree to prove it. Being lower middle class with divorced parents who were unable to help fund my college education, attending the local community college in my town and getting all of my basic college courses out of the way cheaply before moving on to university was a big reason why I was able to eventually earn a Bachelor's Degree without piling up any student loan debt. At the time, the tuition at my community college, though far lower than college costs today, was still about one-fourth of that of even the average public university.

Anyway, here are the details from USA Today:

Community colleges across the USA, faced with tight budgets and competing priorities, are downsizing or shuttering programs that in many cases have been held near and dear for years by students and other local constituents.

•Texarkana College in Texas is one of the latest schools to drop intercollegiate sports.
•A group of older adults is working to keep alive some version of Santa Barbara City College's continuing education division, which offers free classes in subjects such as financial planning and pastry-making.

•Starting this summer, Pima Community College in Tucson will no longer offer remediation for incoming adult students who fail a seventh-grade-level test of reading, writing and math.

Two-year schools, established to serve the needs of their local communities, "can't do it all anymore," says Suzanne Miles, Pima's interim president. She estimates the school's decision will affect no more than 2,000 students this fall.

State funding cuts are one culprit. For instance, state funding for California community colleges has been slashed $809 million, or 12%, since 2007-08. Another driver: a growing emphasis on improving degree-completion rates and retraining displaced workers. President Obama has made both central to his higher education agenda.

And thus is a sensible higher education option for working and middle class families that won't burden their children with unpayable debt slowly falling by the wayside.


Bonus: A little tune from the best damn college band from back when I was in school...and a good anthem for how I feel in middle age

Public Opinion Poll on Energy Issues Shows How Clueless The Public Really Is

It really is true, as comedian Doug Stanhope has asserted, that a majority of Americans will express their opinion about an issue even when they have no basis of knowledge for which to even form an opinion. That point was driven home in a recent article from UPI entitled, “Poll: Alternative Energy Loses Support.” Why the pollsters even bother polling on an issue so technically complex that no more than a small percentage of the population is well informed enough to provide meaningful answers is a whole separate topic. Instead, I thought I would go through and pick the results of this particular poll apart point by point.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Support for development of fuel sources such as wind and solar power has diminished in the United States during the past year, a survey found.

The March 7-11 poll, conducted by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press, found 52 percent of those responding indicated support for alternative fuel was more important than increasing oil, coal and natural gas production, while 39 percent indicated expanding exploration of coal, oil and gas was the more important of the two choices.

Although a majority went for alternative fuels, support for solar, wind and hydrogen power was not as popular as it had been in March 2011, when 63 percent indicated that was their favorite choice, while 29 percent chose coal, oil and gas exploration.

Respondents who identified themselves as Republicans were more apt to have changed their preferences -- with 33 percent indicated support for alternative energy sources, down from 47 percent in 2011.

Do I really need to waste the pixels pointing out that asking people whether they “support” development of alternative energy versus whether they “support” increased oil, coal and natural gas production is laughably meaningless? The question makes it sound as if all forms of energy are interchangeable and unlimited, and how we power our lives is merely a matter of the choices we collectively make.

On the one hand, you can “support” solar and wind power all you want, but that doesn’t mean either form of energy will ever be a viable replacement for fossil fuels and enable you and your descendents to live your suburbanized, consumerist lifestyle in perpetuity. The fact is that while both do have their uses and COULD be a part of voluntarily powered down future if America was willing to be sensible about its energy predicament, neither is going to allow us to continue on with business as usual once fossil fuels deplete to the point where they are too expensive to keep supporting our modern industrialized civilization.

On the flip side, you can “support” increasing the production of oil, coal and natural gas; and while you are at it you might as well try holding your breath until Santa Claus brings you a new Lexus for Christmas. The world supply of all three is FINITE. That means there is only so much of it that can EVER be produced. What’s more, most of the easy and cheap to extract stuff is already gone and what’s left is going to be ever more costly and difficult to produce. Child-like wishing for more isn’t going to change geology.

Let's move on:

The survey found "as in the past ... there continues to be broad public support for an array of policies aimed at addressing the nation's energy supply."

Nearly 80 percent overall indicated support for improving fuel efficiency in cars, while nearly 70 percent indicated support for federal research for alternative energy sources. Sixty-five percent indicated support for improved rail, bus and subway systems.

Sure, no doubt there is “broad public support” for all of that stuff. You know why? Because it doesn’t cost the respondents anything to answer the questions in a public opinion survey.

Once you start moving beyond feel good concepts and into how all of those policies are going to be PAID FOR it becomes a different equation altogether. Try asking, “Would you be willing to pay an annual $1,000 carbon tax to support the federal research for alternative energy sources and for improved rail, bus and subway systems?” or “Should federal government funds be used for public transportation INSTEAD OF building more roads and highways?” and I’ll guarantee you the poll results would be drastically different.

Once again, the choices are presented in a vacuum, as if each one does not carry considerable costs and consequences. This is exactly the kind of thinking that created Spoiled Rotten Nation, and a citizenry that just cannot understand how the government can’t seem to do everything they want it to do without raising their taxes and/or running massive budget deficits. We want alternative energy research, AND public transportation, AND more roads and highways to reduce traffic congestion, BUT we don’t want to pay for any of it.

But they saved the very best part for last:

Concerning the controversial method of mining called fracking, 37 percent indicated they have only heard a little about it and 37 percent, indicated they have never heard of it. Only 25 percent indicated they had heard a lot about it.

A majority -- 52 percent -- indicated support for fracking, a figure held up mostly by Republicans, 73 percent of whom indicated they supported fracking, compared to 33 percent of Democrats.

You gotta love the willingness of so many to support something they know very little or nothing about. Despite the fact that only a quarter of the population has by its own admission any real idea what fracking is, more than half claim to support it. And that 25% constituting the at least reasonably well informed doesn’t include people like me who know a lot about fracking but are opposed to it because we know what the dangers are. The more appropriate question to ask here would be, “Would you support fracking even if it meant there was a good chance that your drinking water might be poisoned or that a resulting earthquake might damage your home?” That at least might get a few of the respondents thinking, yet another resource which is in very short supply these days.


Bonus: I've posted this video before, but it is too funny not to repeat

Atlantic Wire: Don't Hate Bankers Because They're Rich--Or When They Stab Cab Drivers

It's no wonder that America is in the mess its in when you consider that lapdog-to-power publication like The Atlantic is what passes for a "liberal media," these days. I realize that is not exactly breaking news to anyone in the reality based community, but the horrid rag, or at least its Atlantic Wire online news feed, demonstrated yet again where it really stands in an article about the Morgan Stanley banker who allegedly stabbed a cab driver in a dispute over a fare. In "Why We Love to Hate Masters of the Universe," Senior Writer Wall Street Sycophant Jen Doll, who actually used to write for the Village Voice no less, admonishes her readers not to hate the little rich bastard just because he is rich:

In the annals of crime, there is a place reserved for the banker—a special sort of banker, mind you, not just the guy who offers you free checking with your savings account, presuming you keep a certain balance, at Chase. You probably never see this esteemed creature, unless he deigns to be seen, or unless you frequent his gilded circles (in fact, he may look a lot like everyone else, but don't let that terrify you; he smells your fear). He is the one who lives in a million-dollar abode on Park Avenue, or in "the wealthy enclave of Darien." He may be the owner of a "sweeping curved staircase, perfectly plumped chintz pillows, backyard swimming pool, and a Ferrari in the garage." He has so much when some have so little, so much in material goods but also in the currency of power, that when he crosses the rules by which we expect him to conduct himself—after all, he is civilized, or must be, with so much in liquid assets—we recoil back in horror only briefly before we jump in to censure, releasing a sigh that demonstrates our resignation that of course this person could not have had all that and been a decent human being, too. Of course. And there is some joy in that resignation, because we are struggling, because of the economy, because of the haves and have-nots, because of the 99 percent, just because.

Take the case of William Bryan Jennings, a man who could not have been more unfortunately named and now faces an unfortunate reality. Not that there's anything unfortunate about being the head of fixed income for North America at Morgan Stanley, or owning a $2.7 million mansion in Darien, Conn., or being able to send your children to a prestigious private school or afford a $204 cab ride home from Manhattan when you've had too much to drink at your holiday party and can't locate the town car that's been ordered for you. What is unfortunate is fighting with your cab driver over the fare once you're home, refusing to pay that cab fare, shouting racial slurs, and then, in failing to get your way, stabbing that cab driver, who, in perfectly cinematic contrast, lives in a ground-floor apartment in Astoria near the railroad tracks "in the shadow of the Triborough Bridge."

These are things that Jennings has allegedly done. He pleaded not guilty to the charges on March 9; he has denied using racial slurs and claims, according to his lawyer, who says Jennings thought he was being abducted. If convicted he could face 11 years in prison. As a direct consequence of his actions that night in December, he's been placed on leave, and according to rumors he may never get his job back. The next court date, a pre-trial hearing, is scheduled for April 12. But whether he's proven guilty or not, Jennings is now a member of the bad banker club.

He follows in footsteps like those of Rajat Rajaratnum, billionaire and in 2009 the 236th richest American, the Galleon Group's former hedge fund manager and founder—who was found guilty of allegations of insider trading and sentenced to 11 years in prison in October 2011. Or those of Rajat Gupta, formerly of Goldman Sachs and McKinsey & Company, whose trial over "passing along corporate secrets to Rajaratnam" will soon begin (Gupta is a man who in his own estimation still wasn't rich enough). Going further back, there's Martha Stewart, not a banker herself but certainly a member of a certain coterie of power players, convicted of insider trading and sent to jail back in 2004. Fictionally, we have Wall Street top bond salesman Sherman McCoy, done in by his own greed and selfishness (with the help of the media) in The Bonfire of the Vanities, or the case of Wall Street's Gordon Gekko, who believes above all else that greed is good.

There is a sense that these figures, the "masters of the universe," dubbed so without our explicit agreement (even as we are complicit in their successes) are somehow more evil than your garden variety criminal, someone without wealth and power and private schools and sisal rugs at his fingertips. This is good for us, because we can hate them more, without any sort of liberal guilt associated. The bigger and badder the persona, the better. Which is why, when the news came out about Jennings, we slapped our foreheads and thought, "Shoulda known, not another one!" in an almost gleeful (though rueful) fashion while feeling just terrible for his alleged victim.

Interestingly, however, Jennings doesn't quite fit our stereotype. As Conlin and Francescani write, "In the world capital of ego-driven alphas, Jennings didn't come off as one. He was polite and well-liked, according to Morgan Stanley colleagues. He also was a 'Morgan monk,' utterly devoted to the firm and his job, with little personal life outside work." If Jennings hadn't been a banker and instead was, maybe, an inebriated mid-level ad exec on his way home from a Christmas party who got into a tiff with a cab driver, would we react the same way? Maybe...but probably not. With great power comes greater responsibility, so we expect our masters of the universe to behave appropriately. But if we're being honest, we don't really want them to behave properly, not only because it makes for interesting news, but because, well, schadenfreude. We want them to be bad so we feel better about ourselves.

So when Greg Smith, the hero-or-anti-hero or in any case now famous writer of the "Why I'm Leaving Goldman Sachs" op-ed in the New York Times, tells us how bad his coworkers are, calling their clients "muppets," taking advantage of the poorer or weaker or stupider, generally reveling in their toxic environment -- we eat that up and ask for more. We want to hate those corporate bigwigs making all the money and crushing the little people and complaining about how poor they are on Urban Baby. When it turns out they're human...good or decent people who've worked hard but messed up...that becomes less easy, or certainly less pleasant, to swallow along with the lump of jealousy that burns in our throat.

But back to the case of Jennings. There is dispute over what actually happened in the cab that night, and we may never know exactly what occurred. We do know things escalated to the degree in which a pen knife was taken from a briefcase, and a cab driver was left bleeding and in need of six stitches. We know that later Jennings went on vacation with his family, to Florida, but that at the end of February, he turned himself in to cops. And all that is probably enough for him to go down in the banker hall of villainy, regardless of the outcome of the trial. It's easy to hate bankers, because not only are they rich, and richer than we are, but also, most of us don't actually understand what they do. What we do understand, and what people have understood since the beginning of time, is that watching the mighty fall is far more amusing than watching those further down in the rungs of power remain exactly where they are.

First of all, I love how Jen Doll (speaking of unfortunately named) condescendingly presumes to know what all of her readers were feeling when they heard about Banker William Bryan Jennings's run in with the cab driver. Apparently, she and her editors at The Atlantic who green lighted this tripe assume that we are all a bunch of easily enraged troglodytes, ready to form a lynch mob and string poor, put upon Banker Jennings up from the nearest tree. The really neat trick here is the attempt to make you feel guilty about not feeling liberal guilt about hating him.

Sorry, but I do hate the fucker and I don't apologize for it. I'm supposed to take this asshole's banker buddies at their word about what a great guy he supposedly is? Or be at all concerned that this incident might cost him his high flying job, which is after all to rape and pillage the planet's resources and fuck over people who actually work for a living? Excuse me, but I'd rather extend my empathy to the cab driver who got stabbed, thank you very much, because he is, you know, the actual victim here.

But beyond just looking down her nose at the unwashed, stupid masses who read The Atlantic Wire and let their lack of liberal guilt run amok (and who are obviously too dumb to know when they've been insulted), I really must ask why Ms. Doll felt compelled to write an article sticking up for Banker Jennings in the first place. The defendant has by all appearances plenty of fucking money and can afford to buy a conga line's worth of the absolute best defense attorneys available. He hardly has to worry about being railroaded by the American justice system, the way, oh, say the cab driver might have been had the roles in this case been reversed.

I guess what makes me so angry about this craptastic turd of an article is that I grew up reading the columns of the late, great Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko. For the better part of four decades, Royko used his daily column, when he wasn't busy shining the spotlight on the Windy City's bountiful municipal corruption, to stick up for the little guy against whatever forces, be they bureaucratic, corporate or even gangster, that might be attempting to stomp on him. Royko brilliantly used the power of press to right many wrongs in that very cold-hearted and unfeeling city, and working class Chicagoans in particular loved him for it. The idea that a writer with a media platform would use that platform to defend one of our overlords after he viciously assaulted one of the little people must surely have Royko spinning in his grave. Banker Jennings will get his fair trial, a much fairer trial than you or I would ever be able to afford were we in his shoes. He doesn't need some hack writer kissing his ass on top of it.

It would be one thing if this tired old "don't hate the rich just because they are rich" mantra that is used to justify all sorts of bad acts perpetrated by the corporate and Wall Street elites was being spewed forth by a conservative propaganda sheet like the American Spectator. It's something else again when it comes from a publication dutifully read by good little liberals everywhere. I guess Ms. Doll has to the have the evil of Wall Street bankers rubbed right in her face so she might understand a little better why they are so justifiably hated even when they aren't outwardly Gordon Gekko caricatures and why they don't need the likes of her sticking up for them.

Here's hoping that some right wing billionaire soon makes a hostile takeover bid of The Atlantic, and when he seizes control he immediately fires the entire staff. Sitting on the unemployment line still might not enlighten the dimwitted likes of Jen Doll, but I would love nothing better than to see her feeling bad so that I can feel better about myself.


Bonus: A song from a guy who gets who the enemy is

Eroding Profit Margins Cause Stores To Reduce Issuance Of Coupons

Issuing coupons have always been a great way for retailers to lure shopper into their stores, or for manufacturers to ensure consumers look to buy their brand over a rival at the supermarket. It's all fine and dandy until those same consumers become driven by a poor economy to start overusing them. Here is the Ft. Lauderdale SunSentinel with the details:

"Why so many coupons?" Ellen DeGeneres asks in an ad forJ.C. Penney. "This is ridiculous."

Some companies are starting to agree. They are scaling back the value of coupon offers and limiting how many of them bargain-conscious consumers can redeem.

It's hard to find a $10 off $40 Whole Foods Market coupon anymore. Publix has cut back on coupons it offers through fundraisers and tightened its general policy. AndJ.C. Penney has abandoned coupons altogether.

"It's harder and harder," Orlando coupon blogger Amy Selleck said. "I used to be able to go out and do deals every day and stock up a cart. Now it seems like the deals aren't there."

In 2011, name-brand grocery manufacturers' coupons fell 8.1 percent to 305 billion compared with the previous year, according to Michigan-based coupon processor NCH Marketing. But consumers used $4.6 billion worth of coupons last year — a 12.2 percent jump.

Coupon use has been on the upswing since the financial crisis in 2008. As consumers hit the brakes on spending, retailers began discounting, sometimes almost desperately. Companies were "chasing business just for business' sake," Dallas retail consultant Steven Dennis said. Now, they're trying to keep coupon redemptions from eroding profits.

More people are scouring websites, newspapers and even recycling bins for deals. Fueled by the tough economy and reality TV, "extreme couponing" has become popular with shoppers who snip their grocery bills down to nearly nothing by combining offers.

"Some retailers have said it's become harder to manage than ever before," National Retail Federation spokeswoman Kathy Grannis said.

Of course it has been the American consumer's incessant obsession over getting things for the lowest possible prices which has wreaked so much havoc in our economy in the first place, from declining wages and benefits of workers who make the products, to the rise of the megastore and the destruction of locally owned businesses, to the dramatically decreasing quality of many of the products on offer. Coupons are not the cause of all of those things, but they are certainly a symptom of the prevailing mindset that has allowed them to happen. Only in a decadent and depraved society such as ours with a value system gone completely askew could a teevee show like Extreme Couponing actually find an audience.

And now, as we remain mired in our economic malaise, stores are finding out that you can only take price cutting so far, especially at a time of rising food and energy costs, before the effort becomes utterly self defeating. The sad irony is that this is now happening at a time when so many financially strapped shoppers could really use the discounts.


Bonus: Extreme couponers--they just can't get enough

"Orange Shirt Day" Gets 14 Law Firm Employees Fired

The average American workplace is in many instances rapidly becoming a living hell, even for those still fortunate enough to have their jobs. Don't believe it? Well, then I invite you to check out this story from the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel:

Were they wearing orange shirts on Friday to protest management? Or to get psyched for happy hour?

Either way, orange-shirted workers no longer have jobs at the Deerfield Beach law firm of Elizabeth R. Wellborn P.A.

A spokeswoman said the law firm had "no comment at this time."

Four workers tell the story this way: For the past few months, some employees have worn orange shirts on pay-day Fridays so they'd look like a group when they went out for happy hour.

This Friday, 14 workers wearing orange shirts were called into a conference room, where an executive said he understood there was a protest involving orange, the employees were wearing orange, and they all were fired.

The executive said anyone wearing orange for an innocent reason should speak up. One employee immediately denied involvement with a protest and explained the happy-hour color.

The executives conferred outside the room, returned and upheld the decision: all fired, said Lou Erik Ambert, 31, of Coconut Creek, a litigation para-legal who said he was terminated.

"There is no office policy against wearing orange shirts. We had no warning. We got no severance, no package, no nothing," said Ambert. "I feel so violated."

Meloney McLeod, 39, of North Lauderdale, said her choice of shirt puts her in a tough spot: "I'm a single mom with four kids, and I'm out of a job just because I wore orange today."

Janice Doble, 50, of Sunrise,said she wore orange Friday because she was looking forward to happy hour with colleagues after a busy work week.

"Orange happens to be my favorite color. My patio is orange," said Doble. "My lipstick was orange today." She said she supervised 12 people who scanned, copied and mailed documents for the firm.

Now she's worried for relatives employed at the law firm. "I have four kids who work there," said Doble. "I don't want them to retaliate and fire my kids."

Yadel Fong, 21, of Miami, wonders where he'll find work after losing his job in the mail room. He was not aware of anyone in the group involved in a protest.

"To my mind, protesting is where you put your foot down, and you're not working. There was none of that today," said Fong, who said he was working and looking forward to happy hour.

Of course, no business would ever take such an arbitrary action if we were still close to full employment and there weren't thousands of unemployed people who will line up to take the place of those fired. The sad part is that these workers are easily replaceable, and you can bet that those who end up taking their jobs as well as those who were not fired this time around will be even more docile and compliant in the future. It would be nice if clients of this asshole law firm upon reading this story would pull their business, but I wouldn't bet on that happening.

Of course, Florida is a "Right to Work" state, which in reality means a state where you have a right to get fired for any flimsy ass reason...like wearing an orange shirt to work.


Bonus: "I get up at seven, yeah...and I go to work at nine...I got no time for livin'...Yes, I'm workin' all the time"

More Seniors Using Reverse Mortgages to Raise Cash, And At A Younger Age

Yet another sign of the economic distress being felt in the real world beyond the manipulated stock markets was seen in this story that appeared on Friday on CNBC:

Finding themselves financially strapped, more seniors at an earlier age are trying to get reverse mortgages on their homes in order to survive, according to a new report.

The study says the percentage of people aged 62 to 64 applying for reverse mortgages has increased 15 percent since 1999.

The reason for the dramatic upswing among 'younger' seniors is simple, the report concludes: They need the money.

"The average age for taking out reverse mortgages has been around 71," explains Sandy Timmerman, director of the MetLife Market Institute who conducted the survey with the National Council on Aging.

"But with job losses, higher debt and living costs, more and more of the 'younger' seniors are looking at reverse mortgages as a way to pay their bills and keep their homes," Timmerman adds. "It shows the devastation some seniors have gone through since the financial downturn."

Reverse mortgages—which allow homeowners to borrow against the value of their homes—have been around since the early 1960's, but have grown in popularity. TV commercials with celebrities like Henry Winkler, Robert Wagner and Fred Thompson promoting reverse mortgages, are rampant during weekends and late night viewing hours.

But whether it's the ads, the financial necessity, or both—reverse mortgages have become attractive to more seniors. In 2010 alone, more than 80,000 Americans over 62 years old finalized a reverse mortgage. That's up from 25,000 in 1995.

'It's not surprising that more seniors are doing this at an earlier age," says Karl Byrd, CFP, vice president at Security Ballew Wealth Management. "We live in a time when people are not planning for their retirement or can even get out of debt. Some seniors can't even buy groceries right now."

I love that little "blame the victim" statement right there from Vice President Karl Byrd of Security Ballew Wealth Management. Have some people foolishly failed to save for retirement despite the fact that they could have easily afforded to do so? Undoubtedly. Are there plenty of others who saw their nest eggs kicked in the balls by the housing and stock market crashes perpetrated by parasitic Wall Street scum? Without a doubt.

The article continues on to describe the pain many seniors are feeling that is forcing them into reverse mortgages:

Another warning signal—reverse loans can use up all or most of the equity and leave seniors with fewer assets as they grow older. And the loans are geared toward older seniors. The older someone is, the more credit is available. That's why most reverse mortgages have been taken out by people in their 70's. That is until now.

"Weaker economic conditions are pushing 'younger seniors' to go for any amount of money they can get at an earlier age," says Timmerman.

"The people we surveyed in the younger age range applying for the loans were clear about their needs for financial help," Timmerman says. "They didn't seem like they could wait."

At a time when more seniors in the U.S. are facing poverty—some 15.9 percent are considered poor— it's not surprising to see the move to reverse mortgages, says Mark Goldman.

"I saw a an older woman at the drug store the other day, asking her pharmacist to please cut the costs of her medicine," Goldman adds. "When you see seniors facing rising health care costs, and as they lose jobs and see 401(k) returns shrink, it's going to be tough not to look at a reverse loan."

And of course, those who do will have very little, if any, wealth to pass on tho their younger heirs who may themselves be struggling with massive student loan debts, underwater mortgages or job losses. As a result, more and more middle class American families will gradually see their wealth permanently evaporate as the downward spiral resulting from the death of or cheap oil-based economy slowly strangles the tattered remnants of the American Dream.


Bonus: Go back to selling your political snake oil, Fred, you cretinous, Ronald Reagan wannabee

Media Shocked, SHOCKED, To Learn That Millennials Are Less Environmentally Conscious

If you've been reading TDS for awhile, you know that I absolutely detest the glaring hypocrisy and self-regard of most of the mainstream media (gee, Bill, tell us something we don't know). The corporate controlled Fourth Estate in America long ago abdicated its duty as the watchdogs of representative democracy and instead became purring lap cats snuggling in the bossoms of the rich and powerful.

So it was with a very skeptical eye that I read this Washington Post story on how young adults have become less enviornmetally conscious than ever before:

They have a reputation for being environmentally minded do-gooders. But an academic analysis of surveys spanning more than 40 years has found that today’s young Americans are less interested in the environment and in conserving resources — and often less civic-minded overall — than their elders were when they were young.

The findings go against the widespread belief that environmental issues have hit home with today’s young adults, known as Millennials, who have grown up amid climate change discussion and the mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle.” The environment is often listed among top concerns of young voters.

“I was shocked,” said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University who is one of the study’s authors. “We have the perception that we’re getting through to people. But at least compared to previous eras, we’re not.”

This study, published online this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, looked at the life goals, concern for others and civic orientation of three young generations — baby boomers, Generation X and Millennials.

Based on two long-standing national surveys of high school seniors and college freshmen, Twenge and her colleagues found a decline over the past four decades in young people’s trust in others, their interest in government and the time they said they spent thinking about social problems.

Steepest of all was a steady decline in concern about the environment and in taking personal action to save it.

Researchers found that, when surveyed decades ago, about a third of young baby boomers said it was important to become personally involved in programs to clean up the environment. In comparison, only about a quarter of young Generation X members — and 21 percent of Millennials — said the same.

Meanwhile, 15 percent of Millennials said they had made no effort to help the environment, compared with 8 percent of young Generation X members and 5 percent of young baby boomers.

Millennials also were the least likely to say they had made an effort to conserve electricity and fuel used to heat their homes.

In the case of heating fuel, 78 percent of young baby boomers and 71 percent of young Generation X members said they cut back, compared with 56 percent of Millennials.

It is important to note that most of the survey data available for Millennials were collected before the country’s most recent recession hit.

The article goes on with a bunch of blah, blah, blah from some befuddled college professors about this phenomenon, but I figured I could spare you that part. What the article did not do was point out what should be glaringly obvious: the media's own primary role in causing young adults to be relatively more callous than those of older generations.

In a way, these survey results perfectly mirror those of a public opinion poll I highlighted last July 4th in my post, "Independence Day Poll Shows a Shocking Collapse of America's Educational System" which showed that less than one-third of adults under 30 could even identify 1776 as the year America declared its independence...or less than HALF of the percentage of Baby Boomer age adults who could do so. At the time, I argued that the results represented a huge failure of our educational system, but upon reading the article above it strikes me that it isn't just a lack of basic knowledge, but an general attitude that disdains knowledge which is at work here.

There is plenty of blame to go around, of course, and certainly schools, politicians and parents are not without plenty of it. But I would argue that the media itself should take the most blame of all for this deplorable situation. Like it or not what the media, particularly television, chooses to emphasize or not emphasize is what a vast majority of Americans will thusly consider to be important or not important. And since the 1970s, the media has gradually turned its back on serious matters in favor of triviality, sensationalism and the celebrity worship.

I don't see how anyone could argue that it's an accident that, as the surveys cited here and in my previous post show, the level of caring about the environment and social programs, or even having a basic grasp of American History, has declined so precipitously and steadily from the Baby Boomers through Generation X to the Millennials. The Boomers came of age at a time in which social consciousness, and the media taking the lead in promoting that consciousness, was at an all time high. By the time this older Gen-Xer followed them in the late 1970s, many Americans had wearied of being concerned about social justice, but as I recall it was still very much a part of the national conversation. That became less and less true, until by the decade of President George Bush the Lesser when today's young adults were in their formative years, anyone who was concerned about the less fortunate, say innocent civilians in Iraq being killed and maimed in an unprovoked war of choice, was actually held in disdain by a large segment of the media establishment, and not JUST conservatives.

And it is not just the news readers, either. Think about the success of highly popular television series from the 1970s like All in the Family, MASH and the miniseries, Roots, all of which tackled sobering and uncomfortable issues, but were among the highest rated and most talked about shows on television at that time. What do we have today instead? Reality show garbage and a hundred American Idol ripoffs, which supposedly serious national media organs like the Atlantic Wire actually devote copious space covering as if they are actually of any importance whatsoever. You can also throw in the fact that hipster icons like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report subtly promote the message that geting angry or upset about the manifest injustices in our society isn't cool. Instead, it's better to just laugh along cynically with Jon and Stephen and then go back to your texting, tweeting and Facebooking.

Some might scoff and say that I am nothing more than just a crabby old fogey shouting for the young-uns to get off my lawn. To that I would reply that I don't actually blame so many young adults for having the attitudes that these surveys would seem to indicate that a majority of them have. It would be unreasonable to expect most of them to behave any differently than the way the have been conditioned by society to behave. It takes a very exceptional young person to swim outside the mainstream and risk being labelled an outsider.

Nope, if these surveys are at all accurate, and I have no reason to believe that they aren't, the real blame lies with all of us who allowed our society to become so astonishingly proud of its collective ignorance and lack of empathy. Our opinion leaders in the media very much helped steer us to where we are now, which is what makes it so galling that they should at all act surprised that we are now apparently seeing the emergence into adulthood of a generation of souls who simply don't give a shit.


Bonus: "Do you remember...your President Nixon?" Not bloody likely, David

My Top 10 End of The World Novels List Is Now On TopTenz.net

It has been a long time since I actually got paid to write something. A decade ago I was an aspiring mystery writer who actually had a contract with a small publisher for a private eye novel I wrote. During that period, I also managed to sell a short story to a dead tree mystery magazine (now long defunct) and had a short lived regular column about assassinations for the same magazine. When the publisher went out of business before my novel came out, I became frustrated and didn't take up writing as a hobby regularly again until I started this gig.

So I was quite pleased when the website TopTez.net picked up my submission of an article I did for them consolidating the End of the World novels list I posted here at TDS last June. And the best part is, they actually PAID me.

So in case you're interested some tips concerning quality apocalyptic fiction to pass the time while we wait for things to wind down in meat space, here's the link to the article:

Top 10 End of the World Novels

Enjoy!


Bonus: But of course

Economists "Baffled" By Slow Economic Growth Despite "Improving Employment"

Many of us in the reality based community continually shake our heads at the bald faced lies about the economy being repeated in the media every single day. We often wonder to ourselves how can people continue to believe such nonsense. But here's the thing about propaganda: it works. It works so well in fact, that it even deceives those are responsible for helping to promote it. Case in point is this almost surreal story that appeared on Friday on CNN Money, which starts out with this tag line:

Economists are scratching their heads over the recent failure of a textbook economic law: In order for the unemployment rate to be where it is today, our economy should be growing faster than it is.

"The unemployment rate...where it is today?" You mean, as this chart from Calculated Risk shows, where there are 4% fewer jobs in America than there were at the end of 2007 despite millions of people being added to the overall population since then? Oh boy, this ought to be good.

Lately the improving jobs picture has stumped many Wall Street economists, who say the labor market seems to be doing better than what the pace of economic growth would suggest.

Goldman Sachs (GS) and a few other Wall Street firms forecast real GDP growth of less than 2% this quarter. And yet, the unemployment rate in January dropped to 8.3% – the lowest level in three years. The decline goes against Okun's Law, which economists have historically relied on to forecast what the job market might look like given how quickly (or slowly) the economy is growing. As a rule of thumb, Okun holds that year-on-year economic growth of 2 percentage points above the trend -- widely considered 2.5% -- is needed to lower unemployment by one point. And vice versa.
Since the Great Recession, the unemployment rate has defied the law.

James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank, has laid out three instances: In 2009, the unemployment rate edged to 10% following a 3.5% drop in GDP. But under Okun, unemployment should have risen higher to 10.4%.

At the end of 2010, the unemployment rate fell to 9.4% from 9.9% the previous year. But given that the 3% rise in GDP was barely above trend, the jobless rate should have stayed flat. And in 2011, when GDP rose a point below trend to 1.7%, Okun would have predicted that unemployment would rise to 9.9%. However, it actually fell to 8.5% from 9.4%.

All this has made many wonder if the economy is doing better than what the data currently shows or if unemployment seems artificially low.

Someone needs to tell John Williams of Shadow Stats that he really ought to give up on trying to report the real economic statistics as the government used to report them back before it became politically expedient to lie. Because clearly, nobody is paying attention, even those whose fucking jobs it is to study the real state of the economy.

The article goes on and at one point does at least touch upon the real issue:

It could be that today's GDP statistics are wrong. The economy might actually be growing much faster than we think, which wouldn't be too surprising since it's not unusual for growth statistics to get revised years later as economic data comes in. In a research note to clients on Monday, JP Morgan (JPM) economist James Glassman pointed to the 2008-2009 recession in which GDP was significantly revised downward last year.

"At the time employment trends were much weaker than the impression left by the real GDP trends," he noted. "That was three years after the fact. With the economy now recovering, there is a high probability that preliminary estimates of national output eventually will be revised up."

Certainly that could happen, but that still doesn't capture the whole jobless picture.

The unemployment rate is also influenced by the labor participation rate – that is, the percentage of working-age persons who are employed as well as unemployed and searching for work. While labor participation has been stabilizing recently, it has declined considerably over the years. And at 64%, the rate is two perecentage points lower than its pre-recession level. As Fortune pointed out last week, the drop might have less to do with discouraged workers giving up their job hunt (as economists widely believe), but also the flux of aging baby boomers retiring and leaving the labor pool altogether.

It is bad enough that millions of people who lost their jobs during the Great Recession and are now permanently unemployed have been cast out of the statistics to make them look better, but it is abominable that these analysts then treat the manipulated statistics as if they reflect reality. The economists' precious economic models are "broken" because they are based upon faulty data...data that they KNOW (or should know) is faulty yet they insist upon using anyway.

But the most laughable statement in the article comes right at the very end:

We probably will have to wait a few more years to know what's really going on. For now, we know that the decline in unemployment doesn't just mean more people are working today.

You will only "have to wait a few more years to know what's really going on" if you have internalized the propaganda to the point where you are no longer in touch with reality. For these are The Lies We Tell Ourselves, and will continue to tell ourselves until one day when the reality proves to be too monstrous to deny any longer.


Bonus: "Watch what you say to someone with nothing...it's almost like having it all"