Well, OF COURSE Obamacare was Upheld

Lots of clueless political observers, especially those who occupy the mainstream media, are furiously scratching their heads this morning wondering just how it could possibly be that Chief Justice John Roberts, he of the atrocious Citizens United decision, sided with the Supreme Court's "liberals" in upholding Obamacare when in fact the answer should be glaringly obvious to anyone who understands how America really works these days. Just like with Citizens United, this was a pro big business decision. Obamacare's hideous health insurance mandate will be a boon for the insurance companies that will do absolutely nothing to curtail the exploding costs of health care. And that is just the way the health care industry wants it. This is an industry after all, which now boasts the highest paid CEOs, higher than any on Wall Street, including one who pulled down an astounding $145,266,971 in compensation during 2010.

Here is Talking Points Memo with some more details of today's historic farcical decision:

The Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 that the Affordable Care Act meets constitutional muster and can be allowed to continue its slow process of transforming the nation’s health care system.

Thursday’s historic decision, authored by Chief Justice Roberts, was by no means fait accompli. Though the consensus among constitutional scholars has always been that the law’s insurance mandate did not exceed Congress’ Commerce Clause powers, its opponents erected a counterargument that quickly became an article of faith on the right. In the end, Roberts’ decision upheld the mandate as an exercise of Congress’ taxing power.

The outcome has been a matter of tense speculation, hope and anxiety both in Washington and around the country from the moment President Obama signed health care reform into law.

Complicating matters for the law’s supporters, the administration’s top legal advocate, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, choked in oral arguments before the Supreme Court — out-litigated by the GOP’s star attorney Paul Clement.

And in the days leading up to the decision, a peculiar conventional wisdom took hold — in the media, and among political and judicial veterans — that the mandate, and possibly other key provisions, or the whole statute, would fall.

But during oral arguments, Roberts tipped his hand, and provided the Court a glimpse at his reasoning. And in siding with the Court’s liberal wing, he may have saved the entire law. In the dissenting opinion, justice Anthony Kennedy, writing on behalf of justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia, held that “in our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety.”

In other words, Roberts signaled to the other scumbag conservatives on the court that he would be the one to "sell out" his supposed principles and give them cover to vote against the decision and make it look like the fix wasn't in all along. This was such a beautifully orchestrated bit of political theater that I almost feel like I should stand up and applaud.


Bonus: Might as well learn to live with Obamacare, as now it's the law

Trust Kills

Here is yet another example of just how utterly bamboozled the American public really is these days. That isn't exactly news, I realize, but sometimes it is just stunning to contemplate how bad the problem really is.

One would think that two futile land wars along with the Abu Grahib and Walter Reed scandals would be enough debacles for any nations' military to endure in just one decade...but wait, you haven't heard the worst of it just yet. Here is thedaily.com with the details:

Over the next year, America’s largest fighting force is swapping its camouflage pattern. The move is a quiet admission that the last uniform — a pixelated design that debuted in 2004 at a cost of $5 billion — was a colossal mistake.

Soldiers have roundly criticized the gray-green uniform for standing out almost everywhere it’s been worn. Industry insiders have called the financial mess surrounding the pattern a “fiasco.”

That doesn't sound good. Tell me more:

“Essentially, the Army designed a universal uniform that universally failed in every environment,” said an Army specialist who served two tours in Iraq, wearing UCP in Baghdad and the deserts outside Basra. “The only time I have ever seen it work well was in a gravel pit.”

The specialist asked that his name be withheld because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press.

“As a cavalry scout, it is my job to stay hidden. Wearing a uniform that stands out this badly makes it hard to do our job effectively,” he said. “If we can see our own guys across a distance because of it, then so can our enemy.”

The fact that the government spent $5 billion on a camouflage design that actually made its soldiers more visible — and then took eight years to correct the problem — has also left people in the camouflage industry incensed. The total cost comes from the Army itself and includes the price of developing the pattern and producing it for the entire service branch.

So, pray tell, how exactly did this particular clusterfuck happen, anyway?

The problem, the researchers said, was an oddly named branch of the Army in charge of equipping soldiers with gear — Program Executive Office Soldier — had suddenly ordered Natick’s camouflage team to pick a pattern long before trials were finished.

“They jumped the gun,” said James Fairneny, an electrical engineer on Natick’s camouflage team.

Researchers said they received a puzzling order: Take the winning colors and create a pixilated pattern. Researchers were ordered to “basically put it in the Marine Corps pattern,” Fairneny said.

For a decision that could ultimately affect more than a million soldiers in the Army, reserves and National Guard, the sudden shift from Program Executive Office Soldier was a head-scratcher. The consensus among the researchers was the Army brass had watched the Marine Corps don their new uniforms and caught a case of pixilated camouflage envy.

“It was trendy,” Stewardson said. “If it’s good enough for the Marines, why shouldn’t the Army have that same cool new look?”

The brigadier general ultimately responsible for the decision, James Moran, who retired from the Army after leaving Program Executive Office Soldier, has not responded to messages seeking comment.

It’s worth noting that, flawed as it was, the universal pattern did solve the problem of mismatched gear, said Eric Graves, editor of the military gear publication Soldier Systems Daily, adding that the pattern also gave soldiers a new-looking uniform that clearly identified the Army brand.

“Brand identity trumped camouflage utility,” Graves said. “That’s what this really comes down to: ‘We can’t allow the Marine Corps to look more cool than the Army.’ ”

Un-be-fucking-lievable. I don't know what's worse, the $5 billion dollars wasted, the uncountable casualties that likely resulted or the fact that no one is apparently going to be held responsible for this debacle. This is just so fucking par for the course for a U.S. military establishment that has its head firmly planted up its ass.

Hmmm...I wonder how the American public is feeling about the military these days after ten years of relentless failures, including over 6,500 dead servicemen and women, some of whom might still be alive had they been issued adequate camouflage uniforms. Gallup has that particular story:

Once again, Americans are most confident in the military (75%), which has finished first each year since 1989 except 1997, when small business edged it out. Small business, at 63%, is second this year. The police, at 56%, is third, and the only other institution of the 16 tested in which a majority of Americans express confidence.

In fact, as you can see by the chart above, only 6% of Americans polled said they had very little or no confidence in the military as an institution when it should be perfectly obvious that the military is one of the LAST institutions worthy of public trust. What you see here is the end result of 30 years of relentless flag waving propaganda spewing forth from the American corporate media machine. Joeseph Goebbles would be so proud.


Bonus: "U.S. forces give the nod...it's a setback for your country"

The Nation: Some Towns Just Don't Count - Like My Home Town

I'm still on sabbatical, but I just had to comment on an article written by John Nichols posted today in The Nation called, "Romney's Some Towns Just Don't Count Tour," only because the town in question that Nichols highlighted is in fact my own home town. Here is the relevant section of the article:

That’s the problem for Romney. He has been on the wrong side of so many economic fights that it is impossible for him to play the economic populist in communities that could stand with a little populism.

But the real story of Romney’s tour is the towns that don’t count with him.

When Romney made stops in Janesville and Dubuque Monday, he was just up the road from the town of Freeport, Illinois.

But Romney did not stop in Freeport, a town that like Janesville and Dubuque has been hard hit by trade and fiscal policies that encourage corporations to shutter US factories and ship jobs overseas—and that has been even harder hit by speculators who buy up factories, strip the assets and close them.

On the day Romney was busing across the region, employees of Freeport’s Sensata Technologies plant gathered in front of the factory with handmade signs that read:

“Romney! Stop Bain Outsourcing to China”

“Mitt Romney Save Our Jobs”

“Romney: Instead of talking about JOBS, just don’t ship MINE to China”

The Sensata Technologies plant, which has been on the forefront of producing state-of-the-art automotive sensors, was owned by Texas Instruments, and then by Honeywell, before being sold in 2010 to Sensata Technologies Holding, N.V, a firm based in the Netherlands but majority-owned by Bain Capital. Bain, the private equity firm that Mitt Romney helped to develop and that continues to make him a very rich man, has since consolidated ownership of Sensata.

The workers at the plant wanted Romney to make a slight detour on his bus trip and take a look at the devastation being caused by Bain’s machinations at a plant where many of them have worked for more than thirty years.

The plant’s operations are rapidly skrinking as Sensata moves to outsource work from Illinois to China.

“This used to be a very high-volume plant and now it’s pretty much a ghost town…and by the end of the year it will be a ghost town”, Sensata employee Cheryl Randecker told local reporters.

Had Romney come to Freeport, he would have heard how much Bain’s approach has harmed not just the Sensata workers but Freeport and counties along the Illinois-Wisconsin stateline that have suffered more than their share of plant closings.

“Sensata is moving forward with the process of relocating jobs from their operations in Freeport to China,” explains John Blum, the chairman of the Stephenson County Board.

In addition to the “significant human toll on the more than 140 families that will be affected by this loss of jobs and financial security,” says Blum, “The loss of these jobs will have a tremendous impact on our regional economy.”

That’s a story that Mitt Romney does not want to focus attention on.

So his bus didn’t stop in Freeport.

Perhaps the name of Romney’s bus tour should be changed from “Every Town Counts” to “Some Towns Count.”

But those Americans who really do believe that workers in places like Freeport ought not be left behind should ask themselves whether talk about renewing the American economy is credible coming from a man who continues to profit from the plant closings, the layoffs and the outsourcing practices that are crude byproducts of Bain Capitalism.

I first posted about the closing of the Sensata plant back on January 18th in my post, "Another Globalization Hit to My Home Town." At the time, I didn't realize that Bain Capital was the driving force behind the shut down.

The problem with the Nichols story is that it fails to mention the obvious point that these actions by Sensata are happening under a Democratic president who has not only not lifted a finger to help the working and middle classes, but has also promoted the same kind of free trade agreements as the last last Democratic occupant of the White House. The same free trade agreements that British Financier James Goldsmith famously warned television host Charlie Rose about back in 1994, predicting this very outcome.

But even more to the point, the workers in Freeport have been very much complicit in their own demise. That corner of Illinois has always been solidly Republican, and it pained me greatly back in my high school and college days to watch so many of my fellow Freeporters go completely gaga for Ronald Reagan. So much so, that they even turned their backs on liberal Republican Represenative John Anderson when he challenged Reagan for the presidency in 1980, despite the fact that Anderson was their own Congressman.

So, while I appreciate Nichols calling attention to the plight of my home town, it is too bad that he and The Nation are so steadfastly determined keep wearing their partisan blinders.


Bonus: From my You Tube channel, not a lot of factory girls left in Freeport I'm afraid

Taking a Break

image: welcome to my nightmare

About a month and a half ago I announced that I was going to reduce the frequency of my posts here at TDS because I was getting burned out. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Since that time, the feelings of burnout have just gotten worse. In the 13 months since I started this blog, I have pretty much said everything that was on my mind when I started it, and nothing substantially new has happened since then. Every day when I peruse my usual news sites, it's like watching the Bill Murray flick, Groundhog Day: a slowly unfolding downward grind with the powers that be playing all the games they can to keep the facade of business as usual propped up as long as possible. Yadda, yadda Greece...yadda, yadda bailouts...yadda, yadda Obama/Romney/Paul/Gingrich/Cain/Bachmann's gonna save us...yadda, yaddda lies damn lies and government statistics,...yadda, yadda The Bernanke...yadda, yadda Vampire Squid...yadda yadda muppets...yadda, yadda austerity...yadda, yadda stimulus...yadda, yadda fuck the hell off already.

How much longer can they keep it up? I don't know the answer to that question, but quite obviously much longer than I can stand to keep writing about it day after grueling goddamn day.

So as you've probably gathered I've decided to take a break from blogging for awhile to see if I can recharge my batteries. I'm not sure right now how long it will be. If something big happens next week, I might even be back then. As always, I appreciate all of the great support my readers have given me these past 13 months. Though my primary motivation in doing the blog was to get a handle on my own thoughts and feelings about our inescapable collective predicament, you are what has really made all of my efforts worthwhile.


Bonus: I've posted this tune before, but this time I'd like to dedicate it to the vast legions of the unaware out there. After all, they piss and moan, but they let the devil in their homes

The Two Americas

Here's a metaphorical news story. What happens when a young American woman driving a BMW meets a young American fast food worker riding her bicycle? One ends up dead and the other tries to avoid responsibility. Here is NECN.com with the story:

A 23-year-old woman is under investigation, charged in a deadly hit-and-run accident in Massachusetts.

The woman told police she thought she had hit an animal.

Barnstable police responded to the intersection of Route 28 and Pitchers Way just after 2 a.m. Thursday where they found a bicyclist down.

The victim was taken to Cape Cod hospital and pronounced dead.

The victim is 20-year-old Sheila Moreta who had just finished her first shift at Wendy’s. She was biking home when a gray BMW, driven by 23-year-old Angelica Barroso, hit Moreta, dragging her body into the corner of the road, before taking off.

While Moreta’s friend frantically tried to flag down help, Moreta was hit by a second car.

The BMW’s license plates fell off the car at the scene and police were able to track Barroso down. They found her an hour-and-a-half later.

Sgt. David Myett of Barnstable Police said it’s suspicious Barroso left the scene.

Barroso is charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident.

What’s interesting further is Barroso is a home health care aid and she was supposed to be spending the night at her patient’s home but she left the patient to pick up her sister at a bar.

Barroso also has a spotty driving record. She was ordered to take a retraining test but she had until August to complete that.

She pleaded not guilty and is being held on $2500 cash bail.

And with that, I am out of here.

A Guide to America’s Worst Restaurants for Workers

Food service has been one of the few employment bright spots on the otherwise dismal jobs growth front during this period of supposed economic recovery. That's what makes the report referenced below about how many restaurant chains rate at the bottom of barrel as far as treating their workers even more depressing. Here is Gawker with the details:

Since we're on the topic of basic fairness for the working people of America, here is a useful thing: a pro-worker group called Restaurant Opportunities Centers United has produced a handy pocket guide to many of America's most popular restaurants, to let you know exactly how badly their employees are treated. The short version, below.

The guide (referenced in this excellent Mark Bittman column yesterday) ranks restaurants on whether they pay a minimum viable wage to their tipped and non-tipped workers; whether they give paid sick leave; and how much of a chance for advancement their workers have. Here are some of the better-known chain restaurants that received "0" or "unknown" ratings in each of those categories—in other words, that did not achieve a single check mark for minimal standards of worker treatment:

The Worst Restaurants for Workers
Applebee's
Arby's
Baskin-Robbins
Bennigan's
Bob Evans
Boston Market
Buffalo Wild Wings
Burger King
California Pizza Kitchen
Captain D's
Carl's Jr.
Chart House
Checker's
Cheesecake Factory
Chili's
Chuck E. Cheese
Church's Chicken
Cold Stone Creamery
Cracker Barrel
Denny's
Domino's
Dunkin Donuts
Friendly's
Golden Corral
Hard Rock Cafe
Hooters
Houlihan's
IHOP
KFC
Legal Seafoods
Little Caesar's
Marie Callender's
McDonald's
Morton's Steakhouse
Olive Garden
Outback Steakhouse
P.F. Chang's
Panera
Papa John's
Perkins
Pizza Hut
Qiznos
Red Lobster
Ruth's Chris Steakhouse
Sbarros
Sonic
Starbucks
Steak-n-Shake
Subway
TGI Friday's
Taco Bell
Uno Chicago Grill
Waffle House
Zaxby's

Depressing. There are more bad ones. (And a few good ones.) The full guide is here.

Bon apetite.


Bonus: "Everything that is wrong with America is comment cards"

Hack Journalism Porn: Richard Cohen Demands More Government Lies

Many thanks to my friends over at Gawker for taking down the odious Richard Cohen on his latest outrage to the profession of journalism so I didn't have to:

There's a bit of an uproar in Washington over the White House leaking stories about Obama's kill list. Craven politics? All leaks are good leaks? National security risk? Some other position that is, in some way, intellectually coherent? Washington insider Richard Cohen goes with: none of the above! Watch this progression of thoughts closely:

The leak that troubles me concerns the killing of suspected or actual terrorists. The triumphalist tone of the leaks - the Tarzan-like chest-beating of various leakers - not only is in poor taste but also shreds a long-standing convention that, in these matters, the president has deniability. The president of the United States is not the Godfather.

So. Wait. Richard Cohen is not so much troubled about the fact that the president of the United States is personally approving assassinations as he is troubled by the fact that the president has lost his deniability. Richard Cohen, you see, is the president's personal attorney. Oh, Richard Cohen is a journalist? Ha, that's weird then.

Of course, we have always known that the president, as commander in chief and all of that, is where the proverbial buck stops. But for the longest time, a polite fiction distanced the president from what, after all, is murder, and it helped somewhat in protecting him. Deniability is always a fiction, but it provides some space between the president and his orders, and does not plaster the presidential face on an act of extreme - and possibly illegal - violence. Presidents need protection from retaliation - not just in office, but for the rest of their lives. After all, the poor man's drone is the suicide bomber.

Someone with a finer ear for the vagaries of language help me out here, please—is Richard Cohen being sarcastic? I genuinely hope so, but I cannot tell, because Richard Cohen is known to do this sort of thing. That is, to embarrass himself and the rest of us by bemoaning the death of the "polite fiction" that protects powerful politicians from the consequences of their actions. Richard Cohen quite explicitly hates justice, as well as journalism. I appreciate any explanations that anyone out there can provide on what this really means.

Killing is a serious matter. The death of an American citizen (Anwar al-Awlaki) is deeply troubling (the government asked the government if it was legal, and the government said it was). For this as well as other assassinations, there could be blowback.

Assassination by drone has its charms - it has severely degraded al-Qaeda - and war, after all, is war. But I wonder if those presidents who knew war - a Truman, an Eisenhower, a Kennedy - would themselves boast about killing or let others do it for them.

"Kill away outside of the rule of law, US presidents, but please, be sure to lie to the public about it."—a man employed by a journalistic institution.

Is he kidding??? Serious question.

No, sadly he is not kidding. And what's worse is that he is what passes for an icon in the supposedly "liberal" media these days. The only reason why the Washington Post would continue to employ such a thoroughly discredited hack is so it can laughably claim to have "balance" for the legions of warmongering neoconservatives who regularly appear on its op-ed page.


Bonus: Just remember kids, when the president does it that means it's not illegal

Massive Newspaper Layoffs in New Orleans and Alabama

There was an update yesterday to the recent story about the New Orleans Times-Picayune cutting back to three days per week...namely that the axe has now fallen on one-third of the newspaper's staff. Here is the Atlantic Wire with the details:

Despite earlier reports that about half of it journalists would be cut, the dust has settled and the Times-Picayune newspaper has said it has laid off about one-third of its staff--about 201 of its employees.

(snip)

The Gambit's Kevin Allman (via Jim Romenesko) reports that the severance packages cap out at one year, and fired employees will accrue 1.5 weeks of pay for every year of service. "At least three very familiar newsroom names, including award winners, have said they intend to take severance and/or don't expect to be invited to join NOLA Media Group," writes Allman. Romenesko is also reporting that half of the news staff is being let go.

Not to be outdone, newspapers in Alabama are laying of 400 of their own staff members. Here is the Birmingham Business Journal with that sad story:

Three of Alabama’s largest daily newspapers, including the Birmingham News, will lay off about 400 employees as they cut back their printing schedules and increase their focus on digital.

According to al.com, the laid-off workers will have a chance to apply for 100 or more positions at two new companies, Alabama Media Group and Advance Central Services Alabama.

The 100 vacant positions will be posted at al.com later this week.

It's not clear how many employees will be impacted at the Birmingham News or at each specific paper, but a report from The Poynter Institute cited an unnamed source saying 60 percent of the editorial staff at the News would be affected.

Cindy Martin, who will head the new Alabama Media Group, said she’d been in meetings this morning to let employees know if they will be laid off, but couldn’t confirm which employees or the total number impacted.

(snip)

The layoffs are part of a series of changes at the newspapers, which will begin publishing only three days a week instead of daily this fall.

I would gather that three-day-a-week newspaper service will soon be the norm for the industry...and that even that won't be enough to save it from eventual oblivion.


Bonus: Before anyone comments about it, I realize this is the wrong Birmingham. Tough shit, I like this song.

Generational Storm Porn: Baby Boomers Losing Inheritances Because of Aging Parents

I guess this is the week for stories about America's long term demographic problems. As someone who sincerely hopes that his father spends his very last dime on the day he departs from this world, I have a hard time working up too much empathy for these people. Here is the Atlantic Journal with the details:

The Wall Street Journal has some news for you, Baby Boomers: Not only have you suffered financially in the recession, but that inheritance you're counting on from your parents, well, you might not get it after all. This is because today's grandparents are probably going to live a long time, long enough to spend their money for themselves. You might actually have to take care of them. Curses! According to Anne Tergeson:

As a group, boomers likely won't be getting as much of an inheritance as they hoped. Even worse, far from receiving a bequest, a growing number are tapping some of their own savings to help their cash-strapped parents make ends meet.

For families, the result is often a lot of scrambling, dashed dreams, and conflict and angst as parents and children try to come to grips with the lean new reality—and divide up a smaller pie.

The growing aging population in the U.S. is a real thing, not to be scoffed at. Tergenson gives us the numbers: "a 65-year-old man has a 60 percent chance of living to age 80 and a 40 percent chance of reaching 85. For women, the odds are 71 percent and 53 percent, respectively." This means that seniors aged 85 and older are actually the quickest growing portion of the population. Which means, best case scenario, hooray: Our parents and grandparents will be with us for a long while! But not everyone has planned, financially or otherwise, to live that long—and even if they have, the money they've saved may not be enough to cover it, particularly if they become ill and need medical treatment. And living so long, who won't? As Michael Wolff wrote in New York magazine in May, the parents of adult parents are living longer and longer, even past the point some would describe as actually "living," instead being kept only basically alive by doctors and medical technologies. This is a real issue.

But the way The Journal covers it, as if children are sitting around waiting for their parents to drop dead so they can collect the cash, seems a little...odd. Are so many baby boomers really counting on their parents' money? Is it really so awful to assume that you might need to help your parents financially, should they live into their 90s? This article seems to say yes.

"Due to the new realities of longevity, adult children—who have rightfully assumed they would inherit something substantial from their parents and have lived their lives accordingly—can no longer count on that," says Lillian Rubin, a sociologist, psychologist and author.

It's that "rightfully" that's so strange: Suddenly, that sense of entitlement we judge in Millennials and, for example, the character of Hannah in Girls, who allowed her parents to support her in her twenties, appears to stem from a far more established source, i.e., the Baby Boomer. Is it worse to expect cash from mommy and daddy when you're 20...or 60 years old?

It's one thing to point out that the set of circumstances—each generation tending to do better than the proceeding, and passing along their economic successes for the next to improve upon—may have changed in recent years. This has changed still from situations longer ago, in which aging parents were never expected to live anywhere but with their children, who probably supported them, too. But Rubin's point about rightful expectations is held up by the stats. According to Boston College's Center on Wealth and Philanthropy, "baby boomers and their offspring could inherit as much as $27 trillion over the next four decades, with the progeny of the wealthiest pocketing much of the windfall." There is money there, it's just not going to go to everyone.

We hope, anyway, that the inheritance-expecting are outnumbered by the adult kids reflected in a quote from 63-year-old Gary, who told the Journal, "An inheritance would help, but I am not looking forward to it. I don't want an inheritance if I have to lose someone I love." Or, as commenter Bill Scurrah wrote, "I can't help but be bemused by this article. As the son of parents of very modest means, and a person of modest means myself, I never expected to inherit anything but a few sticks of furniture and a photo album. If it had not been for Social Security and Medicare, and the 60K we got from selling their town house, my mother, who survived my dad by two years, would have had nothing to live on and no way to pay her medical costs (which, by the way, were quite modest compared to some of the estimates I come across for old age care). There are millions of people who simply do not operate in the realm of inheritances, investments, expensive retirement facilities, etc. For us, articles like this describe life on a different planet."

I know it would never be allowed to be enacted, but I would favor a 100% inheritance tax on every estate after all debts have been paid off. If you really want to bust up the great concentrations of wealth in this country and the power that the 1% have over the rest of us that would be the way to do it. Plus it would be a great boon to the economy as all the rich old fuckers try to spend all of their wealth before the government can get ahold of it. Truly, a win-win all around.


Bonus: What a way to go

Computer Crash Cripples Jefferson County (Alabama)

So what does a large municipal bankruptcy really mean? Chaos. Here is al.com with the details:

A server that runs Jefferson County's financial software system has crashed and halted financial activity in a number of county departments, officials said Thursday.

Since Tuesday, the hardware problem has slowed or stopped transactions in the finance, treasurer and purchasing departments, preventing vendor payments and deposits and delaying preparation of the fiscal 2011 audit, according to county officials.

The server runs SAP, the accounting software system the county uses to track financial activity.

"The SAP functionality is so diminished that it does not allow us to do the day-to-day financial operations of our county," Commissioner Jimmie Stephens said. "It's the financial backbone of the county. It's the language that we use to communicate with all of our vendors and all of our financial contacts throughout the county. And to have it go mute to where we can't communicate is a tremendous problem."

County Manager Tony Petelos said all of the servers that run the SAP program have outlived their useful life, and of the 16 servers in the Information Technology Department, only one has any life left.

"The rest of them are outdated and they need to be replaced," Petelos said. "When one server crashes it causes the whole system to go down. I've said this over and over again: The county has to reinvest in its infrastructure, and this is only one key example."

Workers were able to restore the server but are looking for a way to load SAP programs and data, Petelos said. "If successful, SAP should be available within 24 hours," he said. "If unsuccessful, a complete rebuild of the system will be required and could take up to five days."

Stephens blamed the problem on staff reductions and decisions to reduce maintenance contracts to save money.

The cash-strapped county laid off hundreds of workers last year to conserve cash until a fix could be found for a shortage of general fund revenue. Wayne Cree, director of information technology, has said his department lost approximately 30 budgeted positions in the past year because of layoffs, retirements, transfers and resignations.

But here is the "money quote," so to speak:

Stephens said contracts countywide have been either terminated or reduced to save money, and the toll is mounting.

"You do away with people and you do away with outside maintenance contracts that take care of that proprietary equipment, and you're left with the inability to operate government," Stephens said.

Consider this an early warning of things to come all across the country.


Bonus: "Alabama...you've got a weight on your shoulders that's breaking your back"

Unemployed Early Social Security Claimants Putting More Pressure on the Program

This is a good companion piece to yesterday's post about raising the retirement age and why it won't work. From the New York Times, nobody could have predicted:

This retirement oasis in the desert has long beckoned those who want to spin out their golden years playing golf and sitting by the pool in the arid sunshine.

But for Clare Keany, who turned 62 last fall and cannot find work, it feels more like a prison. Just a few miles from the gated estates of corporate chieftains and Hollywood stars, Ms. Keany lives in a tiny mobile home, barely getting by on little more than $1,082 a month from Social Security.

“I would rather be functioning and having a job somewhere,” said Ms. Keany, whose pixie haircut, trim build and crinkling smile suggest someone much younger than her years. “I really don’t enjoy living like this. I’ve got too much to do still.”

Even as most Americans are delaying retirement to bolster their savings accounts, the recession and its protracted aftermath have forced many older people who are out of work to draw Social Security much earlier than they had planned.

According to an analysis by Steve Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, about 200,000 more people filed initial claims in 2009 and 2010 than the agency had predicted before the recession and he said the trend most likely continued in 2011 and 2012, though that is harder to quantify. The most likely reason is joblessness.

Ms. Keany had always expected to work into her 70s and add to her retirement cushion. But after losing her job as an executive assistant at an advertising agency in 2008, she searched fruitlessly for full-time work and exhausted her unemployment benefits. For a while, she strung together odd jobs and lived off her 401(k) retirement and profit-sharing accounts. Then, this year, with her savings depleted and no job offers in sight, she reluctantly applied for Social Security.

Gazing out the window where the Santa Rosa mountains rise behind the mobile home park, she said, “It just seems a waste of a life, to be honest.”

It makes you wonder just how many millions of other people there are out there who are a couple of missed government checks away from homelessness and starvation. Yet, as the story goes one to demonstrate, so many people still have completely screwed up priorities:

Finally, in January, she gave in and filed for Social Security. Her monthly check covers the $336 mobile home park fee plus utilities, her cellphone bill, insurance and a satellite dish. She is also paying $100 a month in credit card debt. To save money, she has canceled the data plan on her BlackBerry and cut back on fresh fruits and vegetables.

Notice that despite having been essentially unemployed for four years, Keany still insists upon paying satellite teevee and cell phone bills and only recently cancelled her Blackberry data plan. In fact, having the damn television and cell phone is apparently more important to her than even eating properly.

The article also mentions that she is not married, does not have children and was earning $64,000 per year before she got laid off. Not to be too much of a dick about it or anything, but there really was no excuse for her to be running up her credit card balances and not having saved a lot of money for a rainy day while she was still working.

Keany's example is why I am always torn when I read these kinds of articles between feeling empathy for those who are hurting yet shaking my head at their obvious stupidity. Most importantly, in these examples we see people who will not survive long when the day finally comes that the government checks stop coming.


Bonus: "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?"

SHAME On Steven D. Levitt (or Freakonomics THIS)

The second edition of The Exiled's new S.H.A.M.E. (Shame the Hacks Who Abuse Media Ethics) project is out, and this time they have their sights set in Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt:

Steven D. Levitt
CO-AUTHOR OF #1 BESTSELLER FREAKONOMICS; ECONOMICS PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Named one of Time magazine's "100 People Who Shape Our World," Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, is generally assumed to be a harmless, quirky pop economist for trivia nerds. However, Levitt has a history of attacking teachers' unions, advocating for the privatization of prison labor, defending online gambling and occasionally crossing over the fringe-right line by promoting climate change denialism and, some have argued, racial eugenics. A dyed-in-the-wool Milton Friedman neoliberal from the same “Chicago Boys” network that brought you the "shock doctrine," Levitt’s idea of economics Utopia is a world in which "the market" solves all our problems and government is restricted to protecting property rights.

The rest of Levitt's depressing profile is at the link.


Bonus: "Don't tell me about politics when all the problems are economics"