Economy: Well, That Didn't Take Long

Today's NYT is reporting* that Wall Street brokers are fighting to retain their $18 billion worth of bonuses and, oh yes, they hate President Obama. Srsly.

“My bonus is ‘shameful’ — but I worked hard to get it,” said John Konstantinidis, a wholesale insurance broker, lunching Friday at Harry’s at Hanover Square.

[...] however [...] President Obama is substantially less popular on Wall Street this week than he was last week.

No! Really? I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked. He must be doing something right.

As one investment banker interviewed for the article said,

“I think there’s a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street.”

No shit, Sherlock. And how did you come to this amazing conclusion exactly? Was it by checking the increasing numbers showing up at soup kitchens? Or did you read about the number of Americans on food stamps increasing? Or the job statistics, which are showing rising unemployment rates coupled with increasing layoffs?

Somehow I suspect these shitheads who yawp about how they're owed their bonuses haven't yet realized that if that money came from taxpayers, then they'd better start suing their employers to get them to disgorge their profits, because they ain't fucking getting it out of us, I can tell you that.

You hear me, motherfuckers? There's only so much blood you can squeeze out of a stone, assholes. You're responsible for creating these toxic securities, these financial instruments that are basically a piece of shit wrapped in gilt paper. You thought if you sold enough of these your employers would reward you and life would be fine? Well, go ask your employers, your corporate CEOs, to fish into their deep pockets to reimburse you, because the rest of us are too busy scraping off our homes and bodies the poisonous mold that you threw at us all.

The utter gall of these people is unimaginable. This reminds me of an old friend's definition of chutzpah: When a man comes to your house, shits on your doorstep, then rings your doorbell and asks you for water to wash his ass.

If I had a pair of uber-longtoed cowboy boots, I'd be sticking the tips up each and every one of your fat asses, you greasy pate-fed champagne-swilling profiteers. Each and every one of you needs to be "employed" by the taxpayers at the noble and necessary task of breaking big rocks into little rocks. Or, better yet, repairing our antiquated sewage systems. Goodness knows you ought to feel right at home doing that. Sure, it might temporarily ruin the $100.00 manicure jobs y'all are used to getting. But a few honest calluses from hard labour never killed anyone.

OTOH, maybe we can send you to Iraq and Afghanistan to take the place of all those poor and working-class kids who've been getting their individual pubes shot off by the victims of our "war on Terra." Surely we can rustle up, I dunno, 65,000 of you? The infuriated Iraqi and Afghani insurgents will be doing the rest of us a great favour if they can fertilize their dry and hungry fields with a few of you. Y'all might just have an opportunity to make the deserts bloom. What a legacy!

In the meantime, assholes, try to find a better line of work. The economy don't look like it can support too many of you for too much longer.

* This link takes you to the New York Times' article. Registration is required, but it's free. Make what you will of that.

Bonus anecdote: While getting the old fangs sharpened and cleaned, I engaged in what is commonly known as "small talk" with teh toof lady. It's not something I have a whole lot of experience with, especially since you can't talk too much with all that metal in the gob. Try boiling down how you feel about the financial situation into a grunted phrase of six words or less. Get my drift?

In any event, she told me a supposedly heartbreaking story about some rich bitch she knows from her church, whose husband is a stockbroker. Apparently, the couple owned a hugely expensive house in a hugely expensive gated community in our very expensive tiny slice of Terra. Which is now being foreclosed on anaconda HubbyPoo lost his lucrative job and can't find another one, and WifeyPoo has never worked a day in her well-manicured life.

Teh Toof Lady was full of sympathy for this unfortunate couple (hah) for whom she claims the whole fucking church is praying. Call me a blackguard, but I couldn't rouse a drop of the required sympathy. All I could think of was, "Hey, the guy is fucking gambling with other people's money for a living, shouldn't he know enough about money to put away a nice comfortable wad? Didn't he see this recession coming?" Whatever. I'm sure the Richie Riches will have parental units to glom on. They'll survive, with a little help from their friends. The rest of us — get used to a diet of rice and beans, kiddies, that's a mighty long tunnel and the light at the end of it is but a faint beam from where I'm standing.



Bonus bonus: A Senator to keep an eye on: Claire McCaskill. How's this for telling it like it is?

Sen. Claire McCaskill — steaming mad and not going to take it anymore — on Friday called Wall Street executives “idiots” and proposed limits on some of their salaries.

Her proposal would force companies taking federal bailout money to limit compensation for any employee to what the president of the United States currently earns: $400,000 a year.

“Is that so unreasonable?” the Democrat from Missouri asked. “It’s eight times the median household income in the United States of America. … I don’t think that sounds like a bad deal.”

[...]

The compensation cap would cover salary, bonuses and stock options.

No foolin', ma'am. Pardon me while I fall in love with you.

Natcherly, to no one's surprise, professional ghoul impersonator and public cross-dresser (honey, no fishnets, please. You just ain't got teh gams for dem.) Rude Ghouliani came to the defense of excessive compensation everywhere with the following statement:

“If you somehow take that bonus out of the economy, it really will create unemployment,” Giuliani said on CNN. “It means less spending in restaurants, less spending in department stores, so everything has an impact.”

Rudi, you dumb fuck, you're really going to try and convince us that these people who make $22 million in bonuses alone do their shopping in Target and Macy's? Give it a rest, you miserable fuckwit, the American public is NOT that dumb. We rejected YOU as potential President, remember?

Sheesh, where does that lying sack of shit get off with lines like this?

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The Difference

Between the current Preznitwit:

Bushes Send Out Christmas-Themed Hannukah Cards

AP/Lawrence Jackson

Dim Son making faces at the Global Summit in Peru. Thank TPTB this is his last foreign trip. Perhaps the world will forget he ever existed, and soon.

and our future President:

"President-Elect Obama strongly condemns today's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and his thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the people of India. These coordinated attacks on innocent civilians demonstrate the grave and urgent threat of terrorism. The United States must continue to strengthen our partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks. We stand with the people of India, whose democracy will prove far more resilient than the hateful ideology that led to these attacks[,...]."

Brooke Anderson, Chief National Security Spokesperson

Picture from The Huffington Post

Our Future President and the First Family handing out Thanksgiving food to the needy at their local food bank. That's some Family values we can get behind. Gotta go hand out Thanksgiving dinner to los gatos!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of yez! Have a wonderful time with your loved ones in grateful enjoyment of Nature's bounty. Stay warm and safe and drive carefully.

La Casa de Los Gatos wishes you the best.

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Economy: The $700 Billion-Dollar Bailout Bill

From Walt Handelsman at Newsday

People, La Casa de Los Gatos does not include any trained economists within its ranks. None of us has much of a clue about economics as a field of study. We know a little bit about the stock market and a little bit about money as it relates to the litte bit of money what we got, and that ain't much. So we beg your indulgence as we attempt to delve into this field and figure out just what the fuck is going on as Congress attempts to wrassle with this $700 billion piece of legislation that is supposed to save us — and, incidentally, the rest of the world, the financial markets having become globalized to a hitherto unprecedented extent.

First off, what the fuck is this bill?

It's called the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. At present,it has failed to pass the House, which means we don't have a bill as such, just a piece of legislation that is being wrangled over by our Congresscritters. The text of the draft bill may be found here. La Casa de Los Gatos offers grateful thanks to commenter and fellow-blogger nunya of politickybitch for sending us the link.

Caveat: This document is approximately 110 pages long, and if you don't have any experience with legalese and the recondite world of financial systems, you might have a hard time reading and understanding it. We'll take a bash at it tomorrow. In the meantime, we fall back upon the abridged information.

Here we provide you with an analysis performed by the Congressional Budget Office.

The bill creates an entity known as TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program). It allows Paulson and his successors to appropriate the required amount of money (not to exceed $700 billion) over a period of as many years as they, with the oversight of various Congressional committees, deem necessary, to purchase or insure troubled assets and to cover all administrative expenses of purchasing, insuring, holding, and selling those assets. The assets to be purchased or insured are based on or related to residential or commercial mortgages issued prior to March 14, 2008. This might mean that the weasels who bought in expectation of being bailed out won't get anything for their efforts.

Caveat: Although the purchase price of all such assets outstanding at any one time cannot exceed $700 billion, cumulative gross purchases might well exceed $700 billion as previously purchased assets are sold. This amount ($700 billion) does not include the expense required to administer these "troubled assets."

Note: CBO estimates, based on costs incurred by private investment firms that acquire, manage, and sell similar assets, that the administrative costs of operating the program could amount to a few billion dollars per year, until the government manages to sell off all or most of the purchased assets. This ought to explain clearly why Rudi Giuliani is already trying to weasel his way into the bailout scheme.

The good news is:

• only (hah!) $250 billion worth of purchases can be made once the bill is enacted;
  
  
• A further $100 billion will be made available to Paulson and his successors if the President submits to the Congress a written notification that Paulson or his successors have found a further $100 billion of assets needing rescue;
  
  This means that, as usual, authorization of that money will be in the hands of Congress and will need to be approved by the various committees involved. This could be a good thing or a bad thing. The good part: we the people can put pressure on our representatives. The bad part: This really is an honest-to-deity fucking economic crisis and, unfortunately, swift action might be required to nip it in the bud before we all lose our homes, savings, assets, businesses, and sources of loans.
  
  
• The amount available can go up by another $350 billion (to total $700 billion, as provided by the bill) if the President submits a report detailing a plan to use the remaining $350 billion in purchase authority; that expansion would be subject to a 15-day Congressional review for potential disapproval of the plan.

Again, that leaves a little breathing space in between these gouts of bleeding. The point to take away so far is that the entire crisis MIGHT well cost under $350 billion — but only, unfortunately, if we come up with a solution now and implement it quickly.

This bill also lets the federal government insure troubled assets, including mortgage-backed securities. Terms and conditions for such insurance must be developed by the Secretary of the Treasury. What this means is, the federal government can collect premiums from the financial institutions that participate in this program. The total amount we're paying for this rescue is $700 billion or less, minus the insurance premiums paid. So the taxpayers will, hopefully, get some of their money back.

This bill expires on December 31, 2009. It can be extended through two years from the date of enactment if Paulson or his successors certify that such an extension is necessary.

Where is the money coming from to fund this bill?

We're borrowing it. The bill specifies that the federal debt limit be increased by $700 billion. *If, five years after enactment of the bill, OMB's director, in consultation with CBO's director, determines that the TARP has incurred a net loss, the President has to submit a legislative proposal to recoup the losses from those companies that benefited from TARP.

So what does this mean for us taxpayers?

This means that the ultimate cost of the TARP program equals the difference between whatever the government spends to purchase and earnings + sales proceeds if any from sale of all assets at future date, i.e., probably substantially less than $700 billion but likely greater than zero.

So, $700 billion + administrative costs (several billion per year x however many years the government has to hang on to this toxic shit) minus (earnings from assets, if any + sale prices of assets when we can finally junk them).

*Note: The proposal to recoup any costs requires a future Presidential submission and a future act of Congress to implement. Savings from such legislation would be estimated when the proposal is considered and would be credited to that legislation for Congressional scorekeeping purposes.

Based on what we know, this means that we'd better all familiarize ourselves with these arcane subjects and the workings of our Halls of Power and make sure that whoever is in those seats (OMB, CBO, WH, and Congress) do whatever is necessary to make sure that the companies that benefited from this bill return the money to the taxpayers when the time comes.

CBO's analysis goes on to state that other provisions in this bill would add to the budget deficit:

• Change in the tax treatment of certain types of income, losses, or deductions of corporations or individuals;
  
  The bill contains provisions that would limit the amounts that certain firms selling assets can claim as tax-deductible executive compensation; allow losses incurred by certain taxpayers on preferred stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be treated as ordinary, not capital, losses; and not count as income the cancellation of mortgage debt of individuals in certain circumstances. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that, on net, these provisions would reduce federal revenues.
  
  
• Certain financial institutions seeking to sell assets through TARP must meet appropriate standards for senior executive officers’ compensation, as determined by the Secretary of the Treasury;
  
  
• Secretary of the Treasury must maximize assistance for homeowners, including encouraging servicers of the underlying mortgages to take advantage of the Hope for Homeowners Program under section 257 of the National Housing Act;
  
  
• FRS (Federal Resesrve System) might pay interest on certain reserves held on deposit at the Federal Reserve, starting on October 1, 2008;
  
  Under current law, the FRS doesn't need to start paying interest on these till October 1, 2011. This means the FRS payments of its profits to the Treasury, which are classified as revenue in the federal budget, would be reduced over the next three years.
  
  
• Federal Housing Finance Agency, the FDIC, and FRB (Federal Resesrve Board) must implement measures to reduce foreclosures on properties they control, including modifying the terms of such loans; and
  
  
• Establish Congressional oversight and reporting requirements related to implementation of the legislation, along with a Financial Stability Oversight Board with responsibility for overseeing operations of the program.

From the CBO:

The bill would require that the federal budget display the costs of purchasing or insuring troubled assets using procedures similar to those specified in the Federal Credit Reform Act, but adjusting for market risk (in a manner not reflected in that law). In particular, the federal budget would not record the gross cash disbursements for purchases of troubled assets (or cash receipts for their eventual sale), but instead would reflect the estimated net cost to the government of such purchases (broadly speaking, the purchase cost minus the present value, adjusted for market risk, of any estimated future earnings from holding those assets and the proceeds from the eventual sale of them).

Enacting the legislation could also affect other federal spending—including, for example, outlays from the operations of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, federal housing programs, and deposit insurance. Some of those effects would be related to how TARP would be used to purchase assets (including what kinds of assets would be acquired and from what types of institutions), and how successful the program would be in restoring liquidity to the nation’s financial markets.

So there's no guarantee that this will work. On the plus side, at least some consumer and taxpayer protections appear to have found their way into the draft bill. On the minus side, it looks like the FDIC and other Federal institutions might suffer unexpected damage.

We wish there was time to think this thing out carefully, but at least the damn thing expires at the end of next year, at which time it could be resuscitated with additional provisions as we deem necessary. From CNBC:

Citing recent bank failures in the United States and Europe, Paulson said regulators and legislators need to act "as soon as possible" to ensure the health of credit markets that U.S. businesses depend on to meet payrolls and purchase inventory.

That's the important thing to remember. This has to be enacted soon because many organizations which are innocent of the shenanigans the financials market have engaged in must borrow money to meet their payroll. So you're pootling along working for Joe Goodhart Industries and suddenly credit has dried up and the CEO Mavis Goodhart can't make payroll. You're affected. Your wife/spouse/partner who works for BrilliantBrains, Inc. is also affected because those folks can't make payroll either.

Yeah, the bad guys will take it up the keister. Unfortunately, so will the rest of us. If your car breaks down irreparably tomorrow and you can't get credit to buy or rent a new one, you're gonna suffer much worse than Mr. Paulson, who is rumoured to be worth about half a billion and doesn't need to show up for work.

Here's the numbers on what's happening in the market. We hear the financial markets lost a trillion dollars today. They'll lose more in the coming days. This affects all of us, the smallest of us the worst. It's your retirement, your pension, your 401(k), your savings, and your credit that will be the hardest hit. When you have $100 million in the bank, like John McCain, you can lose $700K or even $70 million and still be OK. When your life savings are a measly $100,000, you lose $70,000 and you're as good as dead.

The Boston Globe is saying the bill needs to pass. Of course John "pass me a handkerchief, boys" Boner is too busy weeping because Nancy Pelosi spoke sternly to him to sign off on any bills.

Before you decide a position on this bill, please read this diary by RenaRF of DailyKos, who knows much more about economics than your humble blogger.

Finally, we offer Paul Krugman's perspective. We agree that this is not how this bill should have been constructed. We would have preferred his solution. But has anybody written legislation that would incorporate Krugman's solution? Would it have enough votes to pass? The House Republicans are crying so hard they can't find their pens (or other things that might look similar).

We agree with Nouriel Roubini that the attempt to purchase toxic instruments that the markets cannot accurately value is the worst possible response to the financial crisis. But we're not seeing anything else by way of a viable solution. If commercial paper is in serious trouble, the entire economy is on the verge of collapse. And to do nothing is worse, in this case, than to do something half-arsed that could keep collapse from happening. Note that Roubini is not saying we should do nothing, rather he is saying that he doesn't like what we're doing.

We know people out there are saying "The Federal Reserve system should be abolished," and "down with Wall Street," and all that. But you know what, we're in the middle of the crisis now. Dismantling various organizations might be needed and might be important, but you don't do that while the fire is burning down the house. An economic collapse right now will destroy us all. So first let's shore the system up then let's calmly and rationally examine it and decide what needs to go and what needs to stay.

Once again, we apologize for our lack of information and knowledge in this field. We welcome your comments and thoughts.

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World: Free This Man!

From The Guardian via Raw Story comes news today of a human-rights activist and pediatrician who has been jailed by the Indian government on some very dubious charges.

Dr. Binayak Sen, 58, who treats prisoners and tribal communities for free in the forest region of India's Chhattisgarh state, was arrested last May charged with carrying notes from a member of a Naxalite Maoist rebel movement, who was his patient in prison.

He has protested his innocence of the charges. Under the laws against "turrrrists," he is accused of being a "member" of a terrorist organization, and has been denied bail since his arrest a year ago. If convicted he faces the death sentence.

The article states, in part:

Sen is famous for drawing up one of the most successful community-based primary healthcare schemes in India, based on the Mitanin, the local barefoot health worker who gives the rural poor invaluable advice on preventative health.

Twenty two Nobel laureates have signed a letter to Indian PM Manmohan Singh, calling for Dr. Sen's release. The Mitanin "barefoot doctor" program for which Dr. Sen is responsible is based on educating and empowering rural women and tribal women in health care.

If you are a member of Amnesty International, you can find out more about their campaign to free Dr. Sen here. For information about actions taking place in North America in support of Dr. Sen, see here. More information about Dr. Sen is available here.

It's simply scandalous that Bush and Cheney, who are responsible for the deaths of over 1 million people and the grievous wounding and possible permanent harm to over 1 million more are free to walk around, while a man who provided health care to sick children, prisoners, and poor people, is sitting in jail.

Feel free to write the Indian Embassy as well, and remember, honey draws more flies than vinegar. In other words, keep it sweet. No matter how much disgust you feel.

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World: Natural Disasters

No, we're not referring to the Bush-Cheney Misadministration, for once.

An earthquake measuring 7.9 has killed some 9,000 or more in China and injured thousands of others. The epicenter of the earthquake was in Wenchuan county of Sichuan province. The total number of casualties will undoubtedly increase as relief workers gain access to the stricken areas, a task currently made difficult by damage to roads linking outlying areas to the provincial capital in Chengdu.

The Chinese government has released millions in emergency aid and is rushing food, emergency shelter, and supplies to the affected areas. The earthquake was also felt in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan, and as far away as Hanoi, Vietnam, and Bangkok, Thailand, according to the Hong Kong-based Mandarin-language channel Phoenix TV.

Will Mother Gaia succeed in shaking off this irritating plague of humans that is drowning her lands, blackening her skies, and destroying the sweet green peace of her light and comely garment of life?

The last serious earthquake in China occurred in the 1970s and the death toll was 255,000. Our sympathies to the Chinese people in their hour of grief.


Meanwhile, in Burma, the death toll from from Cyclone Nargis is expected to rise to 1.5 million. The Guardian has some excellent coverage available here, some of it &mdash be warned &mdash quite upsetting.

The Burmese government has decided to respond to the cyclone by refusing to permit international disaster agencies and workers access to stricken areas; insisting to the rest of the world that timely warning was provided to the people regarding the cyclone (those of us who saw what happened to the city of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina know quite well that warnings are worth shit when the people have no way of implementing an escape. Heckuva job, Georgie!); and asking its citizens to report any person who complains or "spreads rumours" about the slowness of rescue operations to the proper authorities. No doubt they're planning to cosh such unfortunates, or, as we have it in the common parlance, whup them upside the head and toss the bodies in the already corpse-burdened waters now covering much of the country. Heckuva job, Generals.

If our armed forces were not already bogged down in the twin quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan inflicting unwonted (and unwanted) distress upon millions, we could be using them to implement the functions required by peace and humanity: bringing aid to the suffering. But we're too busy bombing and murdering women, children, the elderly and the disabled.

In other news, tornadoes have killed 23 people in Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Georgia. While that may seem like small potatoes to some, and we are not of the school of belief in the sanctity of human life, still, every person who dies so is somebody's son or daughter, or sister or brother, mother, father, husband or wife, and there is no comparing pain. Is it worse to lose your entire family, or one member thereof? It's all bad. Our sympathies to all the suffering people and beasts, to the whole suffering planet.

Now do you see why we swear and curse and rant and rave? It's all bad, there is so little we can do to help and comfort the living, and the suffering of every creature merits our compassion.


Today we reflect on the Avalokitesvara Boddhisatva, that divine being who gazes down on the world with compassion; who is known to the Chinese as Guan Yin, to the Tibetans as Chenrezig; whose Sanskrit name is Padmapani, holder of the lotus. One of the legends of Guan Yin/Avalokitesvara is that she, through her countless merits, attained enlightenment, but as she reached the threshold of the Realm of the Pure, she heard the cry of the suffering masses and turned back, vowing not to enjoy the fruits of her merit till she had saved the peoples of the world.

No, we're still not a theist or deist or any kind of godbag. As we remarked over lunch today, if there is a god, it is a very stupid one indeed, and guilty of bad aim. It could have taken out the entire military junta of Burma in one fell swoop. Instead, it landed a cyclone on the heads of the weak, the bereft, the poor, the already suffering. The junta is well-ensconced in power, and appears to fear no threat other than the depradations of the high life and old age. A thousand curses on their bones and may their families wither and die as the families of the poor wither and die and may their names be utterly erased from history.

Yes, we're well aware of the irony of sympathizing with the suffering of the poor while simultaneously calling down curses upon the heads of their exploiters. However, irony adds a delicious flavour to life, and since superstition is not our bag any more than god is, we venture to opine that our curses are merely a safety valve to relieve our rage rather than any viable threat to the many worthless scumbags who prey on the weak and the meek. Otherwise those types would already be extinct, given how many curses we have rained upon their heads lo, these many years.

Our meditation upon Guan Yin is simply a hope that the world will respond with compassion to the suffering. And a search for some way of looking at these horrors that inspires internal peace instead of furious rants. It's hard being a cynical yet compassionate curmudgeon.

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Workers' Rights: Paid Sick Time

Has it come to this? Businesses in California are lining up to oppose a bill introduced by Assemblymember Fiona Ma requiring paid sick leave for workers. The bill

guarantee[s] employees as many as nine days of paid sick leave a year to care for themselves or an ill family member. It also would apply to those recovering from domestic violence or a sexual assault.

This bill would apply to your average working person, blue-collar or low-level white-collar worker.

Executive level workers are usually given 10 days or more per year of paid sick leave. Of course, upper management gets, not just paid sick leave, but salaries averaging $600,000 and "other incentives," including paid vacation time, stocks, performance-linked and non-performance linked bonuses, et cetera, and those can add up. In fact, they added up to $11 billion for the top ten highest paid CEOs last year. From CNN Money, a brief snippet on executive pay compared to worker pay:

The report also compares the growth in average CEO pay – which was $11.8 million in 2004 – to the growth in the minimum wage. Had the minimum wage risen as fast as CEO compensation since 1990, the researchers calculated, it would now be $23.03 an hour instead of just $5.15. And the average production worker would be making $110,126 a year instead of $27,460.

So, the same companies that want to pay their CEOs millions a year regardless of how badly the company performs, also wants working stiffs to suck it up and show up at work even if they're sick as dogs or in pain from rape, beatings, assault, or whatever.

A sick worker is not a productive worker. We've all dragged our ass in to work when we were feeling sub-par. How much can you accomplish when your head is spinning, you're running a temperature, the words on your screen are blurry, you have to stop every few minutes to blow your nose or wheeze or cough or barf?

For $11 million a year, sure, we'd be happy to come in, sick or well. For five lousy fucking bucks an hour? Just kiss our collective ass, OK? The Sackamenna Bee article states, in part:

In the worst-case scenario, the mandate could lead to job loss or reduced work hours, said Denise Davis, a spokeswoman for the California Chamber of Commerce.

"In an already troubled economy, California should be seeking ways to stimulate job growth and avoid forcing costly mandates on employers," she said in a statement.

Ma said about 40 percent of the state's work force, between five million and six million workers, do not get paid when they stay home sick.

Her bill, which is scheduled to be considered Wednesday by the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee, would enable workers who had been on the job for at least 90 days to use paid sick leave accrued at the rate of at least one hour for every 30 hours worked.

You know what, Denise Davis? Why don't you just fuck off? You don't "stimulate job growth" by throwing away billions on CEO compensation and forcing the assembly line schmucks to show up hacking all over their fellow-workers and spreading disease, OK? Start cutting CEO compensation, if you want to cut labour costs. Give the poor schlemiels labouring in the bowels of your Metropolis a fair shake.

Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth the corn, motherfuckers. Or some day, like Pink Floyd's Sheep, those oxen will rise up and trample you under. My god, these bloodsuckers, living high on the hog, talking out both sides of their mouths, and wringing every last drop of blood out of taxpayers and working people.

Update: The NYT has a fine article on how CEO pay got to be so despicably high. Caveat: You need to register and log in.

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Economy: We're Not In A Recession

(Yet), says The Chimperor.

What drugs is the idiot on, because we here at La Casa de Los Gatos sure could use some of those. Lookit, Stupid McFuckhead, it's pretty obvious we're in a recession. Credit is drying up everywhere, worldwide stock markets have taken a $5 trillion + hit, the national debt is soaring out of control, the price of food is leaping up weekly, the price of gas ... ah, fuckit. Why bother. There really are people in the U.S. of A. who are stupid enough to listen to Fuckwit McChimpyPants. Shoot, they'll probably troop dutifully to the polls to vote for John "Senile and Insane! A Twofer!" McPain.

If any of you wander by here, watch this and then decide if you want to vote for a senile warmonger who will pour a few billion or trillion more down the chute in Iraq. If you're not crazy or one of the sheeple, please show this video to any crazy sheeple you might know. With any luck, we'll succeed in keeping the lemmings from dragging us all off the cliff.

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Politics: The Politics of Wealth and Poverty

Image from WaronWant

Langdon Gilkey, a Professor of Divinity at the University of Chicago School of Divinity, wrote an interesting little book called Shantung Compound, detailing his experiences as a detainee in a Japanese internment camp in China. Casa de Los Gatos prepares a reading list at the beginning of every year, to force a little focus on the process of reading one's way through rooms and boxes full of books that have been collecting dust for nearly two decades, leading to the ingestion of much cold and allergy medication as a result of dripping noses and sore throats.

At any rate, as part of the Book Project, slated to complete this year (more about this at some future time over at the Other Blog), we chanced upon Professor Gilkey's fascinating little book.

In light of the recent disappointed perusal of Norman Cleaveland's tome on his time in Ampang, Malaysia, we were prepared to be further disappointed by the experiences of Americans in an Asian continent swirled by social and political ferment.

We're pleased to say that Professor Gilkey has somewhat mollified our resentment by remaining impartial and lucid on the topic of his experience, while retaining a clear-eyed perception that we don't always agree with but respect nevertheless.

In the course of reading the book, we came across this interesting observation on wealth and poverty that we feel impelled to share:

... I came to see that wealth is by no means an unmitigated blessing to its community. It does not, as may often be supposed, serve to feed and comfort those who are lucky enough to possess it, while leaving unaffected and unconcerned others in the community who are not so fortunate. Wealth is a dynamic force that can too easily become demonic &mdash for if it does not do great good it can do great harm.

Professor Gilkey is referring to the arrival of care packages from the American Red Cross to the detention centre where he, together with several hundred other Americans and several thousand "gaijin" of other nationalities &mdash British, Russian, Persian, Eurasian, Belgian, Dutch, and so on &mdash were being held. While the bounty of the American Red Cross would have ensured each detainee would have one to one-and-a-half care packages that would help them survive the brutal Northern Chinese winter, some seven Americans preferred that the Japanese should turn over all the packages to Americans only, thus ensuring that each American had seven packages (way more than needed) and no other person had any.

He goes on to say:

Had this food simply been used for the good of the whole community, it would have been an unmitigated blessing in the life of every one of us. But the moment it threatened to become the hoarded property of a select few, it became at once destructive, rather than creative, dividing us from one another and destroying every vestige of communal unity and morale.

[...]

I suddenly saw, as never so clearly before, the really dynamic factors in social conflict: how wealth compounded with greed and injustice leads inevitably to strife, and how such strife can threaten to kill the social organism. Correspondingly, it became evident that the only answer was not less wealth [...] but [factors] that might lead to sharing and so provide the sole foundation for social peace. It is the moral or immoral use of wealth, not its mere accumulation [,...] that determines whether it will play a creative or destructive role in any society.

[...]

... Western culture as a whole is learning that material progress and the wealth that it creates are no unmixed blessings. The present possession of security and goods in a world where the majority are hungry and insecure puts the Western world in much the same position as those Americans in the camp [...]. If the material gains of modern Western society can be spread over the world with some evenness, this new wealth may create a fuller life for us all. [...] Wealthy classes and wealthy nations are unmindful of the destructive effects of their wealth, isolated as they are by the comforts and perquisites of their possessions. Those outside the charmed circle of privilege, however, remember, and no lasting community can be formed in the midst of the bitter resentment that inequality and selfishness inevitably engender. [...]

The resentment against the West on the part of the whole nonwhite world is mainly the consequence of the white man's refusal to share his social privileges with men of another color.

There you have it. "They" don't hate "us" for our freedoms. Everybody hates and bitterly resents anyone who lives in luxury as they starve. That's just the nature of the beast that we call the human being. No amount of moralizing, preaching, religion, aid, or whatever will change that.

That is why, in order for a lasting peace to be built that will embrace the whole world and lead to the end of war, cruelty, hatred, racism, abuse, and social injustice, we must all share what we have with our less fortunate neighbours. And that is not to imply any moral duty, but simple common sense. If you have seven loaves of bread and the poor and hungry neighbours around you have none, and you do not willingly share with them, they will come to your home and tear you limb from limb in order to acquire your bread to feed their hungry loved ones.

So, when we at Casa de Los Gatos hear the less humane among us retort, "If they want enough to eat, let them stop breeding like flies! That's why they're poor and starving," we reply, "If you want them to stop breeding like flies, give generously but commonsensically of your money and your service to teach them birth control. Give them condoms and mifepristone and The Pill and abortions. Give them medicine and science and education and half your loaf of bread."

Otherwise what else is there for them to do but bomb your towers and railways and marketplaces? It's not as if their life is joyous and meaningful. As their (and your) lives should, and could, be.

Stumble It!

Update: Alexis Goggins, Hero

The Detroit News is reporting that some $30K was donated to help little Alexis Goggins, who was shot while defending her mother.

That's encouraging. We could wish it had been more, but Alexis is undoubtedly grateful that so many kind people opened up their hearts and wallets for and to her. Alexis continues to receive medical care at Children's Hospital, where she has been since she was shot. She is expected to have a lengthy stay there. So far, she's had five surgeries.

One thing that bothers us, here at Casa de Los Gatos: most of the money will be used to reimburse the hospital for her medical care, not for Alexis herself. This is when we wish most fervently that we had UniversalMedicalCare, which would be free to Alexis. After all, the child is guilty of nothing but bravery, love, and heroism. Qualities we, as a society, would do well to inculcate in all our children.

Another thing, relating to these quotes from the article:

Wayne County Probate Judge Freddie G. Burton Jr. on Tuesday ordered the creation of the Alexis Goggins Hero Fund, a special needs trust account for the girl.

If anything happens to Alexis, money donated to the fund will go to charity, not the girl's parents as proposed by a lawyer for the girl's mother, Burton ruled.

There seems to be an undue emphasis on how the court and lawyers are working to ensure that the parents not receive a penny from the trust fund. While we do not think parents should profit from their children's deaths, the degree of emphasis placed on this issue suggests something else at work.

We noted it when the story was first reported in the media. Many people who commented on the story were more interested in blaming Alexis' mother, Selietha Parker, for her poor choice of partner (it was the mother's ex-boyfriend who shot the little girl), for her single status, for her single motherhood, for her weight, and for her failure to be killed instead of having her child injured.

The overall tone was that she was a fat, black, single mother who was poor due to her own bad choices and she should have protected her little girl, even dying if necessary, rather than allowing her child to come to harm, which only showed what a useless, fat, lazy, slut of a single mother she was.

All of which detracted from the facts of the story: Alexis is a child with many impairments, but her heart, her courage, and her love are unimpaired. She threw herself in the gunman's way. Her mother may be a saint or she may be a whore, but that is beside the point. We really do not know what Ms. Parker's story is. But we are sick and tired of hearing women blamed for the violence of men. Of hearing single mothers blamed for their singlehood. Of hearing the subtext, whenever a black woman is spoken of, that she is somehow an irresponsible lazy welfare slut if she happens to have a child and be single. After all, Dick Cheney's daughter is a single mother - horrors! she's a LESBIAN single mother - and we don't hear anyone getting their knickers in a knot about THAT.

We find the tone of the commenters, the lawyers, and the court unpalatable. We are left with the distinct sense that they are all more interested in blaming the child's mother than recognizing that this little child possessed more courage in her tiny body than most adults. Certainly more than the bunch of lying crooks, cowards, and shills who, never having served in the line of fire, continue to throw other people's children into the meatgrinder called the Iraq War.

So lay off Ms. Parker already. We get the message. She's not getting a penny of the money. Do you really think it would make her happy to get $30 million if she had to lose her daughter to get that money?


If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?

Stumble It!

47 million Americans have no health care coverage

Some statistics from the National Coalition on Health Care about health care and who doesn't have it because they can't afford it (I bet William McGuire has health care):

* Nearly 47 million Americans, or 16 percent of the population, were without health insurance in 2005, the latest government data available.
* The number of uninsured rose 1.3 million between 2004 and 2005 and has increased by almost 7 million people since 2000.
* The large majority of the uninsured (80 percent) are native or naturalized citizens.
* The increase in the number of uninsured in 2005 was focused among working age adults. The percentage of working adults (18 to 64) who had no health coverage climbed from 18.5 percent in 2004 to 20.5 percent in 2005 -- an increase of over 800,000 uninsured workers (1). Nearly one (1) million full-time workers lost their health insurance in 2005.
* Nearly 82 million people – about one-third of the population below the age of 65 spent a portion of either 2002 or 2003 without health coverage.
* Over 8 in 10 uninsured people came from working families – almost 70 percent from families with one or more full-time workers and 11 percent from families with part-time workers.
* The percentage of people (workers and dependents) with employment-based health insurance has dropped from 70 percent in 1987 to 59.5 percent in 2005. This is the lowest level of employment-based insurance coverage in more than a decade.
* In 2005, 27.4 million workers were uninsured because not all businesses offer health benefits, not all workers qualify for coverage and many employees cannot afford their share of the health insurance premium even when coverage is at their fingertips.
* The number of uninsured children in 2005 was 8.3 million – or 11.2 percent of all children in the U.S. (1). The number of children who are uninsured increased by nearly 400,000 in 2005, breaking a trend of steady declines over the last five years.
* Nearly 40 percent of the uninsured population reside in households that earn $50,000 or more (1). A growing number of middle-income families cannot afford health insurance payments even when coverage is offered by their employers.

Why is the number of uninsured people increasing?

* Rapidly rising health insurance premiums are the main reason cited by all small firms for not offering coverage. Health insurance premiums are rising at extraordinary rates. Over the past five years the average annual increase in inflation has been 2.5 percent while health insurance premiums for small firms have escalated an average of 12 percent annually.

Want to know more about the numbers and health care ... or the sources of these statistics? Go here.

Stumble It!

Social Justice - Do You Think This Is Right?

Or fair? That a corporate CEO should make as much in a single day as an ordinary worker makes in a year? That's what NBC reports here.

And before you even begin to think to yourself that, after all, a corporate CEO adds much more value to a company's bottom-line than the grunts who do the work, consider this: These are the same crooks and liars, these corporate CEOs, who have destroyed the air your children breathe, the schools in which they are educated, the health care system that prevents their illnesses or treats them, these are the robber barons and scoundrels who drink $10,000 martinis while you go into debt paying for needed surgery; these are the people who sold your home loans into worthless paper instruments that are threatening now to destroy not just your economy but the economy of every other country in the world.

These are the thugs and crooked men who dreamed up schemes to rip the coal out of the veins of the earth, and they didn't mind killing some of your family in the process; who profited from the illegal, immoral war and occupation of a sovereign and unthreatening nation while feeding your soldier sons and daughters contaminated food and water and billeting their executives in fancy hotels while your kids sweated in quonsets in the desert sand. Who joked and laughed about ripping off your grandparents with padded energy bills. Who added impenetrable and incomprehensible language about fees and charges to every transaction you undertook, in the interest of squeezing a few more drops of blood from each of you stones.

We've all worked for CEOs who spent most of their time schmoozing, on the phone, playing golf, flaking off on long "business" lunches, skiving half the time while their paid dogs watched us rack up every hour and minute and extra without pay, just to get our paychecks every month. If you don't know by now that it's the grunts who do most of the work, your name must be George. Or Dick.

These people are not answerable to their minions, the government, such as it is, or their shareholders. It's time to reduce their rates of compensation and make them work for their livings like everyone else.

Stumble It!

Politics - Department Of Oblivious Obviousness

Some of us have been saying - hey, okay, a lot of us, especially those of us that don't make CEO salaries, or have mortgages, or pay too goddamned much for health care - that ever since Presidunce Shrub took over, our incomes have remained stagnant or shrunk appallingly, and it seems we work harder for less, with more stress and less enjoyment.

And, lo and behold! Today, the benighted gits at the NYT finally come to the same realization:

Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year that they had to make ends meet with less money than at the peak of the last economic expansion, new government data shows.

It's nice to have statistics confirm what was merely practical observation and experience before, I suppose. All I know is, before Commander Bunnypants took power, we ran this household quite well - almost luxuriously - on one-third of what it takes to run it now, and at times our lifestyle feels quite meagre by comparison. We scrimp. We pinch pennies. And still, we're so much better off than many of our friends and compatriots, some of whom got laid off in previous great corporate bloodlettings and are still looking for work five years later.

I used to say that every time Idiot Boy opened his mouth, the stock market took another dive. Woe betide us all, I didn't know it would turn out to be so true.

Stumble It!

Politics - The Shaky Economy

No surprise there. Raw Story reports that the Feds have just cut the interest rate:

The Fed said it had lowered the rate it levies on loans to banks by 50 basis points to 5.75 percent, citing "increased uncertainty" in the financial markets.

"Financial market conditions have deteriorated, and tighter credit conditions and increased uncertainty have the potential to restrain economic growth going forward," the Fed cautioned in a statement.

What economic growth? For people on the minimum wage, growth has been frozen for about a decade. For the working masses, we've watched our wages stagnate even as our colleagues are laid off in droves and we are exhorted to work ever harder and do the work of the two, three, four, five who are now looking for work and writing us depressed emails. As we watch the CEOs pocket even more money for "trimming" the workforce, and making the company "lean" and running it into the ground and earning huge bonuses on top of their obscenely enormous salaries for the privilege.

The price of basic necessities is going up every week, gas is more expensive, milk is more expensive, tolls are raised, water is rationed, school costs more, and the crooks and thugs who presided over this mess are drinking $10,000 martinis with real diamonds in them.

Stumble It!

Politics - The CEO Presidunce Runs The Economy Into The Ground

Eat, drink, and be merry, for here comes the fucking apocalypse.

Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. says customers are "running out of money."

That's always been the plight of the poor and the improvident (which are NOT one and the same thing). Too much month at the end of the money. Raw Story reports a story from the L.A. Times which has customers of Countrywide showing up to withdraw money.

"At Countrywide Bank offices, in a scene rare since the U.S. savings-and-loan crisis ended in the early '90s, so many people showed up to take out some or all of their money that in some cases they had to leave their names," the Times added. "Bill Ashmore drove his Porsche Cayenne to Countrywide's Laguna Niguel office and waited half an hour to cash out $500,000, which he then wired to an account at Bank of America."

I have money in Countrywide. I hope to deity the FDIC makes good on this customer run on the banks. Thank you, Stupie McPoopy! You and your cronies have managed to smash the once-vibrant and healthy economy. Geezus, I'm an aneurysm in waiting, these days.

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Human Rights - Yet Another Reason To Stop Buying Imported Goods

unless we can get STRINGENT guarantees of worker rights. Jeebus, this is disgusting.

Eight workers were so traumatised by their experiences that they were only able to remember their names.

The labourers had to work unpaid for 20 hours at a time, and were only given bread and water in return.

I'd like to see those morons who buy cheap imported crap at Mall Warts thrown into factories like these and forced to labour 20 hours a day on bread and water.

Stumble It!