Having assiduously fertilized the destruction of jobs in domestic manufacturing and middle class wages over the last two decades, the last year or so has seen Wal-Mart reaping some of the toxic fruit of it.
The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT – News), saw its revenue rise in the latest quarter, but U.S. same-store sales figures fell for the eighth consecutive quarter. U.S. operations have been struggling since the recession, and now, rising crude oil prices and budget-conscious shoppers are chipping in to spoil the party.
For Wal-Mart, as with other US-born multi-nationals, emerging markets are still OK, still ripe for the same drawn out treatment that’s cratered the US economy.
However, the middle class has lost its buying power.
The story blames energy prices, which certainly contributes. But it’s a Motley Fool semi-cheery column and ignores the larger problem. Wal-Mart banked on the US consumer having expendable credit forever, able to always buy as all its assets were taken away and rebuilt in China.
The story beamishly proclaims how Wal-Mart has instituted on-line shopping to win back customers. Boosting loyalty through social media is on the company slate, too.
Buy shit made in China, not just in store, but also on-line! Wow, you sure can’t do that anywhere else. That’s worth a couple thousand “like” thumbs-ups for Wal-Mart on Facebook, surely.
If you click the link, a graphic shows Wal-Mart’s competition, which the piece claims is doing marginally better in comparison, not on the up-slope in the US, either.
Here’s a news story from a marginal source that just leaves one speechless.
Scrabbling around in the underbrush for anything that will grab eyeballs, the reporter for something called “io9” whose motto is “We come from the future” does the poisons found in foods thing.
This was a subject of great interest to the neo-Nazi right and survivalists of the Eighties, people who busied themsevles making up samizdat texts on how to poison the IRS auditor or local postal worker with stuff they could find in their kitchen.
The genesis of it was in the idiot’s notion that vanishingly small amounts of toxic chemical moieties in vegetables can somehow be fashioned into weapons.
And with that notion one eventually arrives at the idea that if you just shave enough green stuff off potatoes, you’ll have enough solanine to kill your nosy neighbor or others you suspect are coming for your guns, gold and pemmican supplies. Except there’s never enough.
Like journalist Esther Inglis-Arkell, Bourgass had the fool idea that you could get workable amounts of cyanide from seeds. She just puts this foolishness on a news site; Bourgass actually went to the trouble of collecting cherry stones.
The fruit mentioned isn’t dangerous, but it houses a danger. The seeds [of apricots, cherries and apples], when ground up or even bruised, produces hydrogen cyanide. Yes, the pill that they gave spies to kill themselves if they got captured might have been made from ground-up almonds.
No, now put on the pointy hat and go sit in the corner.
Worse, she tries to drag in ricin, found in castor seeds. Since she doesn’t know that ricin is a protein, she thinks it’s found in castor oil.
Which it isn’t.
You might think you don’t eat these, but you do. They’re most famous for being in castor oil, but they’re also in most sweets like chocolate and processed candies. So what? So they contain ricin … So the next time someone gives you a box of chocolates, it could be that they’re trying to kill you on a day too sunny to carry an umbrella.
One is left speechless at the complete failure of an educational system and the inability to keep the results far away from web publishing.
Ricin detection in food has been a goal of many security businesses, the FDA, and Homeland Security since 9/11.
Defense Secretary Bob Gates complains about NATO pantywaists:
In Libya, Gates said, “the mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country, yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S., once more, to make up the difference.???
He had me on the floor with that one. Bombing Moe is the “mightiest military alliance in history?” In his mind. WWII conveniently thrown in a black hole.
The thrust of it: European nations aren’t spending enough on their militaries. And they are reluctant warriors perhaps being tired of being hectored to fight in Afghanistan.
This will not be popular with Little Tommy Atkins or the friendlies on our northern border. Who have had to reorder smart bombs and missiles from our weapons shops.
“Europe’s patchwork of small countries leads to a jumble of small military forces that are not particularly effective if they actually need to go to war, critics say,” reads the piece.
Well, there’s also the fact that their democracies are substantially more representative than ours. And that their civilian populations and politicians and industries are not totally wedded to arms production and continually being on war footing.
Nope, can’t complain much about the Euro-pantywaists here. From this standpoint, it’s good they don’t follow the American way.
And for the sales pitch, trying to keep at least some air pumped into the balance of trade:
“Gates repeated the criticism on Friday, saying that the $300 billion that non-U.S. NATO members spend annually on defense ‘could buy a significant amount of usable military capability.’ Instead, the results are significantly less than the sum of the parts.???
Obey Uncle Sam! Don’t make him angry! Buy more F-16s, attack helicopters and smart bombs, pantywaists!
Pakistan’s opposition politicians have joined the fray, spurring public disenchantment with the military, for decades the dominant political and economic powerbroker in the country. And we’re both obsessed with militaries.
The roughly 1,000-word statement—at various points apologetic, belligerent and strident—was the clearest indication to date that in striking a balance between the competing demands, Pakistan’s military leaders are looking to first assuage their own people, even if that means scaling back ties to the U.S.
The statement also offered an indication of the crisis now gripping Pakistan’s military and the lengths its leaders are potentially willing to go to restore public respect. The statement also said the army would be willing to divert U.S. military aid to help improve the lot of ordinary Pakistanis.
What? They’re going to give up golfing in Abottabad? Instead of new F-16s, ask for cash money they can hand out in the streets?
This is what the pantywaists will do. They’ll quietly ask for more weapons from Uncle Sam and sooner or later we’ll order ’em up for them.
“Gen. Kayani in recent weeks has attempted to rally his troops, going from garrison to garrison to explain that he shares their sense of humiliation over the raid …” continues the piece.
“After the speech, a colonel in attendance pointedly asked: ‘How can we trust the United States?’ ”
Straight from the mouths of the 98-lb. weaklings, a few weeks after having the sand of the bin Laden raid kicked in their faces.
Pakistanis are insulted [by the thought that they’re reluctant pantywaists.] They point out that they have caught numerous al Qaeda members. A third of Pakistan’s army is arrayed along the border with Afghanistan fighting local Taliban militants, a campaign in which almost 3,000 Pakistani soldiers have died. Many generals, Gen. Kayani included, say the nation is now critically exposed to attack from archrival India on its eastern flank.
The alert reader will note Pakistan and the US have something in common. Neither country makes much of anything except for one really famous product. We make weapons. Pakistan makes terrorists.
More arms for different pantywaists
From the WaTimes:
Congress is stepping up pressure on the Obama administration to sell more F-16 jet fighters to Taiwan as the island’s air defenses deteriorate and China’s air power grows.
They only want 66 of them. And Lockheed is threatening to close the F-16 production line if we don’t approve the sale. Americans will lose jobs because weapons are the only reliable manufacturing, besides cars and some jet engines and guitars, we have!
“What’s in a name???? Shakespeare asked. How about when someone calls you a “pantywaist???? Formerly “a child’s undergarment in which a shirt and pants were buttoned together at the waist,??? pantywaist was often bandied about in masculine circles in my youth.
Lane Bryant, a women’s and children’s clothing outlet, sold these “pantie waists” (more commonly spelled “panty waists”) in their 1935 catalog for boys and girls from 2 to 8 years of age. The term panty waist later became a slang term of abuse for boys who were sissies or disinclined to behave in a properly masculine way …
Technically a “panty waist” was nothing more than an alternative term for underwaist with strap reinforcements for buttons and garter tabs. The buttons, usually attached to the waistline by tapes to make them more flexible and more difficult to pull off, were principally for attaching button-on trousers and skirts, but were also used by girls for buttoning on panties or bloomers, hence the term panty waist. The term panty waist was also used by many mothers to refer to any undervest for children up to the age of at least twelve, and sometimes fourteen, which could serve as a garment for anchoring hose supporters for long stockings …
A few times this week I was contacted by news reporters who wanted to discuss cybersecurity and terrorism.
I spent time on the telephone with each and won’t mention names. The stuff that’s critical of the general received wisdoms just never gets into the news narrative. And you can count the number of national security experts in the news who aren’t shills for the status quo on less than the fingers of one hand. In fact, no one like this even seems to exist anymore.
Anyway, all these journalists were tracking stories which have no real currency.
The primary threat to American security is the economy. Full stop.
If it fails disastrously again, or the nation is run aground by nuts people who have steered it irresponsibly, that’s a threat to everyone.
When half the political leadership structure in the US believes global warming is a hoax, that’s a long term threat to the world.
If it were the leadership of Lichtenstein or Andorra, this would be on no consequence. But it’s us and it has great consequence.
So when someone asked me if al Qaeda can launch a devastating cyberattack against the US, I had to take a mental step back and think about how to gently deliver an answer like: “What on earth made you think that was realistic?”
Al Qaeda can easily be dismissed as a cyber-threat. No one will go broke taking the short position that they’re never going to amount to anything in this area.
I pointed out that if there’s any evidence that they might wish to use cyberspace to attack the US it’s the same order of wishful thinking that made the terror men think it would be easy for it to make weapons of mass destruction.
Which says something about their actual capability and powers of discernment and critical thinking.
The other question that has been coming up is one having to do with what would a devastating cyberwar look like?
Dunno. And I don’t make predictions. However, I do know many normal people find laughable, as do I, the idea that we need to be really concerned right now about cyberterrorists attacking Wall Street and the American financial system.
You mean to argue that’s more a threat than what our insiders have already done? On the other hand, how ’bout a cheer for a cyberattack on Wall Street.
And then there’s one last point. If it’s not an attack on Wall Street, or something by al Qaeda, what about a cyberwar that has consequences in the physical world?
In a related matter it has to be said that America’s national security think tanks are havens for people who are simply threat-mongering salesmen or high button warehouses for those currently out of power.
After over ten years of reading their reports and pronouncement I can assert with absolute confidence that they generally produce no “analytic” product we couldn’t live without.
I’m going to give you some current copy, something that’s a workmanlike sample from an alleged academician at the RAND Corporation.
What are economists, good ones, writing about in their many blogs now?
Not a trick question. You know the answer. The wretched economy, stupid.
Given how markets are responding thus far, Osama Bin Laden’s death is likely to have a modestly positive and buoyant effect on equity markets. Business abhors uncertainty. With Bin Laden gone, one major source of uncertainty is removed …
Business abhors uncertainty. Gnomic, like something my dad would have said.
Everyone who works for RAND lives in the high rent zipcodes on the west side of LA. Maybe a couple are little different and have places in the mansion districts of Pasadena and San Marino.
They sure know what’s going in national security threats to the country.
Everyone would laugh at America’s think-tankers if the reality wasn’t that they’re really well compensated to actively ignore reality so that more better crap can be made up to support the various endless war efforts.
For a chortle, watch it on YouTube for a moment. Look at the title, put up by the Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy which believes so highly in him. So highly, they couldn’t spell his name right, delivering instead the Freudian-slip, “Newt Gingrinch.”
Sadly, his campaign staff finally realized what everyone else knows instinctively. Gingrich is too much a laughingstock.
In 2011, free trade to most Americans — anyone in my demographic — means you’re going to be taking it in the slats.
The chemistry, physics and energy of making a Les Paul guitar in China, as opposed to Nashville, has not changed. The skills and talents of Chinese or other foreign workers are not better than average Americans for the 21st century, as some free-traders argue. The difference with regards to the Les Paul is that Chinese labor is much cheaper, the cost of living is much less there, and the Chinese government — in effect — subsidizes lots of overhead and energy costs because there is no regulation.
Two economic adviser functionaries, formerly for the GWB and Clinton administrations, proffer an opinion piece in today’s New York Times.
It’s purpose is to aid in breaking an impasse on pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.
Matthew J. Slaughter and Robert Z. Lawrence write that free trade must be increased along with a social safety net for American workers fucked over by it. It’s easy to see the first happening. But not the latter because it needs to be packaged as unemployment insurance expansion. And there’s no societal generosity at all in the US now.
Three principles guide our proposal. First, trade is indeed worth it for America … [Wow. Followed by dollar amount originally American but now multinational outsourced companies have apparently brought in.]
Second, trade is not worth it for every individual American. Trade creates unemployment for some and wage losses for others; its gains do not directly accrue to every worker and community. Indeed, there has been a steep drop in public support for trade; a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that only 17 percent of respondents said free-trade deals have helped America.
Third, Trade Adjustment Assistance, created in 1962 to supplement unemployment insurance, cannot adequately help displaced workers.
Our proposal to resolve the trade impasse: more trade and more aid.
Voter support for engagement with the world economy is strongly linked to labor-market performance. If American workers continue to fear change, their support for free trade will not return.
More trade and more aid. A pretty wan exhortation.
I can’t see any return to support for free trade in my lifetime. Note — having to buy the products brought in by free trade because there are no other options or choices is not the same as enthusiasm for it. (All readers who use iKit and mobile gadgets are excused from reading this.)
While it holds no appeal for teenagers and lovers of pop music, China Toilet Blooz continues to get a steady trickle of new listeners every month.
Foreign made fractured toilet seat as metaphor for US economy.
Google’s Les Paul tribute doodle looks good and sounds little.
A nice idea for a global birthday anniversary that doesn’t capture any of a real guitar’s magic, much less anything made by Les Paul.
I tried it late last night and the problem, as with lots of virtual instruments played with the pointer, is the virtually total lack of expression. You can’t do anything with it that’s remotely like a real guitar. The tonal richness isn’t present. And, of course, there’s no physical contact between the player and the instrument which is what defines the nuance, color and unlimited style of the electric guitar.
That’s all obvious. But still you can’t make it boogie even a little.
You can hear a really lousy stab at — uck — Stairway to Heaven on this thing, here.
You can hear a real Les Paul here in the vid of Cursing the Oilmen (the tone is early Cream although Clapton was more closely associated with the Gibson SG at that point) and here in Hey Cutie.
The other point worth making over Google’s delivery of Les Paul tribute was that electric guitars and, subsequently, rock and roll were an export to the world. Things that made life better; something that made others think highly of us.
It’s a complete reversal, the triumph of evil over good in the national identity.
For more on the phenomenon of antique guitar acquisition as the hobby of poxy wealth speculators, see here.
Teaser lines:
Weekly, features writers find the most annoying examples of Grotesquus Americanus. Then [the newspaper] proceeds to portray whatever herd of manipulators it has found as something swell. The point of it is to make you feel stupid …
Update: Rachel Maddow thinks the Google guitar app is really cool. Empirical proof it has no connection with rock ‘n’ roll or actual guitar music played by human beings.
One idea bandied around was that community college training would spur innovation.
In the last several decades, progress and innovation pretty much rode the back of research in basic science in the US. And this was a product of the university system.
The great developments in physics, materials science, chemistry, biochemistry and biology came from the highly trained. We’re talking people who spent years getting doctorates, more time postdocking, and then going on to basic research as primary investigators.
Even more briefly, the applications we have today came from basic research where it wasn’t always immediately obvious what benefits would eventually accrue from particular laboratory discoveries.
And in science there is no way around this. Unfortunately, people who have never actually been involved in science have no way of knowing this. And such was the case with the businessman on the Dylan Ratigan show.
One can’t shorten or grease the process of scientific discovery by spending two years in community college for a vocational or lab technician’s 2-year degrees. (Full disclosure: I once taught a community college lab course in microbiology.)
By two years one generally finds a small number of people in a science class who are barely competent. The rest still need even more work.
And they will never be able to run research and development operations without a lot of extra education that is not cheap.
So the current obsession with community college education is a tacit admission of defeat. It’s a silent recognition that university education is out of reach financially for the majority, even more so to people who are now among the longterm unemployed.
All that is left is training for vocational jobs, which is valid, but certainly not a road to restoring American leadership in anything.
We are not, after all, suffering from supply-side problems. We don’t have high unemployment because workers lack the necessary skills, or are stuck in the wrong industries or the wrong locations; the hypothesis that we’re mainly suffering structural unemployment has been repeatedly shot down by evidence. This is a demand-side slump; all we need to do is create more demand.
Therefore encouraging people to divert into community college for vocational training is not useful except, perhaps, to those local colleges in states which haven’t cut education funding to them as part of austerity programs.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a report in May that said higher education had failed to “tap the potential of digital technology” in ways that would “transform learning, dramatically lower costs or improve overall institutional productivity.”
The Chamber report praised Internet educational institutions like Khan Academy, which built its reputation on YouTube.com math lessons.
What this initiative really is, coming as it does from the US Chamber of Commerce — an agency which only peddles bad shit packaged as corporate goodness, is simply a push for training programs for jobs that don’t pay much at all but which may need filling domestically if the economy ever pulls out of the depression.
While the idea of learning math on YouTube certainly makes nice print it’s absurd to think any kind of YouTube learning program can take the place of traditional education in the hard sciences or engineering.
“The irony is, even though a lot of folks are looking for work, there are a lot of companies that are actually also looking for skilled workers; there’s a mismatch that we can close,??? Mr. Obama said, surrounded by auto parts and tools.
Fair enough, there will always be a need for auto-mechanics.
But there is not nation that can build its way back into prosperity and leadership by becoming just a country of people with vocational technical skills suitable for, at best, mostly lower middle class low wage jobs.
An organization called “Skills for America’s Future, a business and community-college partnership based at the Aspen Institute in Washington and Colorado,” it is said is working to retrain and place Americans.
“Companies it already works with to link students with 21st-century job skills range from Accenture to UPS to Gap Inc,” it continues. (Boldface mine.)
Training on not to steal from the cash register and how to resort all the clothes properly and put them back where they belong after a day of customers rummaging through them?
This is repellent rubbish. It is the stench of rot, of cynically coming to the conclusion that there’s nothing to be done but sell people on the idea that they’re inferior and need even more vocational training for the low wage jobs of the future. Another way of putting it is to piss in a jar and tell people to drink up because it’s lemonade.
2012 will roll around and crap like this won’t save him or any other Democrats trying to push it.
Posted in Bioterrorism at 10:07 am by George Smith
Mirage Man, David Willman’s book on Bruce Ivins and the anthrax murders, is now being fully pimped.
And it must chap editors at the Los Angeles Times, where Willman formerly worked, to see they have no exclusivity. While they published a book excerpt ago, Willman has delivered essentially the same goods to McClatchy and the Daily Beast this week. (Follow links for full stories.)
It’s a full court press book sale and written in such a way that I’d be willing to bet it’s almost certain Hollywood has already optioned Mirage Man for a dramatic movie treatment.
With Ivins reputation as a sorority stalking, panty-wearing, clown juggling, singing and keyboard playing Renaissance man — including the minor bit on becoming the most famous bioterrorist, one at the heart of the US bioterror defense industry, a movie is a lead pipe cinch.
The only question — who will get to play him? It’s a once in a lifetime role.
