03.01.11
Posted in Permanent Fail at 3:19 pm by George Smith
Charles Koch — yeah, one of those guys — has an editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal.
It’s full of the self-important supremacy-flavored cant peddled by the super-rich. In other words, you can destroy the argument from authority position in a few strokes by examples taken from real life.
Some Koch quotes are particularly trenchant when looking back at yesterday’s post in the Economic Treason series.
Sayeth the Koch:
Our elected officials would do well to remember that the most prosperous countries are those that allow consumers — not governments — to direct the use of resources. Allowing the government to pick winners and losers hurts almost everyone, especially our poorest citizens.
Yeah, American middle class consumers, not the government, sure do have a lot of influence on what gets made by the top arms manufacturers, almost all of them US.
General Dynamics Land Systems is acutely sensitive to the free market and unusually generous to “our poorest citizens.”
If you just stopped in, that’s a joke.
The US industry of arms manufacturing is the very example of “socialism” for the benefit of the private sector. It is guaranteed and protected by the US government, whatever the cost.
Here’s another Koch brother doozy:
The purpose of business is to efficiently convert resources into products and services that make people’s lives better. Businesses that fail to do so should be allowed to go bankrupt rather than be bailed out.
There’s certainly no doubt that having the biggest share of arms manufacturing in world history produces “services and products” that make some people’s lives better. It’s just not most of ours, at this point.
General Dynamics plutocrat compensation, 2010.
Permalink
02.28.11
Posted in Made in China, Permanent Fail, Predator State at 6:05 pm by George Smith
The Great Recession caused by Wall Street whacked almost all of the middle class in the United States. Newspaper articles and the opinions of economists discuss the the mass unemployment and hardship caused by it daily. However, there are some industries which escaped the Great Recession, one because of massive government bailout, another because it is also protected by the taxpayer and the US government.
The first, and most obvious, is Wall Street; the latter is arms manufacturing. The arms manufacturing industry in the US enjoys protections afforded no other industry except for Wall Street. It is an exercise in socialism for the private sector, rigged to be underwritten and guaranteed by labor and taxes of the US middle class. It is not subject to pressure from global labor markets, pressures which have been used by American big business and government policy to tear apart and destroy all other domestic manufacturing in this country.
Previously, a graph from the New York Times makes a bad picture very clear.
The Great Recession cratered demand and US non-military production. But arms manufacturing, paid for by the middle-class taxpayer, soared.
At a time when the GOP and Fox News portray middle class union workers — teachers — as pampered parasites, there are two American industries totally immune to any notions of austerity and shared sacrifice. Obviously, one is Wall Street. The other is made up of weapons makers.
While they don’t enjoy quite the same very top fruits of greed and avarice like Wall Street CEO’s, the bossmen of US weapons-makers also make out really really well. While everyone else was getting fired or seeing their incomes shrink, for instance, General Dynamics — one of the top five US arms developers — was richly rewarding its CEO.
“The chief executive of General Dynamics Corp. received pay and compensation the company valued at $17.96 million during 2008, a 15 percent annual increase that came as the defense contractor posted a big profit on the sale of equipment such as armored vehicles, private jets and submarines,” reads a news article from The Street.
“General Dynamics gave Nicholas Chabraja $1.38 million in salary and a bonus of $4.5 million, according an Associated Press analysis of the Falls Church, Va.-company’s proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday. Chabraja’s salary was up slightly from 2007, while his bonus was $1 million richer than the year earlier.”
In 2008, when millions of Americans were being laid off, the SIPRI database on worldwide arms sales showed the US industry ascendant. While everyone else in the heartland was being hammered, seven of the top ten arms sales companies in the world were American.
In the previous installment of the Economic Treason series, I discussed the itty-bitty arms maker, Combined Systems.
Combined Systems, a manufacturer of tear gas, high explosive rounds and handcuffs, is the primary employer in Jamestown, PA. Its entire business is arms manufacturing. It ships worldwide and is not subject to the pressures which have destroyed US non-military production. Famously, its products were seen being used against the now victorious Egyptian revolution.
Located in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, it has flourished while all other
industries making things in the county and its environs have suffered.
But that’s only one small company.
This year, SIPRI described its database on very big worldwide arms merchants in this manner:
With e total arms sales of the SIPRI Top 100 maintained the upward trend in their arms sales, an increase of a total of 59 per cent in real terms since 2002 … 45 of the SIPRI Top 100 are based in the USA. These companies generated just under $247 billion in total arms sales, which is 61.5 per cent of the SIPRI Top 100 arms sales.
While American big business has shipped all the jobs it can to China, US arms manufacturing labor is sacrosanct. It is protected, essentially underwritten by the mass of taxpayers who have been treated so shabbily in the last decade. While we were getting poor, arms manufacturing, like Wall Street, was getting rich through its status as a profoundly unfair industry underwritten and guaranteed by the state.
The Economic Treason series focuses on arms manufacturing businesses, comparing them to the fortunes of everyone else in the communities in which they are located. Because the effects of the economic collapse are so widespread, as a general rule it appears that while weapons production facilities have done well in the last ten years, everyone not in weapons production in the same or surrounding communities has done abominably.
Mass layoffs, which ticked up at the Bureau of Labor Statistics here, are for everyone. Except Wall Street and arms makers.
Mass layoffs occur for everyone else but not at weapons plants. And mass layoffs are now always threatened for public sector union workers, something prescribed as belt tightening as well as shared sacrifice and pain. This is fork-tongued speak. Like Wall Street, no sharing of pain ever comes to weapons makers. They are exempt.
Take General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
Unemployment is abominable in Michigan. And it is also very bad in Macomb County, part of the Detroit metro-area, where General Dynamics Land Systems design bureau and corporate headquarters is located.
Michigan’s unemployment rate is 11.7 percent, as noted by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics here. Statistically, it stood out in this report because of the rate of change, which has been greater than most of the rest of the country. While the rate has decreased faster, it is not because Michigan has a good jobs creation program. The rate of change downward is due to a decline in the population of the state.
Unemployment is terrible in Macomb County, Michigan. Unless you work for General Dynamics designing armored fighting vehicles. (Data from the St. Louis Fed here.)
The M1 Abrams tank manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems is not particularly useful in the war on terror. We were attacked by suicide commandos using boxcutters on 9/11. al Qaeda has no armored fighting vehicles. The M1 tank went into action when we attacked a country that didn’t attack us in a war sold on a variety of now very famous frauds.
The M1 tank also had a visible role in the Egyptian revolution. But while it did no harm it was not really on the side of the people who brought down Hosni Mubarak.
In Macomb County, threatening public workers with layoffs is noticeable in the news. Articles oncoming layoffs at municipalities hurt by the economic collapse is also a common feature in Michigan newspapers in nearby Oakland and Wayne counties.
This recent news item from a place called Clinton Township says:
Clinton Township Supervisor Bob Cannon recommended that three police officers and 12 firefighters be laid off in the 2011-2012 fiscal year budget to help the two departments’ struggling bottom lines.
The board is expected to vote on the budget and possible cuts on March 21, and will make another decision that night on a federal grant that could re-hire seven firefighters already laid off last year.
Cannon made the recommendation at a Feb. 22 public hearing on the budget.
From the city of Troy, in neighboring Oakland County, we read this:
The city projects a $6.2 million budget deficit in 2010-2011, $6 million in 2011-2012 and $3.2 million in 2012-2013.
Under Option One of the restructuring plan, there would be no police layoffs until 2011-2012, when four police officers would be laid off. In 2012-2013, 29 police officers are slated for layoff, 14 in 2013-2014, for a total of 47 police layoffs.
The plan calls for reducing library staff by 39 people in 2010-2011 and 69 in 2011-2012.
The Parks and Recreation Department would also be eliminated in phases …
Armored fighting vehicles — special! Libraries, parks and recreation for children and civilians, not so much.
Unemployment has been craptastic in Allen County, Ohio! Except for the General Dynamics tank-making facility in Lima, the county seat.
“Ohio Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) President Jay McDonald hosted a press conference in Lima to highlight how Congressman John Kasich’s tax plan for Ohio would force local tax increases or lead to layoffs in public safety departments, according to a media release Thursday,” reads this bit of news from the web.
“Congressman [John Kasich’s] tax plan for Ohio would continue the damage he wreaked on the state during his time in Washington and on Wall Street … Similar to how Kasich’s support of outsourcing through unfair trade deals like NAFTA led to hundreds of thousands of layoffs in Ohio, his tax plan would force layoffs in our schools, and just as alarmingly, our police and fire departments.”
M1 Abrams tanks — huzzah! Police, public safety, teachers — eh.
Unemployment bloomed in Lackawanna County when the economy went ka-boom in 2008. Except, you guessed it, if you worked for General Dynamics Land Systems in Eynon, PA.
This item from Lackawanna County, describes public worker lay-offs in 2010 due to fiscal distress:
Majority commissioners have pledged to not raise taxes in 2011. They have cut the county budget by about 5 percent since taking office in 2008 without increasing taxes, but to keep that promise have laid off 109 employees and eliminated many others, including more than 320 positions through the sale the Lackawanna County Health Care Center earlier this year.
It is a drearily familiar thing. Public and private sector workers getting the chop everywhere. But not arms manufacturing. Firemen, hospital workers, policemen, receptionists, teachers — everyone threatened or downsized outright. The economy stumbles along, lives are reduced to splinters, people are tossed away in the wind.
But the factories that produce armored fighting vehicles are sure doing well.
General Dynamics Land Systems corporate headquarters emits a steady stream of truly wonderful press releases — these from 2009 — on tanks and armored fighting vehicle production. Tanks for the Iraqi army. And still more tanks and upgrades for our great pals in Saudi Arabia.
And while 2008 was really bad for almost everybody, it was swimming for General Dynamics Land Systems.
Record numbers of Americans apply for food stamps and unemployment. Every job not in finance or arms manufacturing gets beggared or threatened with shipment to China. Saudi Arabia and Iraq get tanks. More and more tanks. There are never enough.
As a thought experiment, I am going to propose a war-profiteering dividend/tax on US arms sales. Since the core markets for all these businesses are essentially guaranteed by the US taxpayer and government, it seems only fair Americans ought to be regarded as shareholders. And as shareholders, they ought to be in for some rewards. It’s the American way.
Let’s make the war-profiteering tax significant because, although even though I haven’t researched it yet, the US arms industry is probably quite adept at tax avoidance already. So I make it twenty percent of all profits in overseas arms sales — weapons, tanks, aircraft, ships, guns, ammo, bombs, chemicals, computer systems, software, consulting services and support — everything.
Here’s the calculation, using SIPRI’s latest data:
20 percent of 247 billion = 49 400 000 000
Further, I will propose a yearly war-profiteering dividend check for everyone in the United States on food stamps.
According to Reuters: “For fiscal 2011, average enrollment is forecast for 43.3 million people.”
Here is the calculation:
49.4 billion divided by 43.3 million = 1 140.8776
Everyone on food stamps, no exceptions, gets a check from the protected US arms industry, for roughly $1,140.88. That would certainly be a help.
One could also extend the dividend to all tax-filers for a given fiscal year although it would probably cut the size of each check by at least two thirds. The only people who wouldn’t be entitled to checks would be employees of the US arms manufacturing base. They’re already getting dividends as well as security.
Of course, none of this has any chance of consideration. It’s just a thought exercise. The protected industry of American weapons production is a third rail. No one will seriously discuss taking any big whacks at it.
However, this article does illustrate that when politicians, both GOP and Dem, fight for pieces of defense budget funding because of the familiar cry that it preserves “jobs” in their community, what they really mean is this:
Weapons making jobs are good and need preserving. Everyone else can go to Hell because “we’re broke” or belts need tightening or public sector union workers are scum.
It is also fun to imagine that such a war-profiteering tax/dividend might cause American arms manufacturers to raise prices to various clients (often countries whose rulers do not share our now largely theoretical democratic ideals) to retain profit margin. Or they could always start outsourcing to China.
Is there an arms manufacturer in your county? One you’d like to see profiled in the Economic Treason series? Send me a note or leave a comment.
General Dynamics plutocrat compensation — 2010.
Permalink
02.26.11
Posted in Permanent Fail at 2:43 pm by George Smith
With WikiLeaks seemingly stagnant and the HBGary Federal e-mail spill fresh in memory, the Anonymous hacking group has declared war on the Koch brothers, the plutocrats backing the Tea Party and the GOP governor bent on union-busting in Wisconsin.
The prose could be a little less purple but it gets the message across:
It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch–the billionaire owners of Koch Industries–have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back.
Koch Industries, and oligarchs like them, have most recently started to manipulate the political agenda in Wisconsin. Governor Walker’s union-busting budget plan contains a clause that went nearly un-noticed. This clause would allow the sale of publicly owned utility plants in Wisconsin to private parties (specifically, Koch Industries) at any price, no matter how low, without a public bidding process. The Koch’s have helped to fuel the unrest in Wisconsin and the drive behind the bill to eliminate the collective bargaining power of unions in a bid to gain a monopoly over the state’s power supplies.
The Koch brothers have made a science of fabricating ‘grassroots’ organizations and advertising campaigns to support them in an attempt to sway voters based on their falsehoods. Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth and Citizens United are just a few of these organizations. In a world where corporate money has become the lifeblood of political influence, the labor unions are one of the few ways citizens have to fight against corporate greed. Anonymous cannot ignore the plight of the citizen-workers of Wisconsin, or the opportunity to fight for the people in America’s broken political system. For these reasons, we feel that the Koch brothers threaten the United States democratic system and, by extension, all freedom-loving individuals everywhere. As such, we have no choice but to spread the word of the Koch brothers’ political manipulation, their single-minded intent and the insidious truth of their actions in Wisconsin, for all to witness.
Anonymous hears the voice of the downtrodden American people, whose rights and liberties are being systematically removed one by one, even when their own government refuses to listen or worse – is complicit in these attacks. We are actively seeking vulnerabilities, but in the mean time we are calling for all supporters of true Democracy, and Freedom of The People, to boycott all Koch Industries’ paper products. We welcome unions across the globe to join us in this boycott to show that you will not allow big business to dictate your freedom.
The original, at AnonNews, is here.
Plutocrat money does directly threaten democracy. It also funds war on the middle class.
Leaking/dumping the e-mails of Koch front-group like Americans for Prosperity ala HBGary Federal might, indeed, get results.
In a manner of speaking, like a union, Anonymous is a collective.
Permalink
Posted in Permanent Fail at 9:00 am by George Smith
I might be movin’ to Montana soon
Just to raise me up a crop of dental floss
Raisin’ it up
Waxin’ it down
In a little white box
I can sell uptown — Frank Zappa
Montana politicians elected as members of the Tea Party and what they want for the state, according to AP:
Some of their bills are moving through the legislature. Others appear doomed: an armed citizen militia, FBI agents under the thumb of the sheriff and a declaration that global warming is good for business …
[The Dem governor] is watching, describing many of the proposals from the new majority as simply “kooky,” such as a plan to make it legal to hunt big game with a spear.
Hardly a day goes by, however, that the merits of “nullification” aren’t discussed …
The nullification debate reached a fever pitch this week when tea party conservatives mustered enough votes in the House to pass a 17-point declaration of sovereignty.
“It would be hard for anyone to top what is going on here in terms of the insanity of it all,” said Lawrence Pettit, a retired university president and author living in Helena. “One could be amused by it, except it is too dangerous.”
What happens when you elect the political equivalents of Ted Nugent to office. And it’s neither pretty nor funny. While the governor has veto power, making it look like none of the extremist bills have a chance, things have a way of always going upside down in the 2011 US of A.
For example, here’s a recent story from the Billings Gazzette on a state bill to form paramilitary groups:
A Republican legislator said Friday that Montana needs an armed paramilitary group of volunteers to help authorities in emergencies, a proposal favored by gun rights advocates and conservative lawmakers skeptical of the federal government.
Rep. Wendy Warburton, of Havre, told the House State Administration Committee that House Bill 278 would let residents organize military-like companies called “home guards” that would answer to the governor and sheriffs during emergencies …
Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, said he supported this and the other bills as a way of shifting power from government to the people.
“The question here is where that slider is located on that range between anarchy and tyranny,” Marbut said. “We’d like to nudge it back a little toward anarchy.”
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think this was going on elsewhere.
Newspaper article on US business interests wishing to expand shipments of Montana coal to Asia. Making global warming good for business.
Permalink
02.24.11
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Made in China, Permanent Fail at 8:22 am by George Smith
Latest from the Yahoo news laugh-line, a sucker bait article on jobs to get you out of the office cubicle.
Numero uno is the somewhat less than overwhelmingly popular answer questions on-line for a penny gig invented by Amazon, Mechanical Turk.
At Yahoo it’s called “virtual question answerer.”
The Wiki entry on Mechanical Turk:
Because [these questions] are typically simple, repetitive tasks and users are paid often only a few cents to complete them, some have criticized Mechanical Turk as a “virtual sweatshop.”[11] Because workers are paid as contractors rather than employees, requesters do not have to file forms for, nor to pay, payroll taxes, and they avoid laws regarding minimum wage, overtime, and workers compensation. Workers, though, must report their income as self-employment income. In addition, some requesters have taken advantage of workers by having them do the tasks, then rejecting their submission in order to avoid paying. However, at least some workers on Mechanical Turk are people who are middle class and do the work for fun.
Other top jobs for the economy that makes nothing, preferring to buy all its goods from China:
Professional Twitter-er, cable box recovery man (because everyone’s now hip to the fact that cable companies suck with rip-off pricing), astro-turfer for products made in China (called a “brand ambassador”), traveling bedpan technician/physical therapist, suck-up for corporate America’s remaining products (called a ‘focus group participant’), video game tester and — wait for it — the ubiquitous cellphone app developer.
Also tutoring for very low wages. Because the economic crash has resulted in teacher lay-offs nationwide.
Unintended hilarity: Article running in section called “Financially Fit.”
Win The Future!
Permalink
02.23.11
Posted in Permanent Fail, War On Terror at 9:40 am by George Smith
It’s been my take that the US government, as well as the military, can be very gullible when it comes to the claims of terror-sniffing capabilities from the private sector.
A recent story in the New York Times is a case in point.
It reads:
For eight years, government officials turned to Dennis Montgomery, a California computer programmer, for eye-popping technology that he said could catch terrorists. Now, federal officials want nothing to do with him and are going to extraordinary lengths to ensure that his dealings with Washington stay secret.
Read the story. And you’ll find the claims made by the developer are frankly unbelievable. More unbelievable is that anyone accepted them, even to the point of the Bush administration going on alert and canceling international flights because of warnings, by this man, on non-existent plots.
It’s humiliating, confidence-breaking stuff and it’s obvious why all parties involved want to keep it a secret.
There has always been a paranoia associated with Arab news agencies. But the news that US authorities thought al Jazeera was hiding terror messaging in its crawl bar, messaging so cleverly hidden only this man and his vaporware software could see it is crushing.
It also illustrates an absolute lack of critical thinking coupled with a child-like belief in magical solutions.
Also revealed — the fact that once you get into the inner circles of anti-terror contracting, you seem to be able to get away with telling people just about anything, even in the complete absence of persuasive evidence. Other than some made-up dog-and-pony show.
The New York Times story is here.
Hat tip to Secrecy blog for linking it.
Permalink
Posted in Permanent Fail at 9:41 am by George Smith
Frank at Pine View Farm continues on the riff that scapegoating — not a word he uses — is at the root of GOP exploitation of anti-labor sentiment.
It relies on rallying the private sector middle class workers against their public sector counterparts. Since private sector livings have been squeezed so hard by the corporate plutocracy, they’re prey to the idea that public-sector unionized workers are being parasites off their wages.
The answer, which should be explained more and isn’t, is to ask them why their wages have squeezed so. And to work to restore to them what has been steadily taken away since the age of Reagan.
Pine View Farm, and quote from the Boston Globe:
Republicans are framing an issue of non-government employees vs. government employees fighting over a shrinking pie. Current events in Wisconsin illustrate this.
If employees’ share of the pie is shrinking, doesn’t it make sense to consider whose share of the pie has been increasing.
Renee Loth considers this in the Boston Globe (emphasis added).
“The problem is that wages and benefits for private-sector workers have collapsed. ‘People are squeezed,’’ said Harris Gruman, executive director of the Service Employees International Union state council. ‘Working-class people who’ve lost their own benefits are subsidizing workers in the public sector who still have these things. It’s an unsustainable situation politically.’
“The answer, Gruman quickly adds, is not to strip government workers of their health and security — a beggar-thy-neighbor approach that lowers everyone’s standard of living — but to improve the prospects of others. ‘The resentment is misplaced,’ he said. “You need to increase private-sector unionization so those workers can start getting decent benefits again.’’
And resentment it is. DD wrote about it earlier, again triggered by PVF. And I regularly read the columns of the horrid Ted Nugent. Nugent is all about resentment. Without it, he has no material for his columns.
From January:
Lamentable articles in the New York Times have outlined Republican and Wall Street efforts to attack state unions as root causes of our economic troubles. It seems to do no good to say that unions have been under public attack for a long time and that they’ve been crippled by US business interests.
Those with the money rely on scapegoating and resentment to fuel sentiment against them. The mental equation appealing to baser emotion is simple one: Because those in the private sector have had it very hard, then the middle class union workers left — mostly in state and federal government — need punishing as well.
There have been other ways to describe it, Nitzschean Ressentiment, being one: “[Because] (I or we) have suffered, it is appropriate and good that even more suffer.???
This is pure scapegoating, rationalized as austerity and belt tightening. The President helped fuel it last year when he fecklessly announced federal employee wage freezing after election losses.
My view, from seeing the protests on television, is that once neighbors see the faces of the protesters, even if they’re not public-sector union workers, they’re far less likely to fall prey to GOP machinations in the state. And maybe more likely to join them on the line. Or at least wish them good luck from the comfort of the home.
Add a small measure of doing DD performances at Artscape — nobody in the small audiences, which must surely include some middle class Republicans, complain when we do “Middle Class Blues,” “China Toilet Blooz” or “Lloyd Blankfein.”
They have either been beggared personally or have friends who’ve fallen on very hard times. And they don’t mind when you suggest going after the real villains instead of the neighbors.
There are people whose incoherent rage over union workers is almost inexplicable.
Here we have the Lehigh Valley Conservative, a right wing lunatic blog in my old PA stomping grounds, an ex-union man who can be counted upon to foam at the mouth over what’s going on in Wisconsin.
The LVC kook is a great example of the people the GOP anti-labor dogwhistles are exquisitely tuned for.
The man hates on the Wisconsin protesters who, he sez, are on the dole:
The situation in Wisconsin is out of hand. The teachers are playing hooky from their teaching responsibilities and are actually busing the students to protest against the Governor at the Capitol. They have no right to do that. The Democrats are fleeing out of state so they don’t have to vote to bring the issue to a close. They are on the public dole along with the teachers and union leaders and yet they are AWOL. The teachers should be given an ultimatum to show up in class or be fired.
And that is what a union exists for. You can’t fire even half of a state’s school teachers. They are not immediately replaceable and have the power of a collective.
From January, again:
In his book, Class, Paul Fussell had a few things to say about scapegoating and how it is tied to bitterness in the working class. And how easily it turns people on each other. Or perhaps I’m reading too much into it. The book, after all, was written many years ago.
However, I’ve mentioned it from time to time on this domain. And it seems appropriate to close from something back in 2008 on the old blog.
Class war, Fussell noted, was never far from the surface in the United States.
Now it has erupted. But we’re still losing because Wall Street and the Republican Party are adept at turning … loathing at the wrong targets.
“Inflation, unemployment, a static economy??? have set into stone conditions in which “the mass of Americans now find themselves??? moving down, he wrote. “There used to be room at the top.??? Now there’s plenty of room at the bottom, vicinities near which many of us will become acquainted with, sooner than later.
Permalink
