Weekend Economists Salute the 99% September 26-28, 2014

[Demeter]

Shall we first take a look at that plaything of the 1%?

Dow Jones Industrial Average

https://chart.finance.yahoo.com/t?s=%5eDJI&lang=en-US®ion=US&width=300&height=180

A 100 point rally at 2 PM brought the week to only HALF as big a loss as it otherwise would have been....yippee.

But what do the American People care? They (We) have no horses in the stock market, unless it hasn't managed to wipe out our pitiful retirement savings quite yet. the only market we care about is the job market, and it sucks. It's sucked since at least 2001, here in Michigan. And every day, the CEO corner office is trying to wrest back what little it pays for trained and dedicated workers.

We are going to ruminate on work, workers, and workers' struggles for rights and compensation.

Arlo Guthrie speaks the truth, before he sings:

[Demeter]

1. NO BANKS DOWN (YET)

But it's early. Check back later.

[Warpy]

2. Well, I do have dogs in that fight

and I've been doing extremely well. I also realize it's just numbers and 2008 brought me down to half of what I now have but had no effect on my income and it's income rather than net worth that is keeping me going. However, if I need an increase in income at any time, I know it has to be because workers are doing better. That's the only thing that boosts earnings.

Rising wages and expectations for workers are what lead to a boom economy. Austerity cripples everything and everyone.

I didn't inherit enough to get out of the 99%, just enough to live on. My side is the workers' side. If they do better, I do better. That's the way every economy works.

[Demeter]

3. My personal experience

I am a member of a union these past few years, much to my surprise. And I just got a 15 cent/hour increase from the State of Michigan for the care I provide to my disabled, adult child. That's a whole $3/ month! be still, my beating heart. As my sister said, don't spend it all in one place.

Shortly after I joined this union (SEIU) they (we) wrestled a substantial increase for home help care workers. Then, Governor Snyder (GOP-Libertarian Vulture Capitalist) was elected, and after denying all interest, rammed the Right to Work for Less bill through the Legislature during a lame duck session in record time.

Snyder's term is up, and with any luck, he won't get another. He's been stomping on the People on the Right and the Left. We'll know (with any luck) in 5 weeks and a little.

[Demeter]

4. The Rise and Fall of the American Paperboy Tom Vanderbilt

http://www.howwedrive.com/2011/02/04/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-american-paperboy/

Walking downstairs the other morning to retrieve the newspaper, I realized I was the last person in my Brooklyn apartment receiving the daily New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The number swells a bit on weekends, but Monday through Friday find me alone in my ritual.

Trudging back through the snow, thinking about the future of this physical object and its delivery, I suddenly wondered: Were there any paperboys left in America? Certainly not on my block: The Times shifted to all-adult carriers over a decade ago. Mine wasn’t the image of Norman Rockwell and Leave it to Beaver — a boy on a bike — but a guy in a van from Staten Island. But did this once familiar cultural icon still exist? Where had he gone? And why should we care?

The paperboy has been subject to two distinct forces. The first is the newspaper business: Not just circulation — which peaked in 2000 and has been dropping since — but when papers were delivered. 2000 marked the first time there were more morning than evening papers. This helped accelerate a shift begun a decade previously, when from 1980 to 1990, the number of adult carriers had risen by 112 percent, while youth carriers had dropped by 60. Most children either could not or were not willing to get up and deliver papers by 6 a.m.

Cost-conscious newspapers shifted to large “distribution centers,” meaning carriers needed to distribute bigger bundles of papers across a wider area — via car. To entice adults, newspapers changed the name: The “paperboy” became an “independent delivery contractor.” They changed the job: Few carriers today do collections. And they changed the delivery experience: In what’s referred to as the “controversial tube-vs.-porch delivery dilemma,” instead of a kid putting it on your porch (or in the bushes), an adult in a car would put it in your roadside mailbox.

The larger culture around the paperboy also changed. Kids stopped delivering papers for the same reason they stopped walking to school — since the early 1970s the percentage has from over 50% to just 11%. Stranger danger, for one. In a high-profile case in 1982, a 12-year-old Iowa boy named Johnny Gosch disappeared while on his paper route in West Des Moines. But as Free Range Kids author Lenore Skenazy notes, stranger abductions haven’t been rising, and violent crime involving children has been dropping (lest you think it’s because we stopped letting children be paperboys, she notes all violent crime rates have dropped). “If we only focus on the rare and horrible,” she says, “we will be too scared to let our kids do anything.”

People also began moving to exurban regions that were simply too spread out for kids on foot or on Scwhinn Stingrays, where streets were deemed unsafe for anything but the inside of a car (even if that’s where most accidental injury occurs to children, as Skenazy notes). From 1981 to 1997 youth participation in organized sports doubled; where nearly half of 16 year-olds had a summer job in 1978, just above 20% did by 2008.

But so what? Why should we lament the passing of an entry-level, low-skilled job? Do jobs for kids actually do any good? Interestingly, Bureau of Labor Statistics research shows that men who worked in high school earned more than a dollar more on average at age 27 than those who did not. Was it the job, or were those kids simply more motivated? History teases suggestively: Benjamin Franklin delivered The Boston Gazette, Thomas Edison sold papers at the age of 12, and Warren Buffet, long before he was trying to buy the Washington Post, was delivering it.

Ask a former paperboy about the job and you’re likely to summon a misty-eyed recollection of predawn bundling and knee-high snow. “Today it’s basically something that doesn’t exist,” said Today host Matt Lauer. “It’s a bit of innocence lost — and it meant a lot to me as a kid.” Clarence Eckerson, a filmmaker (and former paperboy), describes it as “an amazing responsibility to have as a teenager, to essentially be a private business, collecting money and paying a weekly bill.”

After these ruminations, I was admittedly pleased to find that there are still paperboys — and girls — in America (even if, in 2008, they made up only 13.2% of all carriers, down from nearly 70% in 1990). As Fred Masenheimer, publisher of The Times News, a newspaper with roughly 14,000 subscribers (“in central eastern Pennsylvania, just north of Allentown”) told me, the daily paper not only employs an all-youth carrier force — it’s resisted shifting to morning distribution precisely so it could keep those carriers.

“I think it’s a vital part of a kid’s growing up and learning to be their own business person,” say Masenheimer. About half of the paper’s 100-plus carriers deliver papers alone, while the rest have parental supervision — particularly younger children. This is partially for safety, partly to ensure delivery. “When you put your reputation o the back of a 10 or 12 year old kid, you want to make sure that they’re doing the job properly,” he says. In 41 years of publishing the paper, he’s seen countless carriers go on to college, or routes change hands several times within the same family.

Those carriers still risk the occasional dog bite, and they still sling canvas bags across the handlebars of their bikes. Masenheimer himself was a paperboy, delivering The Hanover Evening News. “They used to tell us it was the last two-cent newspaper in America,” he says. “So you can imagine how much money we made in a week.” Nobody’s getting rich as a carrier, he concedes, “but nobody’s getting rich as a journalist these days either.”


I BRING UP THIS TOPIC, BECAUSE I AM "RETIRING" FROM MY LONGEST GIG AS A PAPER CARRIER. I STARTED IN 1993, WHEN ANXIETY OVER MY NEW DIVORCEE STATUS KEPT WAKING ME UP AT 3 AM. I DECIDED IF I WAS GOING TO BE WIDE AWAKE ANYWAY, I MIGHT AS WELL GET PAID FOR IT.

THE INDUSTRY HAS SHRUNK TO ALMOST NOTHING OVER THOSE 20 YEARS. EVEN IN A NEWS-HUNGRY TOWN LIKE ANN ARBOR, PEOPLE ARE GOING FOR ONLINE EDITIONS INSTEAD OF NEWSPRINT. ONLY THOSE THAT LIVE TO READ THE OBITUARIES STILL WANT HARD COPY.

AND THE EMPLOYERS OF NEWS CARRIERS HAVE GOTTEN MORE AND MORE GREEDY: CUTTING COPY RATES, CUTTING HOURS, CUTTING EVERYTHING.

BUT LAST WINTER, WITH THE 3 MONTH (OR LONGER) POLAR VORTEX, WAS THE POINT WHERE I DECIDED TO GET OUT. IT'S NOT A JOB WORTH DYING FOR, NOR KILLING ONESELF WITH STRESS INJURIES.

THERE ARE NO RETIREMENT BENEFITS....IT DIDN'T PAY ENOUGH TO SAVE MONEY...AND LATELY, NOT EVEN ENOUGH TO PAY FOR THE GAS AND CAR REPAIRS! SO ENDS A TRADITION, IN CHEESEPARING.

[Demeter]

5. Can you Believe Walt Disney?

[Demeter]

11. THE NEWSBOYS UNIONIZE

[antigop]

57. Tony Awards 2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsies_%28musical%29
Tony Award Best Musical Nominated [32]
Best Book of a Musical Harvey Fierstein Nominated
Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical Jeremy Jordan Nominated
Best Direction of a Musical Jeff Calhoun Nominated
Best Choreography Christopher Gattelli Won
Best Original Score Alan Menken and Jack Feldman Won
Best Orchestrations Danny Troob Nominated
Best Scenic Design Tobin Ost

Drama Desk Award Outstanding Musical Nominated [33]
Outstanding Actor in a Musical Jeremy Jordan Nominated
Outstanding Choreography Christopher Gattelli Won
Outstanding Music Alan Menken Won
Outstanding Lyrics Jack Feldman Nominated
Outstanding Orchestrations Danny Troob Nominated

Grammy Award Best Musical Theater Album Nominated [34]

Young Artist Award Best Young Actor in Live Theater Lewis Grosso Nominated

[DemReadingDU]

13. Carroll, Iowa: Where The Childhood Paper Route Is Alive And Well

8/6/14 Carroll, Iowa: Where The Childhood Paper Route Is Alive And Well by Noah Adams

This story began in 2012 while I was working on a story in Iowa. I was taking pictures on a foggy afternoon and saw a young girl on a blue bicycle, a newspaper bag slung across her shoulder. She stopped and held up a copy of The Daily Times Herald. These days, most newspapers are delivered by fast-moving adults driving vans and trucks. I guess I didn't know that kids still had paper routes, anywhere.

Turns out, if you're a kid living near Carroll, Iowa, and you want to make some money and have an adventure, you're growing up in the right place. In Carroll, a town of 10,000 surrounded by farmland, factories and parks, the award-winning Daily Times Herald still relies on young people to get the news to local homes each day.

The family that owns and runs the paper believes the most important news they cover is about the town's young people — schools, sports, the arts — and it just makes sense to have them delivering those stories to the community.

Jaxson Kuhlmann delivers 36 to 38 papers daily on his figure-eight shaped route around the neighborhood. It never takes him longer than a half-hour, he says. At each stop, he walks up to the porch to make his delivery. "Some people want it in their door, some people want it in their mailbox," Jaxson says. "There are some certain houses that you're like, 'People still live here?' You don't see them come out at all."

Eighty percent of The Daily Times Herald's papers are delivered by young people, most between the ages of 9 and 17, in Carroll and the surrounding towns. They're paid the same as adults: 10 to 12 cents a copy.

The paper is a surviving exception to a trend. Circulation managers at the two nearest big papers, The Des Moines Register and the Omaha World-Herald, said they employ very few kids.

more...
audio appx 7.5 minutes
http://www.npr.org/2014/08/06/337854735/carroll-iowa-where-the-childhood-paper-route-is-alive-and-well



We must be dinosaurs at our house. We still get a daily morning paper! Also the weekly community paper. And occasionally, if there is an online article in another paper, we go buy that too. We collect papers like we collect books! About once a month, our daily paper is missing. I call the delivery guy, and I am told that walkers must have stolen the paper, at 5am!! I don't think so, but they soon deliver another paper.

It is sad to see the newspaper industry dying. People read so many things online, so don't bother to read the physical paper. I wonder how long delivery will be an option, we could get a notice that we need to go buy that paper at the grocery.

Anyway, 20 years is a long time, thru all kinds of weather. I'm sure you won't miss those frigid snowy icy winter mornings. Sleep in and keep warm!

[Demeter]

15. I had to give 30 days' notice...still have 4 weeks to go

8 deliveries...and counting!

[MattSh]

34. Wait... 30 days notice?

My wife is always amazed at how Americans seem to always be following some rules, unwritten or otherwise, that seem mainly designed to keep them leashed to something, often undesirable, well beyond it's expiration date.

And I'm always amazed that over here, every law broken by the rich and powerful is fair game to be broken by everybody else. Some examples: Teachers, who are at the bottom of the pay scale, (along with Doctors and the Police) deliberately under teach and slack off because they know they can triple or quadruple their official salary through private tutoring. It literally doesn't pay to be a good teacher. People will dig up new trees in public parks because it would look better on their property. And recently, we just put up a Sputnik (satellite TV) so my wife can get her beloved Russian TV that the junta has outlawed. I counted about 15 on the roof of our building, though a number of them are not of recent vintage.

[Demeter]

41. I calculated in the 30 days as to when I wanted to quit

It was part of the Independent (hah) Contractor's contract. They think they might find someone in 30 days desperate enough to take on a shrinking route in winter....when the advertising load triples.

When this so-called newspaper took on its new management plan, they had lots of seasoned carriers to pick and choose from. Now, most of the Old Guard are throwing in the towel. We are too old, our cars are too old, and the weather is definitely worse. The hours are shortened, the compensation cut in half, gas refuses to drop below $3...let the tradition die a peaceful death!

The Newbies have nothing...no training, no examples to follow, no gatherings to informally pass on the trade. They are working in the dark, in their car or garage, and it's just not possible to get it all down fast without some clues or role models or patterns. And it's physical labor, not lolling about in a climate-controlled office (one of the attractions, for me, until the Polar vortex phenomenon made it resemble an Arctic expedition without dogsleds).

[Demeter]

6. Peak Debt—-Why The Keynsian Money Printers Are Done by David Stockman

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/2014/09/peak-debt-why-the-keynsian-money-printers-are-done/

Bloomberg has a story today on the faltering of Draghi’s latest scheme to levitate Europe’s somnolent socialist economies by means of a new round of monetary juice called TLTRO—–$1.3 trillion in essentially zero cost four-year funding to European banks on the condition that they expand their business loan books. Using anecdotes from Spain, the piece perhaps inadvertently highlights all that is wrong with the entire central bank money printing regime that is now extirpating honest finance nearly everywhere in the world.

On the one hand, the initial round of TLTRO takedowns came in at only $100 billion compared to the $200 billion widely expected. It seems that Spanish banks, like their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, are finding virtually no demand among small and medium businesses for new loans.

Many small and medium-sized businesses are wary of the offers from banks as European Central Bank President Draghi prepares to pump more cash into the financial system to boost prices and spur growth. The reticence in Spain suggests demand for credit may be as much of a problem as the supply.

The monthly flow of new loans of as much as 1 million euros for as much as a year — a type of credit typically used by small and medium-sized companies — is still down by two-thirds in Spain from a 2007 peak, according to Bank of Spain data.

On the other hand, Spain’s sovereign debt has rallied to what are truly stupid heights—with the 10-year bond hitting a 2.11% yield yesterday (compared to 7% + just 24 months ago). The explanation for these parallel developments is that the hedge fund speculators in peripheral sovereign debt do not care about actual expansion of the Spanish or euro area economies that is implicit in Draghi’s targeted promotion of business lending (whether healthy and sustainable, or not). They are simply braying that “T” for targeted LTRO is not enough; they demand outright sovereign debt purchases by the ECB—-that is, Bernanke style QE and are quite sure they will get it. That’s why they are front-running the ECB and buying the Spanish bond. Its a patented formula and hedge fund speculators have been riding it to fabulous riches for many years now.

But don’t call the central bankers crooked patsies—-they are just dimwitted public servants trying to grind jobs and growth out of the only tool they have. Namely, buying government debt and other existing financial assets in the hopes that the resulting flow of liquidity into the financial markets and the sub-economic price of money and debt will encourage more borrowing and more growth. This is the core axiom of today’s unholy alliance between financial speculators and central bank policy apparatchiks.

Stated differently, today’s Spanish anecdote is just another proof that central banks are pushing on a string; that is, aggressively and incessantly pumping money into financial markets even though the result is wildly inflated asset prices, not expanded business activity. But as is always the case with central bank created financial bubbles, the beneficiaries are happy to pocket the windfalls while the apparatchiks blunder on pretending not to notice the drastic financial distortions, malinvestments and mis-pricings all around them.

Admittedly, Draghi is one of the dimmer tools in the shed of today’s central banking line-up. But surely even this monetary marionette might possibly wonder about a 2% Spanish bond yield. After all, virtually nothing has changed there since Spain’s 2012 fiscal and economic crisis. The nation’s unemployment rate is still above 20%, national output is still 5% below where it was six years ago and soaring government debt will soon slice through the 100% of GDP mark. Moreover, Spain is still saddled with the wreckage of a massively bloated development and construction industry, its government is led by corrupt fools who apparently believe their own lies about “recovery”, and its most prosperous province is next in the line-up of secession votes.

SEE GRAPH AT LINK

Needless to say, Draghi and his compatriots in Frankfurt have no clue that they are being played for fools by the carry trade gamblers who have piled into peripheral debt ever since the ECB chairman’s foolish “anything it takes” pronouncement. Yet it is only a matter of time before the growing German political revolt triggers a day or reckoning. When it becomes clear that Germany has vetoed once and for all a massive spree of government debt buying by the ECB, it will be katie-bar-the-door time. The violent scramble of speculators out of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese etc. debt will be a day of infamy for the ECB and today’s destructive central banking regime generally.

But pending that it might also be wondered why the apparatchiks who run our central banks seem to believe that the capacity of households and businesses to carry debt is virtually unlimited—–that there is no such thing as “peak debt” or a law of diminishing returns with respect to the impact of cumulative borrowing on economic activity. Thus, the Bloomberg article notes that the total stock of Spanish business loans (above $1m) is almost 470 billion euros or 25% below the 2008 record of 1.87 trillion euros. The implication is that there is plenty of room for lending to “recover”—-the exact predicate behind Draghi’s program.

But as shown below, that glib assumption simply ignores the history of what has gone before—-namely, that the temporary prosperity leading up to the 2008 financial crisis was a one-time Keynesian parlor trick that used up the available balance sheet headroom and then some. It resulted in a collision with “peak debt” that has fundamentally changed the macro- economic dynamics.

In the case of non-financial business debt, for example, the balance outstanding soared by a factor if 4X in Spain during the 9-year construction and investment boom that preceded the crash. About one-fourth of that unsustainable debt explosion has been liquidated since 2009, but even then business debt has grown at a CAGR of 8.0% since 2000—-a rate significantly higher than Spain 3.5% rate of nominal GDP growth over that 14-year period.

Likewise, household debt nearly doubled as a share of GDP in the 7 year boom before the financial crisis. The household debt ratio has now backed off marginally, but relative to history and the rest of the world it is still unsustainably high. The idea that there is major headroom for a robust recovery of household borrowing is simply wrong. Indeed, Spanish household debt today would amount to $14 trillion on a US scale GDP—a level that is 20% higher than the unsustainable burden still being lugged around by main street households in shop-until-you-drop America.

Needless to say, Spain is but a microcosm of a worldwide condition under which maniacal money printers in the central banks are smacking up against peak debt in their domestic economies. As shown in the graph below, outside of Germany the debt disease has been universal. During the eight years after the turn of the century, the leverage ratio for all industrial economies combined ex-Germany—-that is, total public and private credit outstanding relative to GDP—rose from 260% to 390% of GDP. That incremental debt burden in round terms amounted to about $50 trillion.

And despite all the official palaver about how economies have sobered up and begun to delever—-the data make clear that nothing of the kind has happened. Owing to massive expansion of government borrowing and debt ratios since 2009, total credit outstanding has now soared to 430 percent of GDP for the ex-Germany industrialized world. This figure is so far off the historical charts that it could not have even been imagined 15 years ago when worldwide central banks went all-in for money printing.

Nevertheless they have continued to push on a string. At the turn of the century, the six major central banks had combined balance sheets of $2 trillion. Today the figure is $16 trillion and is therefore 8X larger. That compares to world GDP growth of about 2X during the same period.

Self-evidently, all the major economies are saturated with debt. Accordingly, central bank balance sheet expansion has lost its Keynesian magic entirely. Now the great sea of freshly minted liquidity simply fuels the carry trades as gamblers everywhere load up with any asset that generates a yield or short-run capital gain, and fund these bloated positions with cheap options and repo style finance.

But here’s the obvious thing. Central banks can’t normalize interest rates—-that is, allow the money markets to rise off the zero-bound—-without triggering a violent unwind of the carry trades on which today’s massive asset inflation is built. On the other hand, they can no longer stimulate GDP growth, either, because the credit expansion channel to the main street economy of households and business is blocked by the reality of peak debt.

So they end up like the pathetic Mario Draghi—-energetically pounding square pegs into round holes without a clue as to the financial conflagration lurking just around the corner. Yes, the era of Keynesian money printing is over and done. But don’t wait for the small lady at the Fed to sing, either.

[Demeter]

7. Detroit emergency manager restores governing powers to elected officials

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/09/detroit_emergency_manager_rest.html

Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr on Thursday issued an order restoring authority over city government to Detroit's elected mayor and city council. The order came after the council, following an agreement with Orr and the mayor, voted unanimously to remove the emergency manager from office. AND WAS ANNOUNCED 5 WEEKS BEFORE THE GOVERNOR'S RE-ELECTION ATTEMPT!

The removal won't become official until the city's debt adjustment plan, which is currently on trial in bankruptcy court, takes effect. Orr will remain emergency manager in the coming weeks, or months, until the city exits bankruptcy, but the order issued Thursday evening restores authority over day-to-day operations to the mayor and council. He'll maintain control only over issues related to bankruptcy proceedings, including hiring and supervising experts and advisers to assist with the court case, filing motions and documents and implementing all transactions that are ultimately approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes.

In his order, Orr called the council's vote to remove him "appropriate to promote the successful transition of city governance from EM back to the mayor and the council so they an provide or cause to be provided necessary governmental services essential to the public health, safety and welfare."



Michigan's emergency management law allows local elected bodies to oust state-appointed managers after 18 months in office. Saturday will mark 18 months since Orr was appointed under the current version of the law in March 2013.

HOW CONVENIENT! WHAT EXQUISITE TIMING!

The emergency management law gave Orr total control over city operations, automatically stripping elected officials of power and pay, but he restored salaries and some authority to city council and the mayor's office shortly after being appointed. After Mayor Mike Duggan was elected, he and Orr reached an agreement to expand the power of the mayor's office, but the emergency manager kept ultimate control and day-to-day authority over the police department and financial decisions.

Thursday's move further returns authority to elected officials, but state oversight is expected to remain in place for years to come, both under the emergency management law, and legislation passed earlier this year that granted state aid to help Detroit out of bankruptcy. In his order, Orr also agreed to consult with the mayor and council on any further orders he issues. The order directs Duggan to submit to council a plan for shifting supervision over city executives to the mayor's office. It also restores powers to the city's elected board of police commissioners.

Gov. Rick Snyder praised Detroit's move to restore power to elected officials while keeping Orr in place to oversee the end of the municipal bankruptcy case he built to address the city's $18 billion of debt.

"Detroit continues to move forward," Snyder said in a statement.

[Demeter]

8. Secret tapes of Fed meetings on Goldman prompt call for U.S. hearings

SEE FRIDAY'S SMW FOR THE FIRST POSTING ON THIS AMAZING STORY

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/26/us-usa-fed-whistleblower-idUSKCN0HL2F320140926?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

An influential U.S. senator wants to hold hearings into "disturbing" issues raised by secretly taped conversations between Federal Reserve supervisors and officials at Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), a bank the Fed was tasked with policing. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, on Friday called for hearings after portions of the recordings from 2011 and 2012 were made public. Fellow Democrat Sherrod Brown, also a committee member, called for a "full and thorough investigation" into the allegations they raised.

Carmen Segarra, a former New York Fed bank examiner who brought a wrongful termination lawsuit against her former employer, recorded the conversations and provided them to the investigative news outlet ProPublica and the public radio show "This American Life" to illustrate what she saw as an inappropriately close relationship between regulator and bank. The tapes appear to show an unwillingness among some Fed supervisors to both demand specific information from Goldman about a transaction with Banco Santander and to strongly criticize what Segarra concluded was the lack of an appropriate conflict-of-interest policy at Goldman.

Political interest in the recordings could feed suspicion among Americans that little has changed on Wall Street since bank regulators failed to identify and stop the risk-taking that led to the 2007-2009 financial crisis and deep U.S. recession.

"When regulators care more about protecting big banks from accountability than they do about protecting the American people from risky and illegal behavior on Wall Street, it threatens our whole economy," Warren said in an emailed statement. "Congress must hold oversight hearings on the disturbing issues raised by today's whistleblower report when it returns in November."

Brown, in an email, said: "For too long, too many financial regulators have been too cozy towards the very industry that they are meant to police."

Segarra was fired after nearly seven months at the New York Fed as a so-called embedded supervisor at Goldman. She later sued the branch of the U.S. central bank for $7 million but the suit was dismissed in April for failing to state a claim that merited whistleblower protection, a decision she is appealing.

"The New York Fed categorically rejects the allegations being made about the integrity of its supervision of financial institutions," it said in a statement on its website.

Asked about the possibility of hearings, both the New York Fed and Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

MORE BACKGROUND AT LINK

[Demeter]

9. Deal Reached to Provide Ukraine With Russian Gas

OH, YES? WE WILL SEE...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/world/europe/russia-ukraine-gazprom-deal.html?_r=0

European officials said they had brokered a deal between Russia and Ukraine aimed at ensuring gas flows to keep factories running and homes warm over the coming six months, despite a dispute between Moscow and Kiev over the size of Ukraine’s outstanding bills.

Günther H. Oettinger, the European Union energy commissioner, met Friday in Berlin with the energy ministers of Russia and Ukraine to urge the two sides to reach an agreement that would resume the flow of natural gas from Russia to Ukraine for a set price during the winter. Russia’s natural gas giant, Gazprom, cut off supplies to Ukraine in summer after they failed to reach an agreement on how much Kiev owes Russia for past deliveries.

Under Friday’s deal, which Moscow and Kiev are expected to approve by next week, Ukraine would pay Russia $3.1 billion toward its outstanding bill, in two separate installments due by the end of the year. In exchange, Gazprom would ensure that at least 5 billion cubic meters of gas are supplied to Ukraine from October to March at the set price of $385 per 1,000 cubic meters, which must be prepaid before delivery. Mr. Oettinger said the European Union would guarantee a loan from the International Monetary Fund to help Ukraine meet the payments on its debt. The deal foresees an initial installment of $2 billion due by the end of October, with the outstanding $1.1 billion due by the end of December.

“The details of the winter package are satisfactory,” Alexander Novak, Russia’s energy minister, told reporters. “I think a big step has been taken.”

The urgency of reaching a deal was made clear hours before the talks concluded, when Hungary made a surprise announcement that it would not sell back to Ukraine natural gas that it had obtained from Russia but did not need. Hungary apparently buckled to Russian pressure not to engage in such business — known as reverse flow — after a visit to Budapest last Monday by Alexei Miller, the chief executive of Gazprom. He met with Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had seen deliveries sharply reduced to Slovakia and Poland after they sold Russian gas back to Ukraine. Hungary, Slovakia and Poland are the three main conduits for reverse flow deliveries, an effort backed by European Union officials in Brussels to meet Ukraine’s energy needs through the purchase from European countries of any natural gas supplies they have left over from Gazprom.

MORE

[MattSh]

33. We will see, won't we?

Kiev has definitely been establishing a rather dubious track record over the last few months, haven't they? Yet, there's definitely some kind of change going on here on the ground in Kiev. Exactly what that is, is hard to say.

Kiev's definitely got their asses kicked out east in Donbass. At a minimum, this is a timeout to reassess and regroup. But this also an election coming up in about a month. So maybe this is an attempt by the junta to claim that they bought peace to the country, while conveniently overlooking the fact that is was their war to begin with. But hey, when you have no other defense, blame Russia! But I also have no doubt that this is not over, not by a long shot. It's strangely suspicious to me that ISIS popped up right around the time that things started going way south for the Junta.

I have seen statements, maybe from ISIS, or maybe from others in the know, stating that ISIS would love to stir things up in Russia. So there's definitely a part of me that feels the Nazis in Kiev and ISIS may be a left right combination. The punch from Kiev failed to have much of an impact at all, so let's see what we can do with the other hand. Yet, Obama does seem to be determined to deliver a major blow to ISIS. But the major blows in the past have definitely lead to major blowbacks to the west.

Yet I definitely agree with Paul Craig Roberts, whose article is linked elsewhere. I do agree that Russia and China both need to take more assertive action against the fools in the West. But of course if Putin followed the advice of us armchair quarterbacks, there would already be a major land war here in Europe.

[MattSh]

43. An Analysis...

Yesterday's Gas Deal: Another Nail in Ukraine's Coffin - Russia Insider

The facts on yesterday's deal:

Existing Debt

Ukraine will pay $2 billion straight away on the existing debt it owes Russia. It will then pay a further $1.1 billion in instalments before the end of year. This is lower than Russia's earlier demands that Ukraine pay $5 billion off in debt, it is unclear how Russia has positioned itself regard this $1.9 billion.

Natural Gas Supplies

Russia has agreed to sell Ukraine gas at a price of 385 dollars per 1000cm once the initial 2 billion debt tranche is paid off. The price is considered to be a 100 dollar discount to the actual price which will restart again after 6 months. Meaning, 485 dollars per 1000cm of gas from March 2015.

Government approval

Both parties must now have the deal approved by their respective governments.

Analysis:

Paying back the debt will put significant strain on the currency as the dollars will have to be bought from the market. It is most likely that the dollars will come from the IMF loan. But given that most of the loan will now be used simply to pay for the gas, the loan size is hugely inadequate. If the IMF are serious about supporting Ukraine they will have to significantly increase the loan size as has already been reported.

http://russia-insider.com/en/ukraine_business/2014/09/27/04-23-26pm/yesterdays_gas_deal_another_nail_ukraines_coffin

[Demeter]

44. The IMF are not serious about supporting Ukraine

The IMF are serious about supporting US-PNAC foreign policy. They know where their dollars come from.

[MattSh]

48. One thing I always try to make clear...

is operations in Ukraine are NOT an IMF operation. Yes, they are part of it, but they are not the main driver.

Many have pointed out that the IMF cannot give money to a country at war. Yet that most definitely was a war out in East Ukraine, whether the government should choose to call it that or not. And the IMF opened their purse strings.

Some are now saying that since this ceasefire will likely become a frozen conflict that Ukraine cannot join NATO because it's against their rules to allow in a country not in full control of it's territory. But somebody will find a way to give Ukraine the full benefits of NATO membership without Ukraine actually joining NATO. If they should so choose...

[Demeter]

10. What You Can Really Learn from a Bad Boss BY Laura Montini

http://www.inc.com/laura-montini/what-you-can-really-learn-from-a-bad-former-boss.html



Not all former bosses are gems. But there's a saving grace--the bad ones can provide invaluable lessons on how not to run a company.

It's common to want to identify the qualities you dislike most in your anti-mentors, then pour a bunch of energy into making sure you never ever exhibit those qualities yourself. Unfortunately, this strategy can completely backfire, according to Lauren Bacon who co-founded Raised Eyebrow Web Studio, a Vancouver-based design nonprofit. Prior to her life as an entrepreneur, Bacon had one bad boss in particular that left his mark on her. She told the story in a recent post on Quartz.

"He got under my skin so badly that his ghost haunted me years after I'd quit working for him and started my own company. I didn't realize how thoroughly he'd occupied my unconscious mind," Bacon wrote.

That is until five years later, when she woke up to the fact that her emphasis on not becoming her boss had been clouding her judgment the whole time.

"Where he had been relentlessly self-promotional to the point of arrogance, I resisted marketing. Where he had bought into rapid, exponential growth as the only path to business success, I refused to hire help even though I was working myself to the bone," Bacon explained.

Bacon has since left the Raised Eyebrow Web Studio, and today she's a leadership coach for entrepreneurs. As you can imagine, she's become very familiar with the entrepreneurial psyche. And through her work, Bacon has learned that she's hardly the only one who compares herself to former bosses and colleagues. Due to the blind spots this caused for her, Bacon devised a thought exercise designed to help people avoid the distraction. It starts with identifying the person who repulses you, then answering these questions:

• How do I feel about this person, in general?
  
• What specifically about them is so triggering? (Spend a good amount of time here, dumping it all out.)
  
• What are they modeling for me, in a "how not to be" way?
  
• How does my reaction relate to my own values?

Next, take a look at those qualities that you abhor. It might be true that this person exhibits them to the extreme. But you might not possess these qualities at all, and it could be to your detriment.

"If I have a habit of judging people as arrogant windbags, it might behoove me to take a look in the mirror and ask myself, 'Where in my life could I stand to assert myself more strongly?'" Bacon said. "Chances are, the reason I'm so triggered by so-called arrogance is that I'm denying my inner arrogant jerk--so to speak. (Or to put it more kindly, my inner assertive authority.)"

Sometimes it's okay to pass judgment. But make those judgments constructive by focusing on what they say about you.

THIS IS WHAT PASSES FOR ADVICE IN BUSINESS? I'LL STICK WITH DILBERT.

[MattSh]

49. Sad...

People who repulse me are not people I've worked for. Though one person I worked for accidentally sabotaged by career (by transferring my project to this next one ---> ) and another did it more actively.

I've been repulsed by work processes, my job in general, and office politics though. Oh yeah, and management consultants too.

Companies would be a whole lot better off paying getting rid of these management consultants and spreading those saving around their workforce. Yeah, so old-fashioned, I know.

[Demeter]

12. Labor History Timeline

http://www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Labor-History-Timeline

1607 English planters found Jamestown colony and complain about lack of laborers
1619 Slaves from Africa first imported to colonies
1664 First slavery codes begin trend of making African servants slaves for life
1676 Bacon’s Rebellion of servants and slaves in Virginia
1677 First recorded prosecution against strikers in New York City
1765 Artisans and laborers in Sons of Liberty protest oppressive British taxes
1770 British troops kill five dock workers in Boston Massacre
1773 Laborers protest royal taxation in the Boston tea Party
1775 American Revolution begins
1786 Philadelphia printers conduct first successful strike for increased wages
1787 Constitution adopted
1791 First strike in building trades by Philadelphia carpenters for a 10-hour day bill of Rights adopted

Struggles for Freedom

1800 Gabriel Prosser’s slave insurrection in Virginia
1805 Philadelphia shoemakers found guilty of conspiracy
1808 Slave importation prohibited
1834 First turnout of “mill girls” in Lowell, Mass., to protect wage cuts
1835 General strike for 10-hour day in Philadelphia
1842 Commonwealth v. Hunt decision frees unions from some prosecutions
1843 Lowell Female Labor Reform Association begins public petitioning for 10-hour day
1847 New Hamsphire enacts first state 10-hour-day law
1848 Seneca Falls women’s rights convention
1860 Great shoemaker’s strike in New England
1861 Abraham Lincoln takes office as president and Civil War begins
1863 President Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
1865 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishes slavery

Origins of Today's Union Movement

1866 National Labor Union founded
1867 Congress begins reconstruction policy in former slave states
1869 Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor and Colored National Labor Union formed
1870 15th Amendment to the Constitution adopted; states the right to vote may not be abrogated by color
1877 National uprising of railroad workers Ten Irish coal miners ("Molly Maguires&quot hanged in Pennsylvania; nine more subsequently were hanged
1881 Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions formed
1882 First Labor Day parade in New York City
1885 Successful strike by Knights of Labor on the Southwest (or Gould) System: the Missouri Pacific; the Missouri, Kansas and Texas; and the Wabash
1886 American Federation of Labor founded
1887 Seven "anarchists" charged with the bombing in Chicago's Haymarket Square and sentenced to death
1890 Carpenters President P.J. McGuire and the union strike and win the eight-hour day for some 28,000 members
1892 Iron and steel workers union defeated in lockout at Homestead, Pa.
Integrated general strike in New Orleans succeeds
1894 Boycott of Pullman sleeping cars leads to general strike on railroads
1898 Erdman Act prohibits discrimination against railroad workers because of union membership and provides for mediation of railway labor disputes

The Progressive Era

1900 AFL and National Civic Federation promote trade agreements with employers
U.S. Industrial Commission declares trade unions good for democracy.
1902 Anthracite strike arbitrated after President Theodore Roosevelt intervenes
1903 Women’s Trade Union League formed at AFL convention
1905 Industrial Workers of the World founded
1908 AFL endorses Democrat William Jennings Bryan for President
1909 “Uprising of the 20,000” female shirtwaist makers in New York strike against sweatshop conditions
Unorganized immigrant steel workers strike in McKees Rocks, Pa. and win all demands
1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory in fire in New York kills nearly 150 workers
1912 Bread and Roses strike begun by immigrant women in Lawrence, Mass., ended with 23,000 men and women and children on strike and with as many as 20,000 on the picket line
Bill creating Department of Labor passes at the end of congressional session
1913 Woodrow Wilson takes office as president and appoints the first secretary of labor, William B. Wilson of the Mine Workers
1914 Ludlow Massacre of 13 women and children and seven men in Colorado coal miners’ strike
1917 United States enters World War I
1918 Leadership of Industrial Workers of the World sentenced to federal prison on charges of disloyalty to the United States
1919 One of every five workers walked out in great strike wave, including national clothing coal and steel strikes; a general strike in Seattle; and a police strike in Boston
International Labor Organization founded in France

Repression and Depression

1920 19th Amendment to the Constitution gives women the right to vote
1924 Samuel Gompers dies; William Green becomes new AFL president
1925 A. Philip Randolph helps create the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
1926 Railway Labor Act sets up procedures to settle railway labor disputes and forbids discrimination against union members
1929 Stock market crashes as stocks fall 40 percent; Great Depression begins
1931 Davis-Bacon Act provides for prevailing wages on publicly funded construction projects
1932 Norris-LaGuardia Act prohibits federal injunctions in most labor disputes
1933 President Franklin Roosevelt proposes New Deal programs to Congress

Democratizing America

1934 Upsurge in strikes, including national textile strike, which fails
1935 National Labor Relations Act and Social Security Act passed
Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) formed within AFL
1936 AFL and CIO create labor's Non-Partisan League and help President Roosevelt win re-election to a second term
1937 Auto Workers win sit-down strike against General Motors in Flint, Mich.
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters wins contract with Pullman Co.
1938 Fair Labor Standards Act establishes first minimum wage and 40-hour week
Congress of industrial Organizations forms as an independent federation
1940 John L. Lewis resigns and Philip Murray becomes CIO president
1941 A. Philip Randolph threatens march on Washington to protest racial discrimination in defense jobs
1941 U.S. troops enter combat in World War II
National War Labor Board created with union members
1943 CIO forms first political action committee to get out the union vote for President Roosevelt

The Fight for Economic and Social Justice

1946 Largest strike wave in U.S. history
1947 Taft-Hartley Act restricts union members' activities
1949 First two of 11 unions with Communist leaders are purged from CIO
1952 William Green and Philip Murray die; George Meany and Walter Reuther become presidents of AFL and CIO, respectively
1955 AFL and CIO merge; George Meany becomes president
1957 AFL-CIO expels two affiliates for corruption
1959 Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (Landrum-Griffin) passed
1962 President John Kennedy's order gives federal workers the right to bargain
1963 March on Washington for jobs and Justice
Equal Pay Act bans wage discrimination based on gender
1964 Civil Rights Act bans institutional forms of racial discrimination
1965 AFL-CIO forms A. Philip Randolph Institute
César Chávez forms AFL-CIO United Farm Workers Organizing Committee
1968 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., during sanitation workers' strike

Progress and New Challenges

1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act passed
1972 Coalition of Black Trade Unionists formed
1973 Labor Council for Latin American Advancement founded
1974 Coalition of Labor Union Women founded
1979 Lane Kirkland elected president of AFL-CIO
1981 President Reagan breaks air traffic controllers’s strike
AFL-CIO rallies 400,000 in Washington on Solidarity Day
1989 Organizing Institute created
1990 United Mine Workers of America win strike against Pittston Coal
United Steelworkers of America labor Alliance created within the AFL-CIO
1992 Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance created within AFL-CIO
1995 Thomas Donahue replaces Lane Kirkland as interim head of AFL-CIO
John Sweeney president of AFL-CIO
1997 AFL-CIO defeats legislation giving the president the ability to “Fast Track’ trade legislation without assured protection of workers’ rights and the environment
1997 Pride at Work, a national coalition of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender workers and their supporters, becomes an AFL-CIO constituency group AFL-CIO membership renewed growth
1999 More than 75,000 human service workers are unionized in Los Angeles County
30,000 to 50,000 working family activists take to Seattle streets to tell the World Trade Organization and its allies, “If the Global Economy Doesn’t Work for Working Families, It Doesn’t Work”
5,000 North Carolina textile workers gain a union after a 25-year struggle
65,000 Puerto Rico public-sector workers join unions
Broad Campaign for Global Fairness pushes for economic and social justice worldwide
Union movement organizes biggest program of grassroots electoral politics ever

Recent Times: 2000-2010

2000
(February) AFL-CIO Executive Council calls for reform in the nation’s immigration laws for undocumented workers.
(March) Women now are two-thirds of new union members in the U.S.
(April) 30,000 union members and activists rally against the United States granting permanent normal trade relations with China.
(June) 4,200 technical and administrative employees of Boeing in Kansas join the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA).
(November) Unions lead a massive grassroots get-out-the-vote effort, with 100,000 volunteers distributing more than 14 million leaflets at union worksites and calling 8 million union members—ultimately more than 26 million voters in union households went to the polls.

2001
(April) 40,000 union activists and allies protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas in Quebec City, Canada, the largest anti-globalization mobilization to date.
(May) AFL-CIO launches Alliance for Retired Americans to recruit activists and mobilize older Americans.
(September) Thousands of union members sacrifice their lives and health, and volunteer their time to respond to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C.
Labor unions join with community allies to enact “living wage” ordinances in 76 communities across the nation.

2002

(May) The AFL-CIO forms the Industrial Union Council (IUC) to revitalize manufacturing, combat destructive international trade agreements, and defend workers’ rights.
(July) President Bush pledges to strip collective bargaining rights from 170,000 civil servants in the new Transportation Security Administration and denies bargaining rights to airport-security screening personnel.

2003

(January) The AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department launches the Helmets to Hardhats program to connect National Guard, Reserve and transitioning active-duty military members with quality career training and employment opportunities in construction.
(July) The AFL-CIO holds a nationally televised Working Families Presidential Forum in which all nine Democratic Presidential candidates take part.
(August) The AFL-CIO establishes Working America to reach out to non-union members and mobilize workers through door-to-door canvassing in neighborhoods.
(November) The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. George Miller and in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Edward Kennedy.
(December) American Rights at Work, a national non-profit advocacy group, is founded to promote the freedom of workers to join unions and bargain collectively.

2004

(March) The National Labor College (NLC) receives full accreditation from the Middle State Higher Education Commission, enabling it to grant bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
(June) The Coalition for Labor Union Women (CLUW) celebrates its 30th anniversary.
(November) As part of the election year get-out-the-vote effort, some 225,000 union volunteers knock on millions of doors, make 10 million phone calls, and distribute 32 million leaflets.

2005

(April) The Employee Free Choice Act is reintroduced into the U.S. Congress as bipartisan legislation, winning support from 182 House members and 37 Senate co-sponsors by June 2005.
(September) Change to Win holds its founding convention in St. Louis, created among seven unions previously members of the AFL-CIO.

2006

(August) The AFL-CIO and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) form a partnership to collaborate with local worker centers on immigration reform and other issues.
(November) During the 2006 elections, 205,000 union volunteers knock on millions of union members’ doors, make 30 million telephone calls in 32 targeted states and distribute 14 million leaflets in workplaces, with Democrats ultimately winning a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and achieving a 51-vote progressive majority in the U.S. Senate.

(December) The AFL-CIO and the Interfaith Worker Justice (IWG) board establish a new partnership to strengthen labor-religious ties and advance the core principles of social justice in the workplace.

The United Steelworkers Union (USW) and the Sierra Club launch the Blue Green Alliance, a labor-environmental coalition to expand the number and quality of jobs in the clean energy economy.

2007

(March) The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Employee Free Choice Act with a vote of 241-185.
(June) Republicans in the U.S. Senate block consideration of the Employee Free Choice Act.
(August) The AFL-CIO holds a presidential debate at Soldier Field in Chicago where 18,000 union members and their families turn out to see seven Democratic candidates debate.
(September) Following the retirement of Linda Chavez-Thompson, the AFL-CIO Executive Council unanimously elects Arlene Holt Baker as AFL-CIO Executive Vice President.
(December) The Industrial Union Council led a delegation of 21 North American union leaders to participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) in Bali, Indonesia.

2008

(June) The AFL-CIO endorses Sen. Barack Obama for U.S. President.
(July) The United Steel Workers union (USW) joins with unions in Britain, Ireland, Canada, and the Caribbean to form the global union, Workers Uniting.
(July) Appearing at a steelworkers convention, then AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka delivers a widely acclaimed speech that directly addresses the issue of racism in the 2008 election.
(July) The AFL-CIO establishes the Union Veterans Council.
(November) During the 2008 Presidential elections, the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions mobilize 250,000 volunteers who made 76 million telephone calls and knocked on 14 million doors, sent out 57 million pieces of mail and distributed 29 million leaflets at worksites.

2009

(January) The U.S. Department of Labor reported that union density in the U.S. had grown over the previous two years, with a net gain of 759,000 members in 2007 and 2008.
(January) Shortly after his inauguration, President Obama signs the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which restored the rights of working women to sue over pay discrimination.
(February) Union members and allies deliver some of the 1.5 million signatures collected in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
(May) The AFL-CIO Working for America Institute creates the Center for Green Jobs to assist affiliates in applying for millions of dollars in grants in clean energy skill training projects.
(September) At the AFL-CIO’s 26th Constitutional Convention in Pittsburgh, Richard Trumka is elected president; Liz Shuler, a union activist from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, is elected as Secretary-Treasurer and Arlene Holt Baker re-elected as Executive Vice President.
(September) UNITE HERE leaves Change to Win and rejoins the AFL-CIO.

2010

(June) The AFL-CIO hosts the “Next Up” Young Workers Summit in Washington, D.C., and establishes a national youth mobilization effort as a top priority.
(October) The Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) leaves Change to Win and rejoins the AFL-CIO.

[Demeter]

14. The Industrial Backbone

http://www.shmoop.com/progressive-era-politics/labor.html

The Progressive Era was a difficult time to be a worker. While Progressives did try to make working conditions better for laborers, their efforts only yielded mixed results. Furthermore, workers' own actions sometimes proved more effective than the Progressive reforms enacted in their names.

America never could have risen to its preeminent place in the world of industrial nations without the backbreaking toil of its workers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Laborers were behind the railroads that stretched across over 3,000 miles of the continent, the steel rails that provided the tracks, the skyscrapers that dominated the city skylines, the textiles that clothed the Western world, and the coal and oil that fueled a transportation revolution. They toiled in the steel mills of Braddock and Homestead, the textile factories of the South, the coal mines of Allegheny County, and among the oil derricks of northwestern Pennsylvania. They typically worked seven days a week, twelve hours each day, some enduring 24 straight hours of intense labor every other Sunday on what was known as the "long turn." This was hard manual labor that seldom gave employees any pause for rest during their shift. There was no nationally mandated minimum wage until 1938; railroad workers in the 1880s could expect to make about 10¢ an hour and if the economy turned sour, the company would cut all wages down to 9¢. It was an excellent month for a railroad worker if he made as much as $25. Steel workers could make fourteen cents an hour in the late nineteenth century and seventeen cents an hour by 1908; this amounted to about $13 for 84 to 96 hours' worth of work. Author Thomas Bell, himself a descendant of Slovak immigrants who worked in the steel-mill town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, noted that with such a wage, a couple "could just keep alive....Two people, if they were thrifty and their wants were simple, could manage on that; two people with debts and growing children could not."54 And poverty for hardworking Americans was not confined to Braddock, Pennsylvania. As historian Alan Brinkley has noted, "[At] the turn of the century, the average income of the American worker was $400 to $500 a year—below the $600 figure that many believed was the minimum required to maintain a reasonable level of comfort."55

Workers in the early twentieth century paid about $5 a month in rent and their wives ran boarding houses, did laundry, and performed seamstress duties in order to earn the extra income that might help make ends meet. If the workers had daughters, they began working in childcare or other odd jobs before the age of fifteen to help the family survive. Boys as young as twelve got jobs crawling into newly blasted areas in the coal mines to scoop up loose chunks of coal.56 Other young boys adjusted spindles on the large textile machines of southern factories, where their mothers often also worked. Of the 20 million industrial workers nationwide in 1900, 1.7 million were children; this was twice as many child laborers as there had been in 1870.57 If employees were hurt on the job, there was no form of workers' compensation offered to support them until 1910. Before that, workers faced what Thomas Bell described as "an appallingly bad accident record" in the steel mills, mines, and railroads of the United States.58 Between 1880 and 1900, some 35,000 workers perished each year in factory and mine accident—the highest rate in the industrial world. Another half million to a million laborers were injured every year. Exhausted workers could not afford to make any mistakes, as the intensely hot steel furnaces and the potentially unstable mines constantly threatened injury or death. Even still, some accidents proved beyond human control; in these cases, a company might make a $75 contribution toward funeral expenses; families had to rely upon worker's associations and unions for the rest. Widows and orphaned children were left to their own devices for survival. Retirement was a pipe dream for most Americans; pension plans and social security did not come into widespread existence until the Great Depression.
Progressives and Workers

Many Progressives responded to industrial America's deplorable working conditions by trying to make life better for workers, particularly the women and children who, according to Christian teachings and social tradition, were considered the most vulnerable, weak, and impressionable. By 1900, women composed 20% of the manufacturing workforce, many performing double duty as wage workers and unpaid homemakers who were held responsible for the childcare, cooking, and cleaning. They were paid less than male workers, who were not even making living wages themselves. At the same time, over 1.7 million children under age sixteen worked in factories or fields; 20% of all boys and 10% of all girls aged ten to fifteen labored for wages. Progressives—especially middle-class female activists—helped spearhead the movement for laws that restricted child labor in 38 states by the late nineteenth century.59 Yet these laws did not eradicate child labor; they usually just set a maximum ten-hour workday and established the minimum age for employment at twelve years. And 60% of child workers labored in agriculture, which remained exempt from child labor laws. Nor did these laws address the overwhelming poverty and the lack of adequate childcare that brought about child labor in the first place.60 Addressing these issues, Progressives helped enact state legislation that granted financial aid in an early form of welfare to working mothers in eight states by 1913 and in all but four states by 1930. Some states also began to provide relief for the elderly poor (a very early and limited version of social security) in 1914. Progressives also pushed for public accident insurance plans, which would provide accident victims and their families with a monetary payment to offset expenses. Such plans were enacted beginning in 1910 and a policy in all states but five by 1920.61

Yet several of the most substantial gains won by workers in the early twentieth century were not the design or product of Progressive agitation. After a horrific fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York killed 146 garment workers in 1911, public outrage prompted the creation of a state commission to study the origins of the fire and the condition of the industrial workplace. Senator Robert E. Wagner and Assemblyman Alfred E. Smit—two Democrats from working-class backgrounds who were products of the New York political machine known as Tammany Hall—were actually responsible for leading the push for effective labor legislation. Progressives typically opposed political machines as corrupt organizations antithetical to a true democracy, but at least in this case, those machines took the lead in spearheading important reform legislation. Other Tammany politicians in the New York legislature, not middle-class Progressive representatives, provided the necessary votes and support to impose restrictions on factory owners and provide means of enforcement for the new labor legislation. In the West, it was not middle-class Progressives but working-class Americans who spearheaded the formation of the Union Labor Party, which prompted passage of California legislation to limit working women's maximum hours on the job, as well as a child labor law. Unions organized to support similar reforms in other states.
The Triumph of Conservatism

Recent studies have also indicated that Progressive reformers were not solely responsible for enacting worker's compensation laws in the 1910s. The key economic interest groups with a stake in the legislation—employers, workers, and insurance companies—anticipated benefits from the new regimented system. Employers and insurance companies found themselves increasingly at risk for paying large sums due to recent state laws on employer liability, court decisions that limited employers' defenses in liability suits, and rising workplace accident rates.62 In other words, life insurance companies and employers found federal regulation preferable to potentially more radical state taxes and controls. Similarly, some small businessmen favored stronger government regulation of railroads in the 1880s, because they were at a disadvantage compared with the preferential rates and treatment given to large industries. Most bankers, from Wall Street to small-town Main Street, could agree that the new federal controls and regulations of the Wilson administration offered their industry an important measure of stability. Besides, such regulation was certainly preferable to public ownership of the banking system. Additionally, public utility executives opted for government controls in order to avoid municipal ownership.63

Business support for such measures prompted revisionist historians like Gabriel Kolko to argue that the Progressivism really represented a "triumph of conservatism," as business groups exploited the reformist zeal of the Progressive Era to serve their own ends and circumvent more fundamental or radical remedies.64 And the Progressive reforms that did pass soon prompted a response from other employers and their alliances, such as the National Association of Manufacturers, founded in 1895. These groups worked in order to influence legislators so they would not pass laws governing working conditions. Employers sometimes helped to write the nominally reformist legislation and made sure that the government regulatory boards were staffed with "people favorable to their interests."65

The industrial giants possessed overwhelming wealth and power; employers actively prevented or diluted workplace laws and the conservative Supreme Court frequently reversed much of the key legislation that actually was passed. Given all these factors, little in the way of fundamental change resulted from the Progressive push for political reform. Many Progressives gradually lost their faith in legislation as the means of obtaining real change in American society. Some, like Muckraking writers Lincoln Steffens and Upton Sinclair, turned to socialism as the only cure for a system they considered irreparably damaged by capitalist greed and the influence of big business. Workers benefited nominally from the reforms that did pass, but without real change, they turned to unionization or spontaneous strikes in order to obtain better wages and working conditions. Yet the unions of the American Federation of Labor persisted in excluding unskilled workers from their ranks. The government persecuted radical associations like the International Workers of the World. Between the elite unions of skilled workers and the splintering radical organizations, many industrial and agricultural employees struggled to find representation until the Great Depression. In the early 1880s, more than half of all strikes did not involve a formal trade union organization. The proportion of work stoppages rose over the next twenty years, but by 1900, one third of all strikes were still waged without union intervention. In the absence of effective legislation or union support, workers set out on their own to assert their collective power over the production process. To the extent that Progressive reforms actually succeeded, it may have been that employers and the government welcomed legislative regulations as an alternative to strikes, which could disrupt large sectors of American society. In this sense, workers bolstered the Progressives' cause and played a direct role in the attempt to better their lives for themselves and their children.

THIS SITE IS A STUDY GUIDE...OR A REMEDIAL TEACHING PROGRAM! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

[Crewleader]

16. The latest article in the weekend edition

Obama’s House of Cards

by Craig Paul Roberts

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/26/obamas-house-of-cards/

[Demeter]

18. Thanks for that!

I think it's a sign of either mercy from Chinese and Russian leaders, or a sign that something bigger and much worse for the US is in the making....

Consider this: how many ethnic Chinese and Russians are in the US? Lots, and they are our advocates. A form of hostage for the future, as well.

[Demeter]

17. THIS IS AMAZING! RULE OF LAW LIVES! JUST NOT IN USA

European Union Court of Justice Imposes Anti-Rasmussen Rule – Sanctions Cannot Be Imposed by Reason of Fabrication, Lies, Dissimulation

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/09/european-union-court-of-justice-imposes-anti-rasmussen-rule-sanctions-cannot-be-imposed-by-reason-of-fabrication-lies-disimulation.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

YVES:...a striking if not well publicized indictment of US casualness about lobbing charges against countries on its enemies list.

By John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears



In a judgement issued in Luxembourg on Thursday, September 18, the court ruled that the European Union (EU) cannot lawfully introduce sanctions against states, corporations, state organizations, or individuals without stating reasons which can be substantiated in evidence to a standard of proof tested in court.

Rasmussen, a former Danish politician, has been the most active European advocate of sanctions against Russia on claims that Russian forces have mounted an invasion of eastern Ukraine. The evidence Rasmussen has offered has included hearsay intelligence reports and a display of satellite photographs, which NATO published on August 28...The evidential value of the NATO evidence and Rasmussen’s interpretations has been challenged by a group of former CIA analysts. “Accusations of a major Russian ‘invasion’ of Ukraine, “they claim, “appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the ‘intelligence’ seems to be of the same dubious, politically ‘fixed’ kind used 12 years ago to ‘justify’ the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. We saw no credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq then; we see no credible evidence of a Russian invasion now.”

Argumentation like this over justification for the campaign of US and EU sanctions against Russia has so far not been challenged by the Russians in international court. Iran has been less reticent. Since 2010 Iran has been the target of sanctions starting with the trade in equipment and technology for uranium enrichment and nuclear weaponry. In January 2012, the EU froze assets belonging to the Central Bank of Iran, and banned all trade in gold and other precious metals with the bank and other public bodies. Six months later, an EU ban on the import, purchase and transport of Iranian crude oil came into force. European companies were also stopped from insuring Iranian oil shipments. In March 2012, SWIFT, the Brussels-based agency which processes global banking transactions, cut the Iranian banks from its system, making it almost impossible for money to flow in and out of Iran through the regular channels. In October 2012, the EU banned transactions with Iranian banks and financial institutions, as well as the import, purchase and transportation of natural gas from Iran, the construction of oil tankers for Iran, and the flagging and classification of Iranian tankers and cargo vessels.

After the sanctions campaign commenced, Bank Mellat went to court in the UK and the EU Court of Justice, challenging the allegation that it was connected to Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. The bank commenced litigating in London in November 2009. Almost five years later, in June of this year, Bank Mellat won a ruling from the UK Supreme Court, the final court of appeal, rejecting the basis in evidence for the sanctions imposed on the bank. This followed a similar condemnation by the European Court, issued in January 2013. That story, and the two court judgements, can be read here.

“Mere allegations” were inadmissible to support sanctions, the two courts have ruled. The EU sanctions action against the bank had been illegal, the Luxembourg panel ruled, because “the EU Council did not… comply with the obligation to assess the relevance and the validity of the information and evidence against the applicant submitted to it, with the consequence that those measures are tainted by illegality. Lastly, the Council infringed the obligation to state reasons as regards the second, third, sixth and seventh reasons relied on against the applicant.”

To date, the UK Treasury has not paid the billion-pound compensation sought by Bank Mellat. Nor have the Iranians sued in the US courts...

MORE AMAZEMENT AT LINK

[MattSh]

19. I'm Jealous...

I'm at home this weekend with our son while my wife is 470 miles up the road, in Moscow. It's sort of a girls only event, even though that wasn't quite the original plan.

Originally, I was also to be a part of this trip. And originally, this trip was supposed to be the second weekend of October, which would've been sufficient time for me to apply for and hopefully obtain a visa for Russia. Then it was decided to move it up two weeks in the hope of getting better weather in Moscow. The weather turns colder a bit earlier there than it does in most places. So it just would not have been possible for me to obtain a visa in time.

Her cousin is paying the total cost for the room in Moscow, so we only had to pay for travel and additional expenses. Still, that's a nice chunk of money, but we're making the best of it. My wife is replenishing her supply of a expensive enough medicine. While this disease does not fall into the "rare" category of diseases, but that medicine has been quite difficult to get here in Kiev, not just now, but even last year. On a couple of occasions, I had to walk 15 minutes to the nearest Metro station, take the train for four stops, exit, then walk 10 minutes to the pharmacy that had the medicine. And this is in Kiev, the most important and influential city in all of Ukraine. And still a medicine that should be easy enough to find often became a project to actually obtain.

So we came up with this idea to call around to pharmacies in Moscow. And lo and behold, that is not only was it quite easy to find, but it costs about 65% less in Moscow than it does in Kiev. So I told her to stock up. Minimum of three months worth, 5 to 6 months would be even better, assuming you don't have to spend the whole day walking around Moscow to find that much. She's also stocking up on a couple other items, so this trip may pay for itself. And when that medicine starts to run out again, it's a perfect excuse for a trip to Moscow again, or possibly to Crimea, where her cousin's family owns a house. That's if the medicine can be found there.

As for myself, even the doctors over here recommend statins for me, but I refuse to take those. The last cardiac event (angioplasty) I had was over 10 years ago, and October 1 is my ninth year anniversary outside of the USA. Coincidence? I don't think so. It's not meat and eggs that cause heart attacks, it's the crap that pollutes the food chain in the USA. Trans fats is a biggie, but I also believe things like high fructose corn syrup, other artificial sweeteners, artificial colors and preservatives, and even GMOs are all part of the crapification of the American diet. So for me, it's no statins, but meat and eggs every day for me.

Oh, and speaking of Crimea, is a YouTube video of some "happy" people there. Enjoy!

Pharrel Williams - Happy - Feodosia, Crimea -

[DemReadingDU]

35. It is the crap, not the fat

More and more evidence is pointing to that fat is good - butter, meat and eggs!. What is unhealthy are the simple carbohydrates - bread, potatoes, grains, sweets, anything with high fructose corn syrup. And I have found that eating more eggs, cheese, and butter, that I am rarely hungry so I don't eat the crap.

For decades, my doctors keep trying to prescribe statins. I have always said no because while my total cholesterol is high, I also have very happy HDL the good cholesterol, and very very low triglycerides. Besides, statins have serious side effects.

[Demeter]

37. Ukrainains use the Cyrillic Alphabet?

Glad to hear you are storing up nuts for the winter.

After almost a month of November weather, we are getting some September-range temperatures. There's mid-term elections in 5 weeks, and if we are lucky, some of the GOP will be in retreat. I fear for the election after that, though. Democrats are going to be slaughtered.

There will be no immediate reason to vote Democratic, unless one has an unshakeable belief that a Democrat is always better. Couldn't prove it by this Administration! There's no immediate reason to vote GOP, either, unless revenge and unadulterated fascism is your thing.

It would be nice to have a real choice.

[MattSh]

40. Yes

Да

I guess DU doesn't like Cyrillic in the title field...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_alphabets#Ukrainian

[xchrom]

20. Goldman Sachs Rolls Out A Bunch Of New Rules On Investing For Its Bankers

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-goldman-tightens-conflict-of-interest-rules-as-scrutiny-mounts-2014-9

(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc <gs.n> has tightened rules on investments its bankers can make in individual stocks and bonds, a company spokesman said on Friday, as a U.S. Senator called for hearings into the Wall Street bank's conflict-of-interest policies.

Goldman's decision, announced internally on Friday, also bars bankers from investing in activist or event-driven hedge funds, Andrew Williams, a Goldman Sachs spokesman, told Reuters. The rule will be effective immediately, he said.

Separately on Friday, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat on the banking committee, called for hearings into issues raised by secretly taped conversations between Federal Reserve supervisors and Goldman officials.

Carmen Segarra, a former New York Fed bank examiner who recorded the conversations, brought a wrongful termination lawsuit against her former employer last year alleging that she was fired due to her refusal to change her findings that Goldman Sachs had no companywide conflict of interest policy.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-goldman-tightens-conflict-of-interest-rules-as-scrutiny-mounts-2014-9#ixzz3EVk44wGG

[Demeter]

38. Is that for the banksters' PERSONAL investing?

Or investing for their clients? Or for GS itself? Yeah, I'd say there was a little conflict of interest...

[xchrom]

21. Pakistan Is Building Smaller Nukes, But They Just Might Be More Dangerous

http://www.businessinsider.com/pakistan-is-working-to-create-tactical-nuclear-weapons-2014-9

Pakistan is likely working to create tactical nuclear weapons, which are smaller warheads built for use on battlefields rather than cities or infrastructure. These weapons are diminutive enough to be launched from warships or submarines, which makes them easier to use on short notice than traditional nuclear weapons.

Developing tactical nuclear weapons calls for miniaturization of current weaponry (the "Davy Crockett," developed by the US in the '50s, was designed to launch from a simple tripod). But as The Washington Post reports, analysts are divided on whether Pakistan will be able to make warheads tiny enough for sea-launching.

There's less uncertainty about the military advantage gained with such weapons. A warhead-toting navy would allow Pakistan to stay nuclear-capable regardless of what happens to its homeland, where its nuclear infrastructure is spread out.

The trade-off there, for both Pakistan and the world, is that nuclear missiles become more likely to fall into rogue hands, whether those of a maverick military commander or extremist groups. At a land-based facility, a hijacker would need "to commandeer two separate facilities, with two separate security procedures and local commanders," Jonah Blank, a political scientist with the RAND Corporation, wrote in an email to Business Insider. "For a sea-based nuclear device, a rogue operator would need only to commandeer one asset: A submarine or surface vessel." Other safeguards exist — US submarines, for instance, require complex codes before permitting a nuclear offensive — but faster access still simplifies one factor in a high-stake equation.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pakistan-is-working-to-create-tactical-nuclear-weapons-2014-9#ixzz3EVkhJvxy

[Demeter]

45. And yet, it's IRAN that they hyperventilate over

[xchrom]

22. The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-26/the-secret-goldman-sachs-tapes

(Updates fourth paragraph to include reference to ProPublica article containing Carmen Segarra's allegations.)

Probably most people would agree that the people paid by the U.S. government to regulate Wall Street have had their difficulties. Most people would probably also agree on two reasons those difficulties seem only to be growing: an ever-more complex financial system that regulators must have explained to them by the financiers who create it, and the ever-more common practice among regulators of leaving their government jobs for much higher paying jobs at the very banks they were once meant to regulate. Wall Street's regulators are people who are paid by Wall Street to accept Wall Street's explanations of itself, and who have little ability to defend themselves from those explanations.

Our financial regulatory system is obviously dysfunctional. But because the subject is so tedious, and the details so complicated, the public doesn't pay it much attention.

That may very well change today, for today -- Friday, Sept. 26 --- the radio program "This American Life" will air a jaw-dropping story about Wall Street regulation, and the public will have no trouble at all understanding it.

The reporter, Jake Bernstein, has obtained 46 hours of tape recordings, made secretly by a Federal Reserve employee, of conversations within the Fed, and between the Fed and Goldman Sachs. The Ray Rice video for the financial sector has arrived.

[xchrom]

23. Goldman Sachs Said to Prohibit Bankers From Buying Stocks

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/goldman-sachs-said-to-prohibit-bankers-from-buying-stocks.html

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), the top adviser on corporate takeovers, is changing a policy addressing conflicts of interest to bar investment bankers from trading individual stocks and bonds, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Employees at the New York-based firm were notified yesterday of the change, which takes effect immediately, said the person, who requested anonymity because the matter isn’t public. They also aren’t allowed to invest in activist or event-driven hedge funds, the person said. Previously, bankers needed approval before they could invest in individual stocks.

The change came on the same day that a former Federal Reserve Bank of New York examiner’s recordings of her ex-colleagues’ dealings with Goldman Sachs were featured in reports by public radio and ProPublica. The former examiner, Carmen Segarra, sued the New York Fed last year, alleging that she was fired in 2012 because she refused to change her finding that Goldman Sachs didn’t have a conflict-of-interest policy. Her case was dismissed in April and she’s appealing.

The radio program “This American Life” released a transcript of a broadcast that includes excerpts of conversations it said were secretly recorded by Segarra. In the transcript, Segarra described how she felt that her Fed colleagues handled Goldman Sachs with kid gloves.

[xchrom]

24. Warren Calls for Hearings on New York Fed Allegations

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/new-york-fed-denies-allegations-of-bank-supervision-lapse.html

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren called for congressional hearings into allegations that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has been too deferential to the firms it regulates.

A radio program about the regional Fed bank raised “disturbing issues” and “it’s our job to make sure our financial regulators are doing their jobs,” Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and member of the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement yesterday.

The program “This American Life” released the transcript of a broadcast that includes excerpts of conversations it said were secretly recorded by Carmen Segarra, a former New York Fed bank examiner who was fired in 2012, with some of her colleagues and her supervisor.

In the transcript, Segarra described how she felt that her Fed colleagues were afraid of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and handled it with kid gloves.

“What I was sort of seeing and experiencing was this level of deference to the banks, this level of fear,” she said.

The New York Fed said it “categorically rejects” Segarra’s allegations.

[golfguru]

53. Kudos to the senator for calling hearings on FED n/t

[xchrom]

25. Ford Due for Ratings Boost as Profit Returns to 1999 Level: Cars

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/ford-due-for-ratings-boost-as-profit-returns-to-1999-level-cars.html

Ford Motor Co. (F)’s profit topped $7 billion in 2013 just as it did back in 1999 amid surging demand for Explorer sport-utility vehicles and F-150 pickups. Yet five years into its recovery, Ford’s credit ratings remain one level above junk -- six notches lower than they were back in the SUV boom of 1999.

Ford’s credit profile is as good or better than it was 15 years ago, according to Joel Levington, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. Even so, the second-largest U.S. automaker is viewed as riskier than many global competitors, such as Honda Motor Co. (7267) and Nissan Motor Co. (7201) Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services now rates Ford the same as General Motors Co. (GM), which it elevated yesterday to the lowest investment grade level.

“If I was Ford or one of their bondholders, I’d be scratching my head,” Levington said in an interview.

Compared with 1999, Ford’s market capitalization is larger, its dividend costs lower, and the carmaker said it will cut automotive debt to $10 billion as soon as next year, equaling its obligations of a decade and a half ago.

[xchrom]

26. Economy in U.S. Grew 4.6% in Second Quarter, Most Since 2011

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/economy-in-u-s-expanded-4-6-in-second-quarter-most-since-2011.html

The U.S. economy expanded in the second quarter at the fastest rate since the last three months of 2011 as companies stepped up investment and households boosted spending.

Gross domestic product grew at a revised 4.6 percent annualized rate, up from a previous estimate of 4.2 percent, Commerce Department data showed today in Washington. The increase matched the median forecast of 81 economists surveyed by Bloomberg and followed a 2.1 percent decline in the first three months of the year.

Busier assembly lines at the nation’s factories and job growth that’s kept Americans spending indicate companies are a bit more upbeat about the prospects for demand. As the world’s largest economy and labor market improve, Federal Reserve policy makers are debating how much longer to keep interest rates near zero.

[xchrom]

27. Top China Arms Maker Goes Global With Cheaper Tanks

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-25/top-china-arms-maker-goes-global-with-cheaper-tanks.html

At the Africa Aerospace and Defence Expo earlier this month, weapons buyers from across the continent descended on Air Force Base Waterkloof in the South African capital Pretoria for a bit of shopping.

There, they were wooed by Chinese defense gear giant Norinco, which has honed its pitch to an art.

Namibia Deputy Defense Minister Petrus Iilonga, wearing Prada SpA sunglasses and a Lenin pin, studied models of battle tanks before representatives from Norinco, also known as China North Industries Group Corp., ushered him into a room marked VIP for some personal salesmanship. Nearby, the Tanzanian military chief, General Davis Mwamunyange, furrowed his brow while a company official in a charcoal suit and an orange tie discussed a truck with a radar device mounted on the back.

A live test was conducted on the system about a month ago, the official, who declined to give his name and had his ID badge turned backward, told his visitors.

[xchrom]

28. SEC ALLEGES $129M PYRAMID SCHEME IN CHINA, US

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SEC_GLOBAL_PYRAMID_SCHEME?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-09-26-18-06-26

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. regulators have charged two companies and three individuals with operating a pyramid scheme that made some $129 million from preying on investors in China, Taiwan and the U.S.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the civil fraud charges Friday against eAdGear Holdings Limited, based in Hong Kong; California-based eAdGear Inc.; and Charles Wang, Qian Cathy Zhang and Francis Yuen. A federal court in San Francisco authorized the SEC's request to freeze the defendants' assets and bar them from soliciting investors.

An attorney representing Wang, Zhang and Yuen didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The SEC said eAdGear claimed to be a successful online marketing company, but nearly all its revenue came from investors, not products or services. Starting in December 2010, the company sold "memberships" and "business packages," opening accounts with tens of thousands of mostly Chinese investors.

[xchrom]

29. US RIG COUNT UNCHANGED AT 1,931

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_RIG_COUNT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-09-26-13-43-05

HOUSTON (AP) -- Oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. says the number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. was unchanged this week, holding at 1,931.

The Houston firm said Friday in its weekly report that 1,592 rigs were exploring for oil and 338 for gas. One was listed as miscellaneous. A year ago there were 1,744 active rigs.

Of the major oil- and gas-producing states, Wyoming gained three rigs, New Mexico increased by two and Alaska, Colorado and West Virginia each gained one.

Texas declined by three rigs, Oklahoma was down two and California and Pennsylvania each dropped one.

Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio and Utah all were unchanged.

The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.

[xchrom]

30. ECONOMY'S Q2 REBOUND WAS EVEN FASTER THAN THOUGHT

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ECONOMY_GDP?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-09-26-18-17-46

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy's bounce-back last quarter from a dismal winter was even faster than previously thought, a sign that growth will likely remain solid for rest of the year.

The economy as measured by gross domestic product grew at a 4.6 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. It was the fastest pace in more than two years and higher than the government's previous estimate of 4.2 percent.

The upward revision reflected stronger-than-expected business investment and exports last quarter.

The healthy second-quarter growth marked a sharp rebound from the January-March quarter, when the economy shrank at a 2.1 percent rate in the midst of a brutal winter that idled factories and kept consumers at home.

[xchrom]

31. WHY RATE HIKES ARE GOOD NEWS FOR STOCKS

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_STOCKS_RATE_HIKES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-09-26-13-27-48

NEW YORK (AP) -- It's no surprise that the prospect of a Federal Reserve rate hike worries stock investors.

The Fed's unprecedented economic stimulus has in large part driven a surge in stock prices since 2009. The central bank has bought trillions of dollars of bonds and kept short-term interest rates close to zero. That's allowed businesses and consumers to refinance their debt at lower rates, freeing up cash to spend.

But if history is a guide, investors have nothing to fear.

In the nine instances since 1955 that the Fed has started raising rates after a recession, the Standard & Poor's 500 index has risen by an average of 58 percent between the first hike and the peak of the market, according to LPL Financial, an independent broker-dealer based in Boston.

[xchrom]

32. JAPANESE FIRM FINED $67.7M IN SHIPPING CONSPIRACY

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OCEAN_SHIPPING_PRICE_FIXING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-09-26-16-35-22

A major Japanese shipping company agreed Friday to pay the United States a $67.7 million criminal fine for conspiring to fix prices for international ocean shipments of cars, trucks and other wheeled vehicles at the Port of Baltimore and other locations, the Justice Department said.

Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd., also known as "K" Line conspired with other, unidentified shipping firms not to compete for certain customers on certain routes, and to refrain from undercutting each other's prices, the department said in a statement.

"Our efforts exposed a long-running global conspiracy that operated globally, affecting the shipping costs of staggering numbers of cars, into and out of the Port of Baltimore and other ports in the United States and across the globe," said Bill Baer, an assistant U.S. attorney in the department's antitrust division.

A call to "K" Line's North American headquarters in Richmond, Virginia, was not returned

[MattSh]

36. Good Job, Yats—You’ve Destroyed Ukraine’s Economy, Fattened The US Military-Industrial Complex

The costs of the mainstream U.S. media’s wildly anti-Moscow bias in the Ukraine crisis are adding up, as the Obama administration has decided to react to alleged “Russian aggression” by investing as much as $1 trillion in modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.

On Monday, a typically slanted New York Times article justified these modernization plans by describing “Russia on the warpath” and adding: “Congress has expressed less interest in atomic reductions than looking tough in Washington’s escalating confrontation with Moscow.”

But the Ukraine crisis has been a textbook case of the U.S. mainstream media misreporting the facts of a foreign confrontation and then misinterpreting the meaning of the events, a classic case of “garbage in, garbage out.” The core of the false mainstream narrative is that Russian President Vladimir Putin instigated the crisis as an excuse to reclaim territory for the Russian Empire.

While that interpretation of events has been the cornerstone of Official Washington’s “group think,” the reality always was that Putin favored maintaining the status quo in Ukraine. He had no plans to “invade” Ukraine and was satisfied with the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych. Indeed, when the crisis heated up last February, Putin was distracted by the Sochi Winter Olympics.

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/good-job-yats-youve-destroyed-ukraines-economy-fattened-the-us-military-industrial-complex/

[MattSh]

39. Ukraine Is On The Brink Of Total Economic Collapse - Business Insider

While we see a great deal of media coverage of Ukraine-related geopolitical risks, there hasn't been sufficient discussion about the dire economic and fiscal conditions the nation is facing.

Writing about men in masks fighting in eastern Ukraine sells far more advertising than covering the nation's economic activity. However it's the economy, not the Russian army that has brought Ukraine close to the brink.

And just to be clear, some of Kiev's economic and fiscal problems were visible long before the spat with Russia (see post from 2012).

Ukraine is now in recession. Deep economic ties with Russia have resulted in painful adjustments in recent months. The nation's exports are down some 19% from last year in dollar terms and expected to fall further. A great example of Ukraine's export challenges is the Antonov aircraft company known for its Soviet era large transport planes as well as other types of aircraft.

As the military cooperation with Russia ended, Antonov was in trouble. It had to take a $150 million hit recently by not delivering the medium-range An-148 planes to the Russian Air Force. The Russians will find a replacement for this aircraft, but in the highly competitive global aircraft market, it's far less likely that Antonov will find another client.

Here are some key indicators of Ukraine's worsening situation:


http://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-is-on-the-brink-of-total-economic-collapse-2014-9

[Demeter]

42. Today, I'm off to the Stadium

It's my annual football game, courtesy of a client who doesn't feel strong enough to go alone.

The game time has finally been settled (I never heard of such a thing as waiting until the last minute to announce WHEN the game would be), the weather is promising to be sunburn-producing, and too hot to cover up with clothing, and the Wolverines are not at the top of their form.

It's a job.

I don't do much mass-event stuff. It's always fascinating and repelling at the same time when I do. Attendance has been way down, so that will be something to see. I should bring my mending, but they won't let anything into the stadium, including food and drink (the concession stands have to make a living, don't you know?) rain gear (including plastic bags, even) or anything else of mortal comfort.

[Demeter]

46. Yeah, we are just hicks lost in the Big Apple

It needs a little work.....

[Crewleader]

47. adding one more

[antigop]

50. Musical interlude: "It's Neat to be a Newsboy" from "Working"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_%28musical%29#Musical_numbers

Working is a musical with a book by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso, music by Schwartz, Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers, and James Taylor, and lyrics by Schwartz, Carnelia, Grant, Taylor, and Susan Birkenhead.

The musical is based on the Studs Terkel book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (1974), which has interviews with people from different
regions and occupations.

[antigop]

51. Musical interlude II: "Cleanin' Women" from "Working"

"If I Could Have Been" from "Working"

[MattSh]

52. Working in a Coal Mine - Devo

[antigop]

54. Musical interlude: Tennessee Ernie Ford: "Sixteen Tons"

[kickysnana]

55. My introduction to Company towns and Labor woes at age 4 in 1955 n/t

[Crewleader]

56. Owner of the houses

Christie weight loss




CEO pay

[Demeter]

58. I have returned, more or less unscathed, from the Big House

where the Wolverines and the Gophers gnawed each other. I have seen high schools play better football. Oh, well...the Minnesota Gophers won and will take the Little Brown Jug back to Minneapolis.

Now, wouldn't this be better than war? If there's going to be pissing contests, isn't a violent sport like football sufficient?

Of course, the banksters would be reduced to selling team clothing and novelties, and $7 Cokes. And the MIC would be reduced to tapping into the strategy sessions and drone-photographing training, but I suspect they do that already. Maybe they could build protection against concussions....

It was a beautiful sunny day, so sunny that despite precautions, I felt heat stroked by the second half and had to retire to the nice cool ladies room to attain some sort of equilibrium. but after that the sun went down behind the skyboxes, and the breeze freshened.

And I don't have to do that again, for a year. Every time I do, we have a different season.
This year it was summer. Last year it rained cold rain, nearly snow.

[Demeter]

59. And tomorrow

I am hosting my very first meet-and-greet for a candidate...at the condo clubhouse.

I am so nervous.....

And I am not doing any of the other 99 things on my list. Until after.

[xchrom]

60. Americans Have No Idea How Bad Inequality Is

http://www.businessinsider.com/americans-have-no-idea-how-bad-inequality-is-2014-9

If Michael Norton’s research is to be believed, Americans don’t have the faintest clue how severe economic inequality has become—and if they only knew, they’d be appalled.

Consider the Harvard Business School professor’s new study examining public opinion about executive compensation, co-authored with the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok’s Sorapop Kiatpongsan. In the 1960s, the typical corporate chieftain in the U.S. earned 20 times as much as the average employee. Today, depending on whose estimate you choose, he makes anywhere from 272 to 354 times as much. According to the AFL-CIO, the average CEO takes home more than $12 million, while the average worker makes about $34,000.

In their study, Norton and Kiatpongsan asked about 55,000 people around the globe, including 1,581 participants in the U.S., how much money they thought corporate CEOs made compared with unskilled factory workers. Then they asked how much more pay they thought CEOs should make. The median American guessed that executives out-earned factory workers roughly 30-to-1—exponentially lower than the highest actual estimate of 354-to-1. They believed the ideal ratio would be about 7-to-1.

“In sum, respondents underestimate actual pay gaps, and their ideal pay gaps are even further from reality than those underestimates,” the authors write.



Read more: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/09/americans_have_no_idea_how_bad_inequality_is_new_harvard_business_school.html#ixzz3EbrV7FU4

[xchrom]

61. Hong Kong Police Fire Tear Gas At Democracy Protesters To Clear Streets

http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-protests-2014-9

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong police used tear gas for the first time on Sunday to disperse pro-democracy protests and baton-charged the crowd blocking a key road in the government district afterHong Kong and Chinese officials warned against illegal demonstrations.

The city's Admiralty district had descended into chaos as chanting pro-democracy protesters converged on police barricades surrounding their colleagues who had earlier launched a "new era" of civil disobedience to pressure Beijing into granting full democracy to Hong Kong.

Police, in lines five deep in places wearing helmets and gas masks, staged repeated pepper spray and baton charges and threw tear gas. The crowds fled several hundred yards, scattering their umbrellas.

Police had not used tear gas in Hong Kong since 2005, to break up World Trade Organization protests against South Korean farmers.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-protests-2014-9#ixzz3Ebvj1Fjc

[xchrom]

62. Chart: You're Working More But Earning Less

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/09/income-inequality-working-more

[Demeter]

63. THE WRITING ON THE WALL

[Demeter]

64. WHEN ALL YOU USE IS THE HAMMER IN YOUR TOOLBOX...PERVERSE INCENTIVES

[DemReadingDU]

65. Hong Kong Festival Orchestra Flash Mob 2013

8/12/13 Hong Kong Festival Orchestra Flash Mob 2013: Beethoven's "Ode to Joy"

9/28/14 Massive protests today in Hong Kong
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-28/disperse-or-we-fire-hong-kong-police-fire-tear-gas-protesting-students-live-webcast