January 15, 2016

The unbelievably impertinent Rahm Emanuel

(In These Times) In an unprecedented move on Wednesday, the Chicago City Council rebuked Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to voluntarily pay banks $106 million in penalties to terminate the city’s remaining interest rate swap agreements. In another unprecedented move, I attempted to explain to my mother what had happened.

I told her, in a mix of English and our native Urdu, that the city had entered into these bad deals that had cost taxpayers millions of dollars, and that a group of us have been calling on the mayor to sue the banks to get the money back. I also told her that, instead of suing the banks, the mayor was trying to pay them all of the future payments for the next 15 years right now in order to get out of the deals.

My mother was shocked. “So instead of paying what he would over the next 15 years, he’s just paying them now?” she asked. I nodded. “That’s just more money for the banks,” she replied. “Why would he do that?”

Emanuel claims that voluntarily paying the banks would have helped the city reduce risk. However, the biggest risk with these swaps is that if the city is forced to terminate them in the future, it could be forced to pay up to $106 million in penalties. By voluntarily paying those penalties now, the city wouldn’t have reduced risk; it would have realized it.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Alderman Carlos Rosa said, “It’s like claiming that you’ve lowered the risk of your car getting stolen tomorrow by handing your car keys to a thief today.” .................(more)

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18774/rahm-emanuel-wall-street-interest-rate-swaps

January 15, 2016

Ted Cruz Hates “New York Values” But Sure Loves New York Money

(The Intercept) On Tuesday on the syndicated Howie Carr Show, Ted Cruz declared that Donald Trump “comes from New York and he embodies New York values.” That night on Fox, New York-born Megyn Kelly asked Cruz to explain exactly what “New York values” are. Cruz responded: “The rest of the country knows exactly what New York values are, and I gotta say, they’re not Iowa values and they’re not New Hampshire values.”

Yesterday Kellyanne Conway, president of Keep the Promise I, one of four significant pro-Cruz Super PACs, endorsed Cruz’s anti-New York perspective: “New York is home to many wonderful people and places, but the emphasis is more on money than morality. The line to get into Abercrombie & Fitch is a mile longer than the line to get into St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”

But here’s what Cruz and Conway haven’t mentioned:

Keep the Promise I is registered in New York and has raised $11,000,000 from a single New Yorker, financier Robert Mercer. Mercer is co-CEO of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, located on New York’s Long Island. The Super PAC’s only other donor is from Florida and contributed $5,000, so Mercer has provided 99.95 percent of its money. .................(more)

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/14/ted-cruz-hates-new-york-values-but-sure-loves-new-york-money/

January 14, 2016

TYT: Badly Berned, Hillary Clinton Attempts To Go On Offense

Published on Jan 13, 2016

Now that Bernie Sanders has caught and passed Hillary Clinton in Iowa, and he had already been beating her in New Hampshire, panic has set in at Clinton headquarters. Cenk Uygur, host of the The Young Turks, breaks it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

"Hillary Clinton used to avoid uttering the name of her main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt). But that phase of the race has definitively ended, with Clinton and her team staging a multi-pronged attack on Sanders in the first weeks of the new year.

The most recent anti-Sanders salvo came last week. The Clinton campaign had highlighted Sanders’ votes to give gun suppliers legal immunity previously, but took the opportunity to re-focus scrutiny on the senator’s gun record after President Barack Obama wrote in a New York Times op-ed Thursday evening that he would not endorse any candidate who disagreed with him on gun reform, like repealing the immunity law. When Sanders’ campaign said that there was “zero daylight” between the senator and Obama on gun control on Friday, Clinton’s campaign pounced.”*

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders_56942dbde4b086bc1cd4ee4a?

January 14, 2016

Detroit News editorial board writes idiotic column about Detroit Public Schools sick outs

from the Metro Times:



You're really trying us Detroit News Editorial Board. A few weeks after publishing an incredibly poorly timed piece on how Emergency Managers work for cities, the News is at it again with another misguided and questionably sourced article.

On Monday evening, after 60 Detroit Public Schools were closed due to teacher-led sick-outs protesting deplorable working conditions and Lansing's impressively destructive role overseeing the district, the News published one of its predictably inflammatory editorials.

"Fire DPS strike ringleaders" the headline blared. From there the piece incorrectly noted ousted DFT president Steve Conn as the ringleader of the protests (it is in fact a grassroots group of teachers and is not union centered) and then proceeded to push legislators to "make it easier to punish teachers who break the law." ...................(more)

http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2016/01/13/detroit-news-editorial-board-writes-idiotic-column-about-detroit-public-schools-sick-outs

January 14, 2016

When “Story Stocks” Crash Like this, the Market is Kaput

When “Story Stocks” Crash Like this, the Market is Kaput
by Wolf Richter • January 14, 2016


[font color="blue"]Reality suddenly mucks up the rosy scenario.[/font]

Many of our heroic “story stocks” are getting totally destroyed. Yet not much has changed: Their business model, if any, is the same; they’re still losing money hand over fist; and they’re still trotting out the same custom-designed metrics that seduced analysts and the media once upon a time. But it’s not working anymore.

After the drubbing on Wednesday – the Nasdaq plunged 3.4% and is down 13.5% from its high – we know one thing for sure: there will be a rally someday that lasts longer than a few hours. But something big has changed.

There was the old guard of new tech. Netflix plummeted 8.6% on Wednesday and is down about 20% from its 52-week high. Apple dropped 2.6% and is down 28% from its 52-week high. Facebook lost 3.9% and is 14% off its 52-week high. The list goes on.

But the real drubbing was reserved for the new darlings, the fruits of the recent IPO boom, and other “story stocks”:

Etsy dropped 4.9% for the day to a new low of $6.99. After its IPO at $16 in April last year, it spiked to $35.74 and has gotten whacked down 80% since. Twitter plunged 4.8% to a new low of $18.68. After its IPO at $26, it spiked to $78, from which it has now plunged 76%. Shopify plunged 10% during the day and is down 48% from its high in June. ................(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/01/14/when-story-stocks-crash-like-this-the-market-is-kaput/

January 14, 2016

Best Buy cuts sales view after holiday sales fall

Best Buy Co. on Thursday lowered its sales outlook for the current quarter after weak mobile-phone sales hurt holiday results.

For the fourth quarter, the electronics retailer now expects domestic sales to decline 1.5%, compared with previous guidance for flat sales, because of softer consumer demand in mobile phones and greater-than-expected declines in other consumer electronics.

Shares, which have fallen 27% over the past 12 months, slid another 6.1% to $27.48 in premarket trading.

Best Buy reported revenue edged down 0.8% during the nine weeks ended Jan. 2 to $10.05 billion. Chief Executive Hubert Joly said domestic revenue increased, excluding mobile phones, year-over-year on strength from health and wearables, home theater and appliances. The company also pointed to a 12.6% jump in online revenue. ................(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/best-buy-cuts-sales-view-after-holiday-sales-fall-2016-01-14

January 14, 2016

Howard Dean, Now Employed by Health-Care Lobby Firm, Opposes Bernie Sanders on Single-Payer

(The Intercept) Howard Dean is the latest in a string of Hillary Clinton supporters to charge that Bernie Sanders is wrong to support a single payer health care plan. The former chairman of the Democratic National Committee claimed on MSNBC last night that Sanders’s reforms might result in “chaos” because “trying to implement it would in fact undo people’s health care.” Dean added: “That is something people should be concerned about.”

https://vimeo.com/151748674

Dean, a longtime supporter of single-payer, seemed to be changing his tune, a point made by host Chris Hayes during the segment.

This evolution of Dean, known within many circles for his spirited critique of the Iraq War during the 2004 Democratic primary, comes as he has settled into a corporate lobbying career.

Dean, though he rarely discloses the title during his media appearances, now serves as Senior Advisor to the law firm Dentons, where he works with the firm’s Public Policy and Regulation practice, a euphemism for Dentons’ lobbying team. Dean is not a lawyer, but neither is Newt Gingrich, who is among the growing list of former government officials and politicians that work in the Public Policy and Regulation practice of Dentons.

The Dentons Public Policy and Regulation practice lobbies on behalf of a variety of corporate health care interests, including the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a powerful trade group for drugmakers like Pfizer and Merck. ....................(more)

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/14/howard-dean-lobbyist/

January 14, 2016

Another holiday sales bust for Best Buy

Best Buy Co. on Thursday lowered its sales outlook for the current quarter after weak mobile-phone sales hurt holiday results.

For the fourth quarter, the electronics retailer now expects domestic sales to decline 1.5%, compared with previous guidance for flat sales, because of softer consumer demand in mobile phones and greater-than-expected declines in other consumer electronics.

Shares, which have fallen 27% over the past 12 months, slid another 6.1% to $27.48 in premarket trading.

Best Buy reported revenue edged down 0.8% during the nine weeks ended Jan. 2 to $10.05 billion. Chief Executive Hubert Joly said domestic revenue increased, excluding mobile phones, year-over-year on strength from health and wearables, home theater and appliances. The company also pointed to a 12.6% jump in online revenue. ................(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/best-buy-cuts-sales-view-after-holiday-sales-fall-2016-01-14

January 14, 2016

As Attacks on Unions Continue, Bringing Back the Strike May Be Our Only Hope

[font size="1"]Workers battle police in the streets of Minneapolis during the 1934 general strike. (National Archives and Records Administration / Wikimedia Commons)[/font]

(In These Times) On December 14, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey announced the results of the union’s strike authorization vote. For the second time in three years, the union’s membership voted overwhelmingly to strike if necessary. "Our ability to withhold our labor is our power," declared CTU President Karen Lewis on the eve of voting.

That axiom, that strikes are where unions derive their power, is pretty out of favor these days. A wave of disastrous strikes and lockouts beginning in the Reagan era that helped deunionize much of American industry has left the surviving labor movement skittish about the prospect of full-scale walk-outs. But bright spots like Fight for 15, Bargaining for the Common Good and the Chicago teachers strike have shown that workers can win strikes (if one defines victory as workers walking away from the ordeal feeling more powerful). Labor activists and leaders, particularly as they anticipate a viciously anti-union Supreme Court decision in Friedrichs v. CTA, have to figure out more strategies to revive the strike weapon in our current era.

How strikes became a “bad idea”

Ironically, the seeds of labor’s 1980s defeats were planted during its best seasons for growth in the 1930s. During the wave of sit-down strikes that grew union membership by leaps and bounds, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. The purpose of the act was to establish an orderly process for certifying unions and compelling employers to bargain in good faith with them. The plain language of the law also made it illegal to fire an employee for union activity.

But in two of the early Supreme Court cases that established the constitutionality of this law, the court casually cut into workers’ rights to their jobs.

In a 1939 case called NLRB vs. Fansteel Metallurgical, the court ruled that the NLRB cannot compel the reinstatement of a fired worker who broke the law, even if his illegal activity was part of an otherwise protected union activity like striking. Sit-down strikes, the physical occupation of someone else’s property to prevent their business from operating without you, was simply not going to be a protected activity under this new labor law regime. .................(more)

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18762/as_attacks_on_unions_continue_bringing_back_the_strike_may_be_our_only_hope

January 14, 2016

"The incident has shown that much of the public doesn't care much about sexual violence, unless.....

.....it comes from foreigners"


from Der Spiegel:


The events in Cologne were perpetrated by a sexist criminal mob -- and have triggered the rise of racist digital mob in response. The incident has shown that much of the public doesn't care much about sexual violence, unless it comes from foreigners.


The "events in Cologne" on New Year's Eve: It is a formulation that takes no time at all to type or, for politicians and functionaries, to speak into a microphone. But doing so is the first mistake. The word "events" seems so passive, so unavoidable. But what happened in Cologne was more than fate, they were violent sexual assaults perpetrated against women by groups of men. And if the numbers and portrayals are true, then one can use a term that is among the ugliest in a societal context: mob.

A mob is a collection of people that establish a social dynamic within which pretty much all other rules are ignored. Violence is often the result. A mob is a mobile, transitory, extralegal space -- established by those who temporarily peel away the thin veneer of civilization.

Social media, particularly Facebook and WhatsApp, have taken on a complex collection of roles in Germany. They constitute alternative public spheres, but are also platforms for documentation, discussion and organization. That sounds fantastic, and it sometimes is -- but not always. Because in the wake of the attacks committed on New Year's Eve in Cologne, it can also be seen how online mobs are established. And the degree to which they can escalate from the Internet into the real world can be gauged.

The manner in which the attacks in Cologne are being perceived, discussed and processed in social media would be worth a dozen catastrophe-sociology studies, but the "events in Cologne" should be examined at the outset.

A Sober Look

What exactly happened there cannot -- yet, at least -- be described as precisely as many would like, which makes it difficult for people to cram them into their specific political worldview. ................(more)

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-internet-reactions-to-cologne-new-years-attacks-a-1070951.html