September 8, 2015

Revenue Recession Spreads past Dollar, Energy

Revenue Recession Spreads past Dollar, Energy
by Wolf Richter • September 7, 2015


Now that 495 of the S&P 500 companies have reported second quarter earnings, something has become abundantly clear: 2015 is going to be a nasty year for corporate revenues.

Blended revenue for the S&P 500 companies dropped 3.4% in Q2, according to FactSet. “Blended” because it includes estimates for the five companies that have not yet reported. This follows the first quarter, during which reported revenues also declined. The last time year-over-year revenues declined two quarters in a row was in Q2 and Q3 2009 during the Financial Crisis.

Analysts liberally blame the strong dollar. It’s convenient. But numerous companies that mostly benefit from the strong dollar, such as GM (more on that in a second), still reported shrinking revenues in the quarter.

And analysts blamed energy companies whose revenues have totally collapsed. But company by company outside the energy sector reported declining, and in some cases plunging revenues, including in Big Tech and financial services.

Here is a sample of revenue losers:

Caterpillar (-13%), Dow Chemical (-13%), MetLife (-12%), Microsoft (-4%), Intel (-5%), International Paper (-21%), JPMorgan Chase (-3%), Johnson Controls (-11%), Oracle (-5%), PepsiCo (-6%), Pfizer (-7%), Procter & Gamble (-12%), Union Pacific (-10%)…. (more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/09/07/us-corporate-revenue-recession-spreads-past-dollar-energy/

September 7, 2015

Poetic justice for a real a**hole........

Trump supporter?





Sometimes, the stars align perfectly.

In a video uploaded to YouTube on Thursday, an irate woman was captured hurling insults at restaurant workers who had the audacity to put green peppers on a meal for kids who "don't eat green things!"

"If you want to be polite to the customer, then you speak English," barks the impolite customer. "My kids don't eat green things, they eat red peppers!"

When the workers, who remain calm throughout the video, offer to make a new meal, the woman calmly reminds them that "I DON'T HAVE 15 MINUTES!" .......................(more)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/terrible-woman-berating-food-staff-meets-instant-justice_55e9ae73e4b03784e2759e1b?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

September 7, 2015

Chris Hedges: The Real Enemy Is Within

from truthdig:


The Real Enemy Is Within

Posted on Sep 6, 2015
By Chris Hedges


If you are not dedicated to the destruction of empire and the dismantling of American militarism, then you cannot count yourself as a member of the left. It is not a side issue. It is the issue. It is why I refuse to give a pass in this presidential election campaign to Bernie Sanders, who refuses to confront the war industry or the crimes of empire, including U.S. support for the slow genocide carried out by Israel against the Palestinians. There will be no genuine democratic, social, economic or political reform until we destroy our permanent war machine.

Militarists and war profiteers are our greatest enemy. They use fear, bolstered by racism, as a tool in their efforts to abolish civil liberties, crush dissent and ultimately extinguish democracy. To produce weapons and finance military expansion, they ruin the domestic economy by diverting resources, scientific and technical expertise and a disproportionate share of government funds. They use the military to carry out futile, decades-long wars to enrich corporations such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. War is a business. And when the generals retire, guess where they go to work? Profits swell. War never stops. Whole sections of the earth live in terror. And our nation is disemboweled and left to live under what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls “inverted totalitarianism.” Libertarians seem to get this. It is time the left woke up.

“Bourgeois society faces a dilemma,” socialist Rosa Luxemburg writes, “either a transition to Socialism, or a return to barbarism ... we face the choice: either the victory of imperialism and the decline of all culture, as in ancient Rome—annihilation, devastation, degeneration, a yawning graveyard; or the victory of Socialism—the victory of the international working class consciously assaulting imperialism and its method: war. This is the dilemma of world history, either-or; the die will be cast by the class-conscious proletariat.”

The U.S. military and its array of civilian contractors operate as enforcers and hired killers across the globe for corporations, many of which pay no taxes. Young men and women, many unable to find work, are the cannon fodder. The U.S. military has served as the handmaiden of capitalism since it committed genocide against Native Americans, carried out on behalf of land speculators, mineral companies, timber merchants and the railroads. The military replicated this indiscriminate slaughter at the end of the 19th century in our imperial expansion in Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean, in Central America and especially in the Philippines. Military muscle exists to permit global corporations to expand markets and plunder oil, minerals and other natural resources while keeping subjugated populations impoverished by corrupt and brutal puppet regimes. The masters of war are the scum of the earth. .....................(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_real_enemy_is_within_20150906

September 6, 2015

Madonna's brother must be desperate for attention......

Christopher Ciccone, the openly gay brother of Madonna, has spoken out in support of jailed Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, writing on Facebook that “once again, the gay community feels the need to be sore winners.”

The county clerk in Kentucy deserves about as much support as you would give her if she were a muslim women who insisted on covering her face and refused not only gay marriages licenses, but divorce, accusations of rape and driving a car without ur mans approval…..perspective is everything…..this woman is a civil servant, she is required to follow federal law…..but why should she….when DOJ and other civil authories don’t follow federal law when they choose not to…..i.e. Washington State and Colorado (POT) come to mind…or the abstract notion of “sanctuary cities”…..i always thought that sanctuary was the province of churches…….these things aside….this is why we have elections…..if the folks of this county in Kentucy don’t want her as the county clerk….then don’t have to vote for her…..that is how a democracy works….not to mention the courts….in the mean time…..since when are we the arbiter of other peoples faith?…….can you honestly say that you know how much a person is allowed to have??..if i’m not mistaken, it’s in the constitution…..something about religious freedom or something……selective shaming and bullying corrupts a democracy….freedom of press, speech and religion give it strength. Not to mention reason and the god given compassion we as humans have a right and responsibility to practice. Once again, the gay community feels the need to be sore winners. Is it so difficult to allow this women her religion?…or must we destroy her in order for here to betray her faith. No matter how we judge its truth. The rights we have all fought for, mean nothing, if we deny her hers.

Ciccone began his career working as his sister’s backup dancer before having a falling out with the pop star. In 2008, he wrote a tell-all book about his estranged relationship with his sister: Life with My Sister Madonna.

http://www.towleroad.com/2015/09/christopher-ciccone-kim-davis/

September 6, 2015

This Trailer Changes Everything: Epic New Naomi Klein Doc Will Have You Running for Your Kayak

from YES! Magazine:


This Trailer Changes Everything: Epic New Naomi Klein Doc Will Have You Running for Your Kayak
The film inspired by Klein's book features the stories of everyday people standing up to climate change.

Araz Hachadourian posted Sep 01, 2015


In her 2014 book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Naomi Klein explored the grassroots actions of communities—often those of color and in the Global South, who are already experiencing climate change—on the frontlines of the battle to mitigate its effects.

“We in the Global North have built up an ecological debt," Klein told YES! last year. "Fossil fuels built the modern world. And the countries that have a 200-year head start on emitting carbon have a special responsibility.”

The film inspired by Klein's book, also called This Changes Everything, will be released this fall and features the stories everyday people around the globe—from the Midwestern United States to Northern Greece and India. Together, they ask: Is this the moment that can change everything? The trailer below will have you running for your kayak.




http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/this-trailer-changes-everything-epic-new-naomi-klein-doc-will-have-you-running-for-your-kayak-20150901

September 6, 2015

A Labor Day Worry: The Court’s Right-Wingers Are Sharpening Their Knives

(Truthdig) We don’t officially celebrate International Workers’ Day on May 1 in this country, even though the worldwide holiday was originated to memorialize the Chicago Haymarket Square Riot of 1886 and the long and often bloody movement waged by American workers to establish the eight-hour workday. Instead, we hold a watered-down substitute, observing Labor Day on the first Monday of September. Each year, the commemoration grows more tepid and disconnected from the historical and current struggles of working people.

If the U.S. Supreme Court’s dominant Republican majority has its way when the panel’s new term commences in October, we might as well dispense with the holiday altogether, or at least drop the term “labor” from its title. Among the most important cases the court will consider when it reconvenes is Friedrichs v. California Teachers, which poses what some observers have called an “existential threat” to public unions and by extension to the entire labor movement.

At issue in Friedrichs is the right of public sector unions to collect limited “fair-share” fees in lieu of full formal dues from nonunion workers to defray the costs of collective bargaining that benefits all employees. A decision against the teachers association would have the potential to bankrupt government employee unions and turn the nation’s entire public sector into one enormous “right-to-work” jurisdiction.

Even before agreeing to hear Friedrichs, the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts had amassed a staggering résumé of anti-worker decisions. As a study published in January by The Nation explains, the Roberts court has issued rulings that have restricted gender-based discrimination and class-action lawsuits against corporations; curbed age discrimination claims; limited the availability of overtime pay; redefined the term “supervisor” to allow employers to avoid liability for harassment; and made it more difficult for employees to prosecute workplace retaliation grievances. ...............(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_labor_day_worry_the_courts_right-wingers_are_sharpening_20150905

September 6, 2015

Health insurers seek double-digit rate hikes for 2016, report finds

(Guardian UK) US insurers have asked for double-digit increases for about third of the health insurance plans listed on the national healthcare exchange, a report has found.

The AgileHeathInsurance.com report found that 7% of plans sold on the exchange have proposed a rate increase of at least 30%, and 14% of the plans have proposed a rate increase of at least 20%.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly referred to as Obamacare, the new rates would go into effect come November, at the beginning of the open enrolment period for 2016.

At a July town hall in Tennessee, Barack Obama said that he expected the rates to “come in significantly lower than what’s being requested”.

Yet a month later, a proposed 36% rate hike by BlueCross was approved.

Tennessee’s insurance commissioner Julie Mix McPeak said that the increase for 2016 was necessary to cover the increase in costs related to claims from sick people who signed up for health insurance plans during the first two years of the ACA’s operation. .....................(more)

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/05/obamacare-health-insurance-rate-increases-2016

September 6, 2015

US-appointed egg lobby paid food blogs and targeted chef to crush vegan startup

(Guardian UK) A government-controlled industry group targeted popular food bloggers, major publications and a celebrity chef as part of its sweeping effort to combat a perceived threat from an egg-replacement startup backed by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names, the Guardian can reveal.

The lobbyists’ media counterattack, in possible violation of US department of agriculture rules, was coordinated by a marketing arm of the egg industry called the American Egg Board (AEB). It arose after AEB chief executive Joanne Ivy identified the fledgling technology startup Hampton Creek as a “crisis and major threat to the future” of the $5.5bn-a-year egg market.

A detailed review of emails, sent from inside the AEB and obtained by the Guardian, shows that the lobbyist’s anti-Hampton Creek campaign sought to:

• Pay food bloggers as much as $2,500 a post to write online recipes and stories about the virtue of eggs that repeated the egg lobby group’s “key messages”

• Confront Andrew Zimmern, who had featured Hampton Creek on his popular Travel Channel show Bizarre Foods and praised the company in a blog post characterized by top egg board executives as a “love letter”

• Target publications including Forbes and Buzzfeed that had written broadly positive articles about a Silicon Valley darling

• Unsuccessfully tried to recruit both the animal rights and autism activist Temple Grandin and the bestselling author and blogger Ree Drummond to publicly support the egg industry ................(more)

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/06/usda-american-egg-board-paid-bloggers-hampton-creek

September 5, 2015

More Bad News for A&P Supermarket Workers as Judge OKs Assaults on Union Contracts

(In These Times) Union members at the A&P supermarket chain took a financial beating in federal court this week, as the company’s senior managers renewed their legal assault on the labor contracts covering some 25,000 employees in six mid-Atlantic states. The worst is yet to come for the low- to moderate-income grocery workers, however, as the judge in charge of the case made only limited rulings while indicating he may move more forcefully against the union as mass firings go forward.

“There is nothing to be happy about for anybody,” says Wendell Young IV, President of Local 1776 of the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union. A&P is moving steadily forward with its plan to dismiss all the unionized employees at its 300 stores, and Judge Robert Drain eased the way September 2 by agreeing to cuts in severance pay for the first wave of discarded workers. Further, he acted to undercut job protection provisions in contracts for the union members that will remain temporarily on the payroll.

But Judge Drain declined to cancel key labor contract provisions outright, as A&P executives had requested. That step remains a possibility as the A&P bankruptcy court proceedings continue, Young says, and some union leaders are expecting that in the near future.

Most severe of Judge Drain’s actions this week was to approve cuts in the severance benefits to about 2,500 workers already fired by the company. A&P executives had asked that UFCW contract provisions covering severance benefits be cancelled, and that the company be allowed to make payments representing just 25 percent of the contractual amounts. The union objected strongly to this, and Judge Drain sought a compromise, Young says, ultimately settling on 52 percent. Such cuts will fall most heavily on the more senior unionized workers at the company, who have accrued greater severance rights as they toiled year upon year for the company. ....................(more)

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18364/ap-grocery-bankruptcy-layoffs

September 5, 2015

Keiser Report: Rule 48

Published on Sep 5, 2015

In this special episode of the Keiser Report from New York, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the never seen before triple category four hurricanes heading for global financial markets caused by injection of too much hot air from central bankers.