This should drive the stock market through the roof!

From here:

…unemployment is nowhere close to getting back to normal. The current level of claims is typically associated with a level of unemployment about 4 million workers lower than it currently is, or an unemployment rate of about 5 percent, instead of 7.5 percent.

That suggests that employers aren’t firing people any more. But, they’re not hiring people, either, according to Tuesday’s JOLTS data.

“There are no positive trends here for the job picture,” independent economist Robert Brusca wrote in a note.

Shitty job prospects, lower wages, more human misery, corporate profits higher, go stock market!!!

After all the horseshit and lies, it’s the spooks in Benghazi

From CNN here:

About 30 people were evacuated from Benghazi the morning after the deadly attack last September 11; more than 20 of them were CIA employees.

Clearly the larger mission in Benghazi was covert.

The CIA had two objectives in Libya: countering the terrorist threat that emerged as extremists poured into the unstable country, and helping to secure the flood of weapons after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi that could have easily been funneled to terrorists.

And look at all the European democracies selling weapons to Gadhafi here.

Maybe western arms manufacturers shouldn’t be selling weapons to dictators as it appears to get extremely messy when the common folk finally overthrow their oppressor.

I guess it’s easier to wail on Hilary Clinton than it would be to stop profitable businesses.

I’m jealous I didn’t write this

From here via Naked Capitalism:

Now really, isn’t this the very heart and soul of liberalism? Leave all the core institutions of the society alone — including that most ancient and hallowed of institutions, poor people — but think, think very hard, about clever ways to improve the lot of those… poor… people. Everything is on the table. Sky’s the limit. Think. Think! Think outside the box!

Except the one unthinkable idea: abolish the poor. Which is to say, give ‘em money.

Bullseye!

And it encapsulates the rapidly deteriorating Obama Presidency.

What are we going to do about health care?  I know, let’s keep the corrupt for profit health insurance companies and dick with the system around the edges!  Awesome, that’s great, we’re great!

What are we going to do about predatory banking and shitty risk management on Wall Street?  First off, let’s not break any banks up.  Let’s keep those messes intact and dick around the edges.

And on and on it goes.

I wish Uncle Sam had said the same thing to AIG….

From here:

Robert Benmosche, the chief executive officer of insurer American International Group Inc. (AIG), has some tough love for college students graduating in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

“You have to accept the hand that’s been dealt you in life,” Benmosche said in an interview today with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television. “Don’t cry about it. Deal with it.”

Most normal folks have no clue that  Benmosche’s company played a huge role in the real estate bubble and its aftermath.

And they screwed up so badly they needed $180 billion of taxpayer to stay afloat.

I wish Uncle Sam had told them to suck it up and deal with it when they were down in the hole, and I absolutely have no patience to hear one of the financial assholes who has a hotline to the U.S. Treasury lecture me about suckin’ it up.

The balls on the ruling class douchebags are tremendous and they are delusional.

Delusional balls.

A fantastic nugget of pro-corporate sociopath propaganda

From here:

Recently, Glencore Xstrata PC CEO Ivan Glasenberg argued that executives who start to focus on family and hobbies will find themselves undercut and replaced by ones who don’t.

It’s easy to dismiss these attitudes as outdated, macho, and unreasonable. But it’s possible that people seeking work-life balance are just avoiding finding a way to work extremely hard and be very happy about it.

Marty Nemko, a career coach, author, columnist, and radio host, argues that the most successful and contented people prefer a heavily work-centric life over work-life balance.

“The real winners of the world, the people that are the most productive, think that this notion of work-life balance is grossly overrated,” Nemko told Business Insider. “Most of the highly successful and not-burned out people I know work single-mindendly towards a goal they think is important, whether it’s developing a new piece of software, inventing something, or a cardiologist who’s seeing patients on nights and weekends instead of playing Monopoly with his kids on the weekend.”

The real winners of the world are, in my opinion, the ones most responsible for ruining the world and making it the toilet that it is.  I know this would come as a shock to these folks who think they are improving my life, but I don’t see it that way.

 

 

 

Damn you, LFPR

From here:

The 7.5% US unemployment rate, at its lowest level since 2008, seems to be telling a story of slow-but-steady recovery after the Great Recession and Financial Crisis.

Unfortunately, the bulk of evidence suggests the “real” jobless rate is far higher. As the U-3 rate has fallen, so has the labor force participation rate, or LFPR. If the LFPR were at the same level as when the downturn began, the unemployment rate would be a stunning 11.3%.

This is America, we don’t need to discuss no stinkin’ real jobless rate.

Especially if it blows.

Because we’re the best, we’re #1, even if we’re not.

 

 

Oh man, chicken and chlorine sounds great!

From here:

As the US chicken industry has sped up kill lines in recent years, it has resorted to heavier use of chlorine-based washes to “decrease microbial loads on carcasses,” The Washington Post recently reported, quoting a previously unreleased USDA document. As I’ve noted, the USDA is preparing to release new rules that would speed up kill lines still more as well as allow companies to douse every carcasses that comes down the line with antimicrobial sprays, “whether they are contaminated or not.”

This is a variation of that saying ‘a chicken in every pot’.

Some chlorine on every chicken!  What could be better?  If you eat the chicken in your swimming pool you won’t have to chlorinate your pool.

Talk about capitalist efficiency.

 

No Mickey Mouse logos on a slave shirt!

From here:

A day after the Walt Disney Company disclosed that it was ending apparel production in Bangladesh, that country’s garment manufacturers expressed alarm that other Western corporations might follow Disney’s lead.

They don’t give a shit about Bangladeshi garment workers.  If they were, they would have made sure there was certification of that building.

The Mouse is just tending to his reputation.  Mickey Mouse can’t be seen with bloody hands, he’s a wholesome dude.

The great jobs frame job

From here:

The Labor Department reports that 165,000 new jobs were created in April – below the average gains of 183,000 in the previous three months.

We can’t achieve escape velocity. Since mid-2010, the three-month rolling average of job gains hasn’t dipped below 100,000 but has exceeded 250,000 jobs just twice.

Only in America can you have decelerating employment met with stock market highs.  Oh, us Americans won’t let a little thing like reality upset the great stock ponzi.

I do understand.  With Friday’s report, it’s clear that the American economy is more of a leaky sack of shit rather than a full on shitshow.

Most people would prefer a leaky sack of shit over a complete shitshow so I get why the stock ponzi is doin’ its thing.

Oy.

 

Do you think Bangladeshi working conditions are unknown by Western companies?

From here:

The European Union, Bangladesh’s largest trade partner, said Tuesday that it was considering trade action against Bangladesh. U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said businesses that operated in the collapsed building “appear to have links to numerous companies in the U.S. and Europe.” He added they would work with U.S. companies on “improving working conditions, including in Bangladesh.”

C’mon, let’s be adults just once and have an intelligent conversation.

A giant American or British corporation does accounting all day long.  Do you think they sit around a conference table, see that labor costs for a shirt in Bangladesh are 22 cents per shirt and think the workers are doing well for themselves?

They know exactly how it’s going down, and they are faking their shock at these working conditions and building collapses.

If the building the shirts are manufactured in has proper fire escapes, a sprinker system, the right number of exits, fans for the workers, breaks and a reasonable work schedule, then the per shirt labor cost would be higher than 22 cents per shirt.