Humping Dog Day

Welcome to Hump Day, and the so-called Dog Days of Summer, which actually started about a week ago. Seriously. The term has something to do with the rising of the Sirius dog star and its proximity to the sun during July and August, leading the ancients to believe that hot weather is caused by the wrathful gods. Not too different from the thought processes of our own contemporary climate change denialists, come to think of it.


When I was young and stupid, I thought Dog Days were called that because of the tendency of dogs to become moribund and pant a lot during warm weather. As a matter of fact, I still do think that. I also think of the rabid dog scene in "To Kill a Mockingbird", which I think is one of the best evocations of oppressive summer weather ever written (and filmed.)


Speaking of foaming at the mouth and brain pathology, Dog Days also has a Wall Street/political meaning. Common wisdom has it that August marks the economic doldrums, when the tycoons all retreat to their Hamptons estates, inertia blankets the land, and Congress wakes up from its coma just long enough to go home and collect more bribes raise money. But these too are myths. Writes Theo Francis of NPR:

August is supposedly a quiet month on Wall Street, in Washington, D.C., and for business and finance generally. Except sometimes it isn't — and it's always the run-up to September, which can be pretty eventful in itself (think 2008 and the collapse of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman Bros.)

So this week is shaping up to bring August in like a lion, with several potentially significant economic developments already on the calendar.

Two of the biggest: the potential for major Federal Reserve action on Wednesday (today), and some much-anticipated jobs numbers on Friday.

Francis certainly was prescient. The Algorithm Monster of Wall Street struck again this morning, creating so much volatility that the NYSE had to temporarily suspend the feeding frenzy. Maybe it was Cerberus, the hell dog, at the gates.

And then there's all the blog-snoring about Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's rehabilitation tour in the wake of the Libor scandal. He is suddenly pretending to be on the side of underwater homeowners through much theatrical hand-wringing over the Fannie/Freddie acting director's refusal to help people write down their mortgage debt. This is one more example of the Obama Administration policy of being "caught trying" to be on the side of regular people. Yves Smith has more on this, making the salient point that "there is enough distress in the heartlands and enough well warranted antipathy for banks that it ought to be possible to make inroads on this front. But with Obama and Geithner dyed-in-the-wool neoliberals in charge, the failure in messaging comes from the top."


Obama has never failed to mention that only "hardworking, responsible" (read solidly middle and upper-middle class) homeowners who have good credit and jobs, who weren't the greedy unqualified homebuyers of right wing mythology, and who have always been on time with payments should get help with mortgage modifications. This leaves out the unemployed, the underemployed, most minorities and single mothers, anybody who got snookered into a sub-prime loan, and just about everybody who is struggling to make ends meet. And that's just about everybody.

The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.”

-- Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting.

Going for Gold at the Austerity Olympics

In the spirit of profit-driven global fellowship with such outsourcing, tax-evading and polluting corporate sponsors as G.E. and BP, Barack Obama is taking a break from attacking his outsourcing and tax-evading fellow candidate on TV this week. Instead of hosting Mitt's off-key rendition of "America the Beautiful" with those dystopian scenes of abandoned factories, the president is relaxing in a tastefully decorated living room, soft music playing in the background. He discreetly interrupts the endless commercial of NBC tape-delayed Olympics to bring you the following very serious message:

I believe the only way to create an economy built to last is to strengthen the middle class. Asking the wealthy to pay a little more so we can pay down our debt in a balanced way. So that we can afford to invest in education, manufacturing and home-grown American energy for good middle-class jobs. Sometimes politics can seem very small. But the choice you face? It couldn't be bigger.

That, in a nutshell, is Barack Obama's agenda for a second term. The wealthy will be politely asked, but not forced, to pay a wee token smidgen more. There will be no scrapping of the FICA cap in order to make the Social Security trust fund solvent for generations to come. The "debt" (new-speak for what little of the nation's wealth is still in the hands of the underclass) will be "paid down" (transferred up) in a "balanced" way, meaning that the Grand Bargain of Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security cuts is still very much on the table. Grandma will have to go a little cold and hungry at the same time Jamie Dimon might have to give up the tax deduction on his corporate jet, at the same time "entitlement" cuts will mean he gets another raise and buys a tenth vacation home. That is what is meant by the "balanced approach" by the centrist cult of the Third Way.

In his kinder, gentler campaign ad, the president does not mention that deficits should not matter in recessions. He chooses not to tell us that borrowing costs are now so low we could actually profit by borrowing more. Profits will continue to be privatized at the very top, and the costs will go on being socialized.


And forget about legislation for a living wage to lift Americans out of poverty. The short-lived middle class jobs of the future are in fracking and deepwater drilling and construction of the tar sands pipeline -- "home-grown" energy projects tantamount to a Garden of Earthly Delights. He does not mention climate change, pollution of air and water, or the health hazards of his folksy panacea for middle class angst. He euphemizes fracking as though it were a horticultural project.


You have to give the guy credit, though. He is not lying. He is not bothering to make campaign promises he has no intention of keeping. He has been there, done that, and lived to suffer the onslaught of disappointment from the Professional Left.  He is telling us exactly what he plans to do --which is to preserve, protect and defend the interests of the One Percent. He just does it more circumspectly, classily and charmingly than that plutocratic parody named Mitt Romney. 


The choice you face? It couldn't be smaller. Pick between the personable technocrat you know, and the robotic technocrat you don't know. Take your fourth Bush Term as a main course of corporate Clintonites with a side of Wall Street transplants, and some national security Bushies for dessert. Or choose as your Bush Fourth Term entree some aged corporate Cheneyites with a side of Wall Street transplants, topped off by national security Bushies for dessert.

As Matt Stoller wrote on Naked Capitalism over the weekend, this presidential election is probably the least important contest of the past half-century. Neither Romney nor Obama is really all that into us:

As an experienced political hand told me, the two candidates are speaking not to the voters, but to the big money. They hold the same views, pursue the same policies, and are backed by similar interests. Mitt Romney implemented Obamacare in Massachusetts, or Obama implemented Romneycare nationally. Both are pro-choice or anti-choice as political needs change, both tend to be hawkish on foreign policy, both favor tax cuts for businesses, and both believe deeply in a corrupt technocratic establishment.

(snip)

It’s useful to remember, this election season, that the way the debate is framed matters. That Obama isn’t choosing to discuss in public what he will do to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and that Romney isn’t specific about it either, should show you who this election is for. But in addition, that both Bush, Clinton, and Obama (in his first term) failed at cutting Social Security means that an aroused public can stop austerity, when politicians feel their office is at risk. Clinton chose to abandon his plans to gut entitlements when facing impeachment and Bush chose to stop when his plan threatened the Republican Congress.

So, how to stop austerity this time? Despite what the mainstream media would have us believe, the Occupy Movement is not dead. Its first anniversary is less than two months away, right after the political conventions, when campaign frenzy will be in full swing. That the government is still taking desperate measures to suppress dissent should be cause for encouragement, not despair. It shows they're worried about the real anger of real people.That the United Nations, and the rest of the civilized world, are noticing that the American police state continues its crackdowns on protesters should theoretically keep the political elites on their best behavior, at least until November. Neither Obama nor Romney want a repeat of '68 Chicago at their little shindigs. And we can always dream that at least one of the debate moderators will ask them how they will protect the social safety net, demanding substance over the current empty posturing.

We are the richest nation on earth, yet the One Percent would have us become a country of serfs. The politicians give us bland promises of a fair shot and a fair shake at a fair share. What is true is that we have a fair chance of actually getting shot, thanks to the shadow government of the NRA and 300 million weapons for anyone with a pulse. Fair share is more like the big short. Shared sacrifice is a euphemism for the most blatant wealth disparity in American history. We are shaken, and we are stirred. History, as well as the laws of physics, have proven that too much weight at the top always causes the whole structure to collapse.

Keep Sept. 17th open on your calendars, and keep making them sweat even more in this climate-changed summer of our discontent. What else have we got to lose?

Weekend Open Thread, Plus Olympics

The best part of the Olympics Opening Ceremony for me was the skit on the National Health Service. Sure, it was on the bizarre side, what with the blow-up space alien baby in the cot, and the nightmare-scape, and the hopped-up kiddies and the hopped-up docs and nurses. No, it was good because it celebrated health care for all in spite of Britain's  economic hard times. The glories of Single Payer streamed into millions of American living rooms, was shoved in austere American political faces. And Mitt Romney had to sit there and watch, creepy rictus frozen on his face. I'm surprised that he didn't jump right up and try to repeal it.

Next best part: the Queen "doing" her nails as the British athletes marched by her, confetti flowing, crowds cheering. She was not amused, apparently.

Another good part -- the skit on the Industrial Revolution and the toll it took on the working classes. And Mitt had to sit there and watch it.

Yet another good part -- Britain is not really the WASP bastion of the Romney campaign's Anglo-Saxon imagination. All races and ethnicities were on full gala display last night. And Mitt had to sit there and watch it.

Worst part: NBC's coverage. It was time-delayed by four hours. Too many BMW commercials and commercials in general. Matt Lauer had to make stupid political remarks every time one of the countries we have invaded and occupied and bombed marched by. Millionaire Meredith Vieira tried to sing along with "I Can't Get No Satisfaction." And Mitt didn't have to sit there and listen to them.  

The Dark Underbelly of the Summer Olympics

The Olympic banned list: campaigners highlight the stranglehold of corporate sponsors. Photo by Brandalism

(Cross-posted from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism)

The British media is now in full Olympic mode exhorting viewers and readers ‘to get the party started’.

In full ‘bluster’ mode, Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, suggests joy at the Games’ arrival is spreading like a ‘benign virus’. Indeed, Britain has united around the unlikely figure of Mitt Romney who has attracted scorn over his criticism of London’s preparations. Clearly the would-be president failed to appreciate moaning at British incompetence is purely a privilege reserved for Britons.
With just hours until the Games get underway, it’s fair to say that Britain is quite excited by the Olympics.

But getting to this point has been a long journey – and not always a smooth one. Here are seven investigations exploring the bumpier side of the Games. Tell us about other London Olympic investigations that caught your eye.

A word from our sponsors

The Olympic flame arrives at the stadium today after a 70-day national relay that has seen 8,000 people carry the torch through towns and cities across the UK. But who were these torchbearers and how were they picked?

The Guardian joined forces with Help Me Investigate, a crowdsourced investigative journalism website, to crunch the data – and discovered some unusual choices, many of which had a distinctly corporate tint. Members of Adidas’ marketing team, £900,000-a-year senior director at Next, and mining giant ArcelorMittal’s founder Lakshmi Mittal, the world’s 21st richest man, are just some of the thousands of corporate nominations who’ve helped carry the Olympic flame to Stratford.

Olympic tax break

Ethical Consumer magazine revealed many of the 2012 official sponsors would not be paying tax on their profits from the Games thanks to an agreement between the UK’s tax authority, HMRC and the International Olympic Committee.

Campaigning network, 38 Degrees were incensed and organised an online petition. They began by targeting McDonalds’ tax affairs. Word spread and the petition soon had hundreds of thousands of signatures.

In a subsequent email to the petition’s signatories, 38 Degrees wrote: ’Moments after launching the petition calling on companies like McDonald’s to give up their Olympic tax breaks, their rattled PR team were on the phone. Minutes later [McDonalds] publicly confirmed they wouldn’t be taking up the tax dodge.’

Coca-Cola, VISA, General Electric, Adidas and EDF all soon followed. A golden moment for tax justice campaigners and an example of the power of investigative journalism on holding corporations to account.

Beyond the Olympic Park


Since 2008 Britain has spent £9.3bn pounds building gleaming Olympic facilities, many of which are concentrated in the east London borough of Newham. But a Bloomberg report yesterday examined the fate of the desperately poor borough beyond the Olympic Park’s gates, where many residents are crammed into some of England’s poorest housing. Many households have been battered by welfare cuts, and some have been found living in what have been nicknamed ‘sheds with beds’.

Adding insult to injury, with the Olympics approaching, earlier in the year Newham Council sought to move 500 families to Stoke-on-Trent, which they claimed was due to an ‘overheating’ of the rental market. The council has rebuffed claims that this represents social cleansing, and half the Olympic Village will be coverted to affordable housing after the Games are over. Yet in Newham, the chosen bar for ‘affordable’ housing may still be much too high.

The radioactive Olympic site


Two years ago, Freedom of Information requests by the Guardian unearthed evidence of radioactive waste buried beneath one of the Olympic sites in east London. Documents that revealed thorium and radium waste had previously been buried in a ‘disposal cell’ 250m north of the Olympic stadium.

Officials insist the waste poses no risk to athletes or spectators during the event. But the revelations could limit the development of the Olympic site after the Games are over, as further disruption could expose the waste.

Future plans for the site include the construction of a university and urban park land. But officials will have to carefully consider building plans, to ensure the Olympic site does not leave a toxic legacy.

Undercover inside a shambolic G4S

The failings of contracted security G4S have provided the papers with numerous stories over the past weeks. The Daily Mail recently exposed the company’s weaknesses by sending a reporter undercover to experience the organisation’s recruitment and training programme.

Ryan Kisiel posed as unemployed man seeking work as a security guard. Shocked by the ease with which he was signed up, Kisiel wrote, ‘In what is supposed to be the most secure Olympics in history, I had managed to simply waltz in and register to be one of those given the huge responsibility of helping guard it. I could have been a terrorist or a convicted criminal.’

The undercover reporter describes the administrative chaos and ‘poor calibre of candidates’ painting a worrying portrait of those who are to be responsible for the entrance security for the Olympic events.

The myth of London’s ‘ethical Olympics’

With almost 100 days to go till the opening ceremony the Independent exposed a gaping hole in organisers’ claims that the 2012 Olympics would be the most ethical ever. The paper revealed the Adidas kits worn by British athletes and Olympic volunteers were being made in Indonesian sweatshops.

The German sportswear manufacturer hoped to net £100m from selling the shoes and clothes, designed by Stella McCartney. But the mainly young, female factory employees stitching the glossy gear together were working up to 65 hours a week for less than a living wage.

None of the nine factories contracted to churn out the Olympic-branded clobber paid their employees more than the minimum demanded by the Ethical Trading Initiative. Locog adopted this internationally recognised code but none of the factory workers interviewed by the Independent had ever heard of it, let alone Locog’s complaints system.

Factory workers ‘endure verbal and physical abuse’, ‘are forced to work overtime’, and are ‘punished for not reaching production targets’, the paper reported.

The Olympic cleaners living in shipping crates

While athletes enjoy slick housing in the Olympic village, thousands of cleaners arriving in London to work at the Games are being put up in temporary cabins, the Daily Mail revealed earlier this month. There are 25 people to every toilet, and 75 to every shower, according to the report. And they are paying £18 a day – £550 a month – for the privilege of living there.

Worse still, the cabins apparently failed to withstand the constant rain of June and July, and were leaking.

When Games organisers revealed their plans for the campsite, Newham Council officials said the bathroom arrangements were ‘unlikely to be adequate’, while sleeping space was ‘cramped’.
This didn’t stop Locog from backing the scheme, or the council from approving it – reasoning that the cramped conditions were only temporary.

Do you have any more Olympic misery stories? Feel free to reveal all below. (go to website.)

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Purple Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

Happy Opening Day of the Olympics, everybody, and here's hoping for more pre-game infotainment from Mr. Gaffe-o-Matic Mitt. There is much to be disconcerted about today, so let's get right down to it.


The New York Times and Amazon, both winners in the Scrooge Sweepstakes for screwing over their employees, have teamed up in a great publicity stunt. Via an ostentatious front-page spread on the Times homepage, Billionaire Jeff Bezos has just donated a tiny fraction of his Amazonian fortune to the marriage equality initiative in Washington State. As reader Kat points out, liberal commenters at the Times are in ecstasy, and already have their wallets opened wide in gratitude because a Republican plutocrat has embraced gay rights. So what if he treats his wage slaves so abysmally that ambulances have to be on standby to rush them to the hospital when they collapse from heat exhaustion at his distribution centers? All, apparently, is now forgiven.


Trumpets and violins I hear in the distance.... Omitted from the article, but exactly coinciding with its trumpeting of the Bezos philanthropy, The Times is offering readers a $15 Amazon gift card for every friend they can get to subscribe to The Experience. (h/t Nan). Spend often, and spend liberally! Play some Jimi Hendrix, and forget all about the sweating peons packaging your goodies. Hold your breath wondering if Times employees will now see their salaries and pension benefits restored.



Go Beyond Your Measly Little World







Well.... Are You????

I Am, My Corporate Person Friends

"Since corporations are now people, I'd like to marry Amazon" (comment from a Times reader)

Bernie's Billionaires

Are you curious about the identities of the plutocrats buying the elections out from under us? Do you think it's unfair that gambling kingpin Sheldon Adelson and the polluting Koch Brothers are getting more than their share of outraged attention? Are you just a sucker for oligarchal egalitarianism?

Well, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has thoughtfully given them a fair shot at a fair share, and compiled a list of all kinds of extremely rich people and the amounts they've contributed to the SuperPacs. You'll be familiar with some of the names (for example, one of the Walton heirs made the cut), but most of them (to me at least) were complete unknowns. I am woefully behind in my Forbes 400 reading. So, I did some quick Googling and discovered that the vast majority on Bernie's List are (you guessed it) vulture capitalists and hedge fund managers. The quintessential Barbarians at the Gates, who make Mitt Romney, a mere quarter-billionaire, look like a loser.  But they all seem to be Romney donors, or at least  Republican/libertarian sugar daddies. If there's an Obama outlier lingering in the mix, I haven't found him yet. Help do the research, and let us know. Bernie left hotel heiress Penny Pritzker off the list, because there is no evidence yet that she's given any of her billions to Obama's SuperPac. She apparently was miffed about not getting a cabinet appointment last time. But since she was spotted catching a ride on Air Force One this week, she may have come back to the fold after all. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, to whet your appetites, here are a couple of profiles of the Overlords who did make the A-List:

Harold Simmons, net worth $9 billion, has donated $15.2 million to SuperPacs this year. He started out working for the federal government as a bank examiner, but soon smartened up and realized he could buy his own banks with borrowed money he essentially would never have to pay back. His current proclivities include chemicals, heavy metals and waste management. Before the Supreme Court obliged with its Citizens United ruling, Simmons got into trouble for exceeding the limit on campaign contributions. He was also charged with mail and wire fraud, but beat the rap. He got into trouble over a lead pollution case, too. He has contributed to both Rick Perry's campaign war chest and to Oprah Winfrey's charities. This behavior is typical of Bernie's Billionaires -- hedge fund managers that they are, they always hedge their bets and spread out a miniscule puddle of their ill-gotten gains to worthy causes. This is known as "greed-washing." David Koch, for example, named part of Lincoln Center after himself because he loves ballet as much as balkanization (the division of our natural resources into private little Kochdoms.)

Samuel Zell: this is the guy journalists love to hate, given his hostile takeover of newspapers (LA Times and Chicago Tribune). He's been implicated in the Rod Blagojevich corruption scandal, supposedly pressured by the former governor to fire Chicago Tribune staffers critical of him, in exchange for tax breaks related to Zell's purchase of Wrigley Field. But that investigation went nowhere, through lack of trying evidence. Zell is worth almost $5 billion, but has only given $270,000 to SuperPacs this year. While Sam has always leaned right in his giving, his wife was an early donor to Barack Obama and gives almost exclusively to Democrats.

All in all, Bernie's Billionaires have a combined net worth exceeding the total wealth of the bottom 43% of all Americans combined. And the millions, maybe soon to be billions of their SuperPac contributions are only what has been reported. When it comes to donating to the shady "non-profit" grassroots organizations fronting even more political war chests, there is no disclosure required. Congress saw to that just the other week, when the Disclose Act was defeated.

Democrats Vindicated by More Uninsured People

The Congressional Budget Office now estimates that three million more people than first projected will either remain, or become, uninsured under the Affordable Care Act when it goes into effect in 2014. Since mainly red states have signalled they will reject federal expansion of Medicaid in their locales, the government will save a bundle of money and the deficit will be reduced. Out of 50 million currently uninsured people, less than two-thirds will now benefit from Obamacare. And since employers are dropping expensive coverage, and people are still losing jobs, look for that number to keep dwindling. The CBO forecasts an additional 4,000 people, or 7,000 additional people will be uncovered by the end of the decade.

And the Democratic Senate Majority Leader is calling this a good thing? Well, yeah, because now Obama can brag about his austerity cred when Republicans call him a tax-and-spend socialist. The hell with sick and dying people when the Oval Office tenancy is at stake. From the AP report:

Thirty million uninsured people will be covered by 2022, or about 3 million fewer than projected this spring before the court ruling, the (CBO) report said.

As a result, taxpayers will save about $84 billion from 2012 to 2022. That brings the total cost of expanding coverage down to $1.2 trillion, from about $1.3 trillion in the previous estimate.

Democrats immediately hailed the findings as vindication for the president. “This confirms what we’ve been saying all along: the Affordable Care Act saves lots of money,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Not one sympathetic word, though, about the new three million, on top of the 20 million already thrown under the bus by the ACA. Reid was mum on the actual victims of this fantastic pennysaver, most of whom unfortunately reside in bastions governed by the GOP (Greedy Obdurate Plutocrats.) This is just more evidence that the Democrats, too, are full-bore austerians, just slightly more discreet than their GOP brethren on the other side of the corrupt duopoly.

Of course, reducing the number of people on Medicaid may eventually steer them into federal exchanges and profiteering private insurance, essentially increasing the final per-person costs to the government. But nobody's talking about that faraway eventuality, because it won't dawn on us until after the election. All anybody's talking about is how Obama has gotten more ammunition to hit back hard against Romney. Score one for the blue team in the Battle of the Deficit Hawks. Great refereeing, too, by the Supreme Court with their new Medicaid opt-out call.

Twenty-seven million abandoned souls, and counting. Three people still dying every single hour for lack of medical care.

It would be pathetic, if it weren't such an egregious case of political malpractice, bordering on felonious assault.