Hidden reef behind Great Barrier Reef EarthSky (furzy)
A Definitive Ranking of US Presidents from Lamest to Coolest Vice. This is worth clicking on the for the photo of Bill Clinton playing sax with Dan Ackroyd at the 2002 opening of the Mohegan Sun casino. Its there anything the Clintons won’t do for money?
Memory and attention are affected by much lower levels of dehydration than previously thought The Conversation
Luddites v Self-Driving Cars and Homelessness Counterpunch
The EU Case Against Apple’s Irish Tax Deal Forbes
Fast Fashion Is Creating An Environmental Crisis Newsweek
Phyllis Schlafly, Conservative Leader and Foe of E.R.A., Dies at 92 NYT
Class Watch
Happy Labor Day! There Has Never Been a Working Class Without Strong Unions The Intercept
Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age: There Are No Short Cuts AlterNet
Welcome, Robot Overlords. Please Don’t Fire Us? Mother Jones
No need for sushi chefs to toil on the long weekend, robots will do it Treehugger
Duterte regrets Obama insult after bilateral meeting cancelled FT
New Multilateralism for Maritime Southeast Asia: More Value Per Carat War on the Rocks
Imperial Collapse Watch
Native Americans Protesting Pipeline Attacked By “Goon Squad” Using Dogs And Pepper Spray Jonathanturley.org (Chuck L)
Obama Says Colin Kaepernick Is ‘Exercising His Constitutional Right’ NYT
Liberal Academics are ‘Open’ but Are They Truly Tolerant? The Wire
In Kashmir, Doctors Bear Witness The Wire
Inside the world of India’s booming fertility industry Al Jazeera
Syraqistan
Why Is the US Aligned With Saudi Arabia? Truthout
Afghanistan: Pamlarena siege ends in Kabul Al Jazeera
Decisive Military Defections in Syria: A Case of Wishful Thinking War on the Rocks
There may be tech trouble ahead Politico
Behind the 1MDB Scandal: Banks That Missed Clues and Bowed to Pressure WSJ
Europe’s banks turning Japanese, analysts warn FT
Close the Wall Street CEO Bonus Loophole Truthout
Refugee Crisis
Brexit
Quarter of Brits considered leaving UK since Brexit vote: poll Politico
Europe’s Left After Brexit Jacobin. Yanis Varoufakis responds to his critics.
U.K. makes pitch for new post-Brexit trade deals at G-20 Marketwatch
British lawmakers debate petition demanding second Brexit referendum Reuters
Universal basic income ‘not a credible’ idea, says Labour leadership contender Owen Smith Independent
Violent crimes against women in England and Wales reach record high Guardian
Despite Peace Surge efforts, 13 fatally shot over Labor Day weekend Chicago Tribune
Drug Linked to Ohio Overdoses Can Kill in Doses Smaller than a Snowflake NYT
Heroin And One Failing Senate Campaign May Keep Mitch McConnell In Power Huffpo. See our Credentialism and Corruption: The Opioid Epidemic and “the Looting Professional Class” for further context and analysis.
2016
Clinton amid coughing fit: ‘I’m allergic to Trump’ The Hill
Without conservative Supreme Court majority, voter-law challengers make gains WaPo
The Many Paradoxes of the Front-Runner, Hillary Clinton WSJ
Hillary Clinton’s feminism: a conversation with Rebecca Traister Vox
Despite What Trump Tweets, FiveThirtyEight Isn’t A Pollster FiveThirtyEight
Inside Bill Clinton’s nearly $18 million job as ‘honorary chancellor’ of a for-profit college WaPo. Remind me again what’s so uniquely awful about Trump University?
Many have noted how few HRC yard signs or bumperstickers they've seen, even in liberal strongholds. It's an imprecise, anecdotal metric, but
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) 5 September 2016
Antidote du jour:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du jour here.
257 comments
Comments are closed.
not sure what bird that is, but it’s interesting.
Why don’t its knees line up?
Perspective. It is not facing the camera squarely. The entire left side is slightly further back.
It’s politics, the left side is further back…
I’m going with Crane.
On the knees, probably photographic perspective. If not he walks w/a cane.
https://www.savingcranes.org/
https://www.savingcranes.org/
Cool birds, this is a neat place for anyone interested in a fall roadtrip.When you look them in their glowing eyes, you can see they are definitely not too far removed from their dinosaur kin
Yes,
I often think our herons are simply feathered and winged snakes.
Snake and Heron Arts of Shaolin
Herons are cool.. Your lucky if you have them in your ‘hood.
The night herons are the best. Look a little like penguins, hang out with other night herons, and show a lot of cojones when up against the great blues at the good fishing spots – the great blues are too slow so the night herons are free to pester away.
See the Smithsonian night heron mystery….
Lots of great blue herons here, and white egrets to boot (which I suspect are a type of crane – not sure). I remember when the egrets first appeared in the Willamette Valley; yet another bonus on getting rid of DDT, I suspect, like the pelicans.
In the winter, the herons often hunt in the fields – for mice or voles, I assume.
True that re. birds to dinosaurs …
I look at my chickens …… thinking just who would be considered the lessor. if they were, say, 10′ or 15′ high ! ……. who would be running from whom ??
Ha! no kidding .. Screenplay material for a low budget drive in movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfHQ8PpIWFM&app=desktop
Food of the Gods (1976) – Man attacked by Giant Chicken
Ross Williams
Hilarious Clip from the terrible 70’s film Food of the Gods, apparently based on an H.G. Wells story. Our Hero gets attacked by a giant chicken.
There has to be a political / economic metaphor in this….
Dont skimp on the breadcrumbs Polecat
Our hens are accustomed to quite a variety of dining options …. so I am consoled to know that should I drop due to an affliction of, say, a stroke, in the chicken yard ……. they’ll go for the ‘soft’ parts first …. pecking and scratching until I’m dis-incorporated into compost :/
hey … it beats being shoved into a coffin …. or incineration !
Polecat,
Wear lab goggles if you ever take the occasional afternoon nap in your yard.
‘Protecting those ‘Jujubes’ at all costs !!!’
I’m more inclined to wear eye protection when I’m opening one of the bee hives to inspect or feed ……
But what kind of Crane?
Common crane, Grus grus, also known as the Eurasian crane.
Sandhill crane, Grus canadensis.
Whooping crane, Grus americana.
Sarus crane, Grus antigone.
Brolga, Grus rubicunda.
Siberian crane, Grus leucogeranus.
White-naped crane, Grus vipio.
Hooded crane, Grus monacha.
It’s a Brolga (Grus rubicunda).
J-LS wins a Chicken Dinner for two!..
https://www.savingcranes.org/species-field-guide/brolga/
Crane meat – yummy?
Taste like Chicken!
Actually , I like Cranes in a non-culinary sense..
Looks like a juvenile sandhill crane. We see a fair number of them out here. The adults are mostly brown, and blend into the the farm fields where they seem to like to hang out, except for the red stripe across the head.
Or – after reading below – perhaps not!
Re: birds knees
It’s knees don’t ‘line up’ in the photo because birds knees bend the opposite of ours (yes, backward) and it appears it’s left leg is a little further back than it’s right, and bent. The ‘depth of field’ in the photo, since its left leg is further back, then makes it appear that knee is lower.
I love the cranes. Huge birds that weigh very little, being mostly legs and wings, with birds having hollow bones. (Example: A Great Blue Heron stands 4′ tall or more, yet weighs only 4.5–5.5 lbs)
I wasn’t familiar with the Brolga Crane before now.
Apparently, they’re a much stockier bird than my local Great Blue Herons.
Cool photo, but I wish it showed its feet. Most cranes have HUGE feet, which appear quite comical compared to their slender bodies.
I also wish it showed its feet. The lack of feet is my only quibble with the photo.
The bird is a typical left winger;-)
looks like Mitch McConnell on a good day
I believe it’s a brolga.
From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brolga
thanks!
Yes.
http://www.vulkaner.no/n/birds/cranes/gruidae.html
Yes, I was pretty sure of my ID (partly b/c the photo was labelled). But I’ve not birded extensively in Australia and this is a bird I’ve never seen– so best to hedge one’s bets somewhat.
I always hedge my bets when birding, but especially in the fall.
Clinton 36,000!!! With endorsements like this, victory is assured.
Save the Republican Party: Vote for Clinton, by James K. Glassman
As Dow 36,000 proved, for Glassman and Kevin Hassett, no math is simple.
For those Democrats and Independents wanting to make the Republican Party go away: Vote Trump???
It’s a matter of simple logic.
Macri gets gold star, pat on head from Obama:
In case you were wondering what “the correct measures” are, in the nine months since Macri took office, over 300,000 jobs have been shed, real wages have decreased by 13%, utilities have been hiked 400% or more, and poverty has skyrocketed.
Meanwhile, Macri, a vocal critic of what he terms as human rights abuses in Venezuela, also held close talks with Egyptian “President” al-Sisi, discussing how to crack down on what they termed “radicalised terrorist messages on social networks”. Once again, “the correct measures”.
>The US president said that economies grow better when everyone participates in their growth, and called on the world leaders to take measures to prevent new “protectionist or populist” recipes from gaining space.
I read that a couple of times, not making sense of it at all and no matter what you say about Obama you cannot convince me he isn’t a very smart guy. I finally figured it out, I’m the problem.
You see when I read it, I read “everyone” as “individuals within the nation in question. Isn’t that the focus of a “populist” leader, so how could that have the opposite effect? Then I read it as “individuals” in general, the world over. Still didn’t get me there, why wouldn’t every country attending first to its own needs accomplish that best? Isn’t that the entire rationale of capitalism itself?
But I finally realized that “everyone” was “multi-national corporations”, not people in the general sense at all, and then it started to come together. So in his mind, “populist” refers to “people” and that is the opposite of the group that he classifies as “everyone”.
If he had just said “everyone important” I would have got it right off. :)
The Latin American “populist” governments Obama and the US press deride were characterised by reversing an age-old trend here. For centuries, most people were excluded from the economy. No formal employment, no health care, no education…. Instead, the model served to ship primary resources to the industrialised world (protecting “our resources” according to liberal George Keenan), to the benefit of foreign purchasers and a small group of domestic oligarchs.
With Cartes, Macri, Temer and the rest of the resurgent right in LatAm that Obama is praising, all of the “unimportant” people brought into the economy under those evil “populist” presidents are being returned to their previous exclusion. Cut social programmes, eliminate export taxes, open markets to foreign imports, deregulate finance… these are the correct policies for the important people.
Your hermeneutic skill is to be commended, a different chris. May you live long interpreting the sayings of the Managerial Priests.
Yep. Obama claiming he knows “correct” measures. I just watched a video report at La Stampa, which quotes Obama as saying that the Europeans have to stop austerity measures. Is it because he has been so successful with looting measures? The mind boggles. And this is supposedly his advice at the G20.
Meanwhile, the article on Lamest to Coolest president, which not-so-coincidentally finds Obama the coolest, is worthy of ridicule.
Obama reminds me more and more of Shrub, a classic middle manager where he repeats the last thing he heard based on the relevant brown noser. It’s best to not look for cohesive thought.
BBC ran a report on just how decisive Obama was in the Brexit vote, at a key moment voters were enraged that an American president could helicopter in and tell them how to vote. For him to say Britain “would go to the back of the queue” when Britain had showed their unerring fealty to America including blood and treasure for her wars was outrageous.
So he’s the Vandelay Industries president, whatever he says we should be doing the exact opposite. Quite a pathetic figure at the end of his 8 years really, doubled the debt, sh*t the bed on health care, and his “foreign policy” is in absolute tatters on all sides. Hell he couldn’t even get our key “pivot to Asia” partner The Philippines to lick the jackboot.
And you want to be my next President …
I think he says he is anti-austerity because it’s now cool to be anti-austerity, but if you ask him he is still pro-deficit cutting, pro-grand bargain, pro-labour ‘flexibilisation’… Neoliberalism, and Obama in particular, always look for a way to polish and repackage the turd.
Half asleep, I listened to O’s press conference on Sunday. I could tell he didn’t have his prepared text nor a teleprompter. He came off like Bush, struggling to make any sense and showing no knowledge of the subject.
Obama endorsements often predict electoral defeat, as seen in his ‘no’ to brexit endorsement.
That’s quite a list of countries he has there.
I wonder if he has the same magic touch when it comes to stock endorsements.
Maybe this is one chance for a ten-bagger.
[post went to spam file]
http://www.indec.mecon.ar/
Which post? IF you have a point, why not make an honest effort to make it? Otherwise, it just seems like a drive-by micro-tantrum, cause you can’t refute RG’s comment.
Also I would be very much interested in the austrian perspective on human rights.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=17170
Yes, Obama, everything’s great in India….don’t mind the 150 million people on strike. That number sounds scarcely believable, but if it’s even half that big, it’s still monstrously huge.
Re: The EU Case Against Apple’s Irish Tax Deal
This is the best layperson explanation I’ve read so far. And pithy.
I think the comment Yves made the other day is missing.
If Apple has to pay 13B$ to Ireland (or whatever entity willing to take the money, Ireland also has appealed against the decision), they can recover that amount from the IRS, so it would be mostly the American taxpayer that pays for the amoral behavior of Apple.
Re: getting a credit from IRS, you only get a tax credit in the U.S. if the subject income is potentially taxed twice. I do not believe that to be the case (the press has reported many times about amnesty programs to get corporations like Apple to repatriate their foreign earnings). Do you have some source that says otherwise?
I’m not a tax lawyer and I’m not sure about that. I imagine Yves double-checked it — probably they could deduct it from their US taxes as a foreign tax payment so it’s all a wash. IMO Apple’s real need here is to preserve their “right” to negotiate comfort letters with tax authorities in the EU. And I think they were acting as a representative for their entire industry in that.
The Apple scam is a common practice of multi-national companies in today’s guilded age. A subsidiary corporation is set up in a low or zero tax country and intangible property is transferred to it (a non-taxable event). In the case of Apple the intangible property consists of their “intellectual property”. Apple then pays itself for the use of that intellectual property and deducts it from their U.S. or worldwide income while it is simultaneously income to the corporation in Ireland, let’s say. This is precisely how the article describes the scenario. In addition, the article states that the EU believes that the income is NOT taxed by the U.S. (WADR duh!) As I said above, tax credits are generally only available on income which is potentially taxed in more than one jurisdiction and, unless the facts are misstated in the article, that is not the case here. I am also not a tax lawyer but I am a retired CPA who, admittedly has been retired for many years, so I could be wrong. I certainly meant no disrespect to Yves. One more thing, the scam I refer to was completely illegal until well into my career in public accounting. Like many other things, it was brought about by corporate sponsors and shrewd lobbyists for the benefit of us regular folks.
When the transfer was made how was the property valued and what consideration was exchanged? The answer would probably offer some insight into whether this war a transparent tax avoidance scheme with no economic rationale or …… well something else.
Doesn’t matter. This is now legal. These corporations make up values and cash flows that are supported by “experts” and no one bothers to look too closely. It is an accounting fiction that was illegal for most of my career. That is what all the stink is about. Corporations are sitting on billions of dollars that they can’t bring into the U.S. without paying tax. This type of tax avoidance is a two edged sword. That’s why you hear from time to time politicians will mumble something about an amnesty on the tax if the money is brought back into the US and used to stimulate our economy. They’re probably working on a plan now where the corporations pay dividends to the 1% to stimulate the economy (sarc.)
I used to work for Microsoft in California and when I sold a boatload of Windows licenses to a California company we had to buy the Windows IP from the Irish subsidiary at full retail price. This bezzle is oh-so-easy and wonderfully legal in an age where politics and the world’s oldest profession are conflated into one tidy little livelihood for 535 people.
Shareholder value.
Wait, so you’ve transferred all of the IP to a foreign firm? You might think that would affect the share price.
Efficiency
It`s only a transfer for TAX purposes. Think two sets of books. It stimulates the economy by making more work for accountants
The true tragedy is that the cost of the accounting for the tax-avoidance scheme will often exceed the tax one would have paid, if one had never bothered with the complexity
If Apple has to pay 13B$ to Ireland (or whatever entity willing to take the money, Ireland also has appealed against the decision), they can recover that amount from the IRS
Not necessarily. The Foreign Tax Credit scheme is extremely complex and even more so when multiple foreign jurisdictions are involved (as would be the case with Apple). The actual amount that Apple could claim as a credit (or elect to take as a deduction) depends on many factors and would require a lengthy analysis.
There also may be doubt as to the availability of the Foreign Tax Credit for any part of the $13 billion payment. The FTC is only available for income tax paid, or tax paid in lieu of an income tax. The $13 billion payment ordered I believe is a penalty, based on a “made up number” according to Tim Cook, for the failure to pay a sufficient amount of income tax.
Yes, on one hand it appears one could argue that its a tax paid in lieu of an income tax, but perhaps Margarethe Vestager & Co. structured it this way so as to prevent Apple from being able to claim any kind of Foreign Tax Credit.
Any suggestions for how to access it? Nothing on Forbes is coming up–not even a paywall notice.
Are there key paragraphs you can quote?
@TheCatSaid you need to turn off ad blocking to get to Forbes deep links.
1) Thank you Bugs Bunny!
2) Take care; the article was a decent introduction but misleading as it left out quite a lot, and avoided ongoing ambiguities and undecided legal issues:
–There are two Irish-registered companies involved, one of which is offshore. A reasonable introduction to the “double Irish arrangement” is available on Wikipedia, which also lists the multinationals using this strategy.
–Part of the secret arrangements involved an agreement that most of the European sales revenue would be
magically transformed intoconsidered to be royalties (which means it’s not taxable thanks to Ireland’s Research & Development tax credits)–There is an ongoing lawsuit involving Spanish companies (going back long before Apple’s secret arrangement) testing whether or not such arrangements are truly benefitting certain companies in an illegal, unfair “selective” way–this issues isn’t yet decided. See Apple, Ireland and the Spanish connection.
–Perversely, if Apple ever does pay some tax to Ireland, this will mean that Apple can come to the IRS looking for a refund, since taxes it pays in foreign countries reduce its USA tax obligations. So USA taxpayers could be affected.
–Ireland’s tax law says that if a company has been truthful on its tax returns, then the maximum time period for which back tax can be reclaimed is only 4 years (so most of that €13 Billion might be out of reach)
As grotesque as the whole scenario is, there are a number of things yet to be worked out by the courts. Within Ireland it is causing political ructions, as the government appears to some to be wanting to protect foreign multinationals rather than its own citizens. It is causing uncertainty for the semi-state body tasked with attracting foreign companies (Irish Development Authority).
It’s these foreign multinationals that have given Ireland its miraculous (and fictional) GDP figures. Ireland’s “revenues” from foreign multinationals are useless for the country as the money just flows through, sort of like a bad case of diarrhea. Which is probably why it’s still such an appealing location.
Politico article on EU Tech, Oh boy.
Technocrats deciding how the EU will control e-commerce.
Tech companies looking for the value gap, ie… We may, or may not, have figured out how to monetize this for more rent.
What could possibly go wrong.
Wonder how Hillary’s Parkinson’s …. err allergies …. react to this: Trump Regains Lead in Poll http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-06/trumps-regains-national-lead-over-hillary-latest-cnn-poll
Ah, poor Owen Smith. Is he still trying his hand at a hopeless campaign? Funny how faux socialists always reveal themselves the moment you even suggest some form of wealth redistribution.
He mumbled something about the arithmetic.
What arithmetic? The one that says infinity is not enough to cover some finite amount?
So Krugman (refuse to link) was touting the high marks “Charity Watch” gave the Clinton Foundation and yet the talk here was how “Charity Navigator” could not even score them. Curious if anyone here is knowledgable about the background info / reputations of either organization.
I think that Charity Navigator recently gave them a high rating:
Charity watchdog gives Clinton Foundation the highest possible rating
The article does indicate that there is some overlap between Charity Navigator and the Foundation. Also, as I think has been discussed elsewhere, these groups don’t really have the resources to rate the effectiveness of charities. Rather, their ratings are based on tax filings, which will weed out the blatant scammers.
The saga with Charity Navigator is even stranger. First they were rated poorly, then they were watch listed (meaning be wary of), then, after the Clinton Foundation complained, they were simply removed as “not ratable” due to an “unusual business model,” and now suddenly get top marks.
Amy Sterling Casil looks at Charity Navigator here.
They recently changed leadership — a former Microsoft CTO for Public Sector is the new head. Coincidentally, that’s when they reversed position on the Foundation. They are also a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.
Alt spelling: Clinton Global Iniquity ;-)
Thanks for the link. I especially enjoyed the original post At Philanthropy.com regarding Ken Berger’s abrupt departure from Charity Navigator in April 2015. Their reason for kicking him to the curb???
“…We’re on the brink of something really big with Charity Navigator 3.0, and the tech needs are going to be enormous and the sophistication needs to be there.”
Credential-ese horse-sh*t anyone?
And consider HOW near impossible it is to get any kind of charity rating on most small charities that exist. These charity raters don’t rate them as they are too small (they are busy rating the Red Cross or something) and yet they make up a large percentage of charity groups (don’t know about dollars though). But hey the Clinton foundation gets it’s rating.
I do get frustrated because we never ever consider the real questions in our society.
Why should we have private schools that take public money?
Why should we be fighting endless wars in the ME?
Why should we use American Taxpayer Dollars to establish military bases in places like Germany, the UK, and Japan? (Can’t they afford their own?)
And why should there even be a Clinton Foundation? What is its purpose? I am pretty sure that if Bill had wanted to do some charity work (like Jimmy Carter) organizations would have welcomed his help.
Instead we have this entity that is a behemoth of subject to endless criticisms.
When I think of them, I think of Thomas Frank and his excerpt on the Clintons and microfinance: it scared me that people can be so contemptuous of others.
http://harpers.org/blog/2016/02/nor-a-lender-be/
So, the question is what is the purpose of the Clinton Foundation?
I concur. And add: in what form will the Clinton Foundation continue to exist if HRC is elected?
One expects that, like many civilian federal agencies, the Clinton Foundation will lay in an ample stock of automatic weapons, ammo and armored personnel carriers.
What is the purpose of the Clinton Foundation? It is a legal tax scam that lives on because of the wealth of those who engage in it. In theory it provides more good than it costs. In reality it is way to divert untaxed funds to enhance the lives of donors and their chums. It is one of those things that is too good to be true but is. This is not partisanship or cynicism speaking, these are the words of a CPA first licensed in 1974.
Who can resist a former president who wants to meet with you to discuss an ambitious charitable project?
It is the perfect calling card and door opener, anywhere on earth. Essentially it’s Bill’s pick-up artistry, applied to wealth rather than women.
Well said. And the beauty of it is that there is mounting evidence that the “charitable projects” are for-profit companies run by cronies. That is to say, what is left of the donations once in-house staff and other cronies providing “administrative” services are compensated for their fine works and expenses. What’s not to like? I believe that James Comey is presently coordinating an investigation with Loretta Lynch as we speak. Like I said: Too good to be true but actually is.
Profitable for me and staff members.
Not-profitable for you and the society.
You’ve seen one, you’ve seen many.
Another way to look at it in general – there are 3 possible outcomes:
A. Positive profit – you’re ‘smart.’
B. Zero profit – something fishy here?
C. Negative profit – you’re either stupid or incompetent (or bad luck).
D. Dirty money is starched, laundered and sprayed with a special fragrance.
You left one out.
Thanks everyone, all of your responses confirm my own reading and feelings.
I do tire so of politics. It’s a good thing I am old now. (Feel kind of sorry for my kids though)
Maybe someday we will actually start to run this society to benefit all of the people: not just “THEM.” (And US is getting damned sick of paying and paying for them to do the things that they do.)
Ran into a little fact the other day (I am a retired public school teacher) the DeVos Family (AMWAY) is spending 25K a day to smash public education in Michigan.
They are succeeding. I believe we are now rated something like 43rd.
I just wish. . . .
Oh well, this is probably my last presidential election anyway.
Thanks for that link to Thomas Frank’s Harpers article about the Clinton Foundation event and micro-finance. He pulls things together very well.
The purpose of the Clinton Foundation is in their Form 990 — it was to build and endow the Clinton Library.
Per Ted Rall:
The Clintons extract millions of dollars in travel expenditures, including luxurious airplane accommodations and hotel suites, from their purported do-gooder outfit. They exploit the foundation as a patronage mill, arranging for it to hire their loyalists at extravagant six-figure salaries.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_ted_rall/at_the_clinton_foundation_access_equals_corruption
The clinton foundation also serves the handy function of receiving the “charitable donations” the clintons deduct from their taxable income, thereby reducing the “income” taxes they pay. They “donated” roughly 10% according to the latest release.
They are quite the “tithers.”
In short, the clinton foundation exists to serve the most deserving, neediest charity the clintons can think of–themselves. I think most would agree, their generosity is positively heart-warming.
I believe Hillary’s spooky, grifter daughter pulls down $900,000 p.a. to head the “charity”. That is, of course, just the cash and strategically leveled below 7 figures to avoid any semblance of unseemliness. Pile on the perks and I’ll bet it’s a real value north of millions. Wonder how much reaches the poor in Haiti..?
oh, no unseemliness here, at all. LOL. A pity her hubby burned his hedge fund down.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2313602/Inside-Chelsea-Clintons-10m-luxury-fortress-stretches-entire-New-York-City-block–time-doorman-just-units.html
Actually, she takes no salary according to the CF, the $900,000.00 viral email string was debunked long ago (part of that $900,000.00 quote was based on her gawd-awful $600,000.00 salary for part-time work at NBC) I don’t have the link handy, but Vanity Fair did a big article on this awhile ago and it’s easily searchable and looks pretty legitimate to me (the article cuts no slack with the CF itself)
But it never hurts to keep looking at all the ethical issues that the Clinton’s are so famous for skirting… unless you believe in Krugman’s latest “brave” statement:
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/06/the-unrelenting-pundit-led-effort-to-delegitimize-all-negative-reporting-about-hillary-clinton/
I thought we knew all these answers same as we know what foods will make us sick and why our sports teams suck.
We have public schools which take private money because these schools educate our elite and so do a service for our elites, and thereby us.
We fight endless wars in the middle east because it is in the interests of our elites. Several interest groups in the US benefit from cheap hydrocarbons. They are influential.
All empires need bases to project power and to control local populations. Isn’t that why these bases were established originally? To some degree the bases are superfluous now. But to some degree they still serve a purpose. Otherwise the recently built network of bases around Africa would not have been built.
The Clinton foundation exists to promote important causes in a way which is perfectly compatible with the interests of the Clinton family. It is a vehicle with the valuable advantage of providing well paid employment to suitable applicants at the family’s absolute discretion. Why would the family permit anything else? How would you prove malfeasance?
It’s not that we don’t know the questions or even the answers. Its more that we don’t really have any power to do anything about it.
Harry,
Yes.
I knew that.
But publically (at least in the press) these things are not discussed.
““Charity Navigator is a leading and respected organization that evaluates and rates charities so donors can make informed decisions about contributions. It was itself a member of the Clinton Global Initiative between 2012 and 2014.””
[Haygood]
Steve – It’s called Organized Crime and, being of Italian heritage, I just have to laugh. The countless times I watched our law enforcement made out as heroes for bringing down those greasy crooks. Elliott Ness and his like courageously fighting the Italian mob (It was actually Sicilian – Al Capone could not become member because he was Italian). How many times did you hear: “We’ll get you Big Joe”, only to hear: “You ain’t got nuttin on me, talk to my lawyer”. Now we see the same thing before our eyes and we’re ready to elect one of the criminals President. It used to be law enforcement was dedicated to see that crime didn’t pay. Now they are satisfied to see it pays handsomely, but they get their share. Remember, Al Capone was never convicted of a crime other than tax evasion. AND BELIEVE IT OR NOT HE TURNED DOWN A CIVIL PENALTY WHICH WOULD HAVE MADE THAT GO AWAY!. In Italian Capone was a testa dura. But for that, he could have been President.
Whine Country –
The more things change… I read in Ferdinand Lundberg’s classic “The Rich and the Super Rich” that the origin of the Chicago “Mafia” was in the turf wars between various newspapers in Chicago, who needed “muscle” to take distribution control over new “areas”. Should be similar (maybe industrial) for New York and the Anthracite region of Pennsylvania, where “mafia” equaled “politics”. Organized crime has always been at the behest of organized business, and those who get “bumped off” are the climbers and misfit rebels who want in on the “action”. Reading the most recent posts on slavery and its “economics” makes you wonder if an honest bone was in any “body” that helped “develop” the USA…
About the HRC signs: l went for a bike ride on Sunday morning. Saw a handful of Trump signs and exactly one HRC sign.
By far, we had the most Bernie signs in my hood, at least a dozen. All but a couple are gone – including mine, which I removed the minute he endorsed H.
To compare: 2 Trumps, fairly recently – and one Hellary.
Most of Tucson’s Bernie signs have disappeared. But the bumper stickers seem to be hanging on. Amazed at the number I’m still seeing.
we removed ours the minute Bernie endorsed HRC.
only 1 remaining in our neighborhood
i was chastised for boasting about the plethora of Bernie signs: the Peggy Noonan fallacy
In my neighborhood – and I live in Texas – there are more HRC signs than DT signs. Maybe Trump charges too much…or perhaps he requires everyone who is posting his signage sign the same NDA as he requires his volunteers are required to sign. (and yes, once signed, he, his family and campaign can sue you – forever.
i’m not seeing many signs at all in dallas. i’m pretty sure trump will carry texas.
My weekend bike ride passed through posh Short Hills, NJ, where I was surprised (or maybe I shouldn’t have been) to see a few Gary Johnson signs. In NE NJ, there are more Hillary signs appearing, some Bernie signs remain and zero signs for Stein. One guy has a Trump sign with ‘stealing is wrong’ written beneath and I saw him sitting next to the sign, apparently guarding it! This was in another well-off area, Harding Township.
I live in a fairly liberal university town that is in a county that reliably votes Republican. There are also a fair amount of Hispanic people living in this area as there is agricultural work around here. Large Trump signs are on display on the edge of town, as well in the more rural areas. Very few Hillary signs are in evidence anywhere in the county.
Our annual labor day/rodeo parade this year featured a large flatbed truck full of white Trump-Pence supporters holding signs who were screaming “USA! USA! USA! USA!” as they rolled by. Just in front of me were a Mexican-American couple and their pre-teen daughter, I could only imagine what was going through their minds at that moment. However, more interesting to me was watching the reaction of the other parade attendees to the Trump truck — there were a couple of people cheering but most looked disgusted or embarrassed, which gave me some hope. From what I hear, a lot of people will be voting for Hillary but voting Republican on the rest of the ballot. Not good for Democrats looking to retake congress.
Dear Lord, I was in the parade supporting the independent upper county commissioner candidate, and therefore couldn’t see that but heard about it subsequently. Interesting. Perhaps we should connect off line.
I’ve only seen one HRC sign in this mojave desert town in SoCal, and no DT signs at all.
The HRC sign was actually a bumper sticker; it said “Hillary For Prison”.
The article on Lamest to Coolest president, which not-so-coincidentally finds Obama the coolest, is worthy of ridicule. I am reminded of a book that I read a few years back, entitled Cool Rules, by Pountain. The authors’ hypothesis is that “cool” represents a kind of psychic break, an excess of detachment. And it’s one thing to be a cool jazz musician and another thing to be a cool president with access to munitions. I’ll take the verbal, forthright, skeptical, and not particularly jazzy James Madison any day.
The list isn’t even well thought out.
Of course it’s ridiculous, but it’s meant to be clickbait, especially as W had some cool cred too. W had a certain amount of natural graceful athletic ability – for instance in ducking shoes. Now that doesn’t mean he was any darn good as a ruler or the sockpuppet thereof.
And how ’bout that Dolley Madison? That gal could REALLY throw a party!
re Bill playing sax with Ackroyd–that’s the most honest and respectable thing I have ever seen him do. Never mind he would never get there on talent, but music is righteous and even he can’t smear it. Many have tried.
I guess the sax is different from the classic Chinese musical instrument, the qin or guqin (i.e. old qin).
It is said, though I am not sure who first said it (perhaps it was Confucius), that you can tell a person’s character by how he/she plays the qin.
That is, people can smear music (maybe just Chinese music), and music itself is not righteous, but it depends on who is playing (according to the Chinese).
I give people props for participating in a righteous endeavor (yes, music is righteous, I maintain). I already knew his character. At least it didn’t take place on the Lolita Express…
That was what the ancient Chinese believed…music itself was not righteous, but depended on the player.
And they were not always right.
Broken link above.
“Welcome, Robot Overlords. Please Don’t Fire Us? Mother Jones”
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/robots-artificial-intelligence-jobs-automation
Speed bumps appear on the road to robotopia:
Boeing’s struggle with 777 assembly robots adds to Everett production snarl [Seattle Times]
you missed this:
“The disruption in final assembly is not just caused by FAUB,” said Jason Clark, Boeing vice president of 777/777X operations, in an interview. “It’s not the major cause.”
Rather, the executives finger supplier issues for much of the incomplete work cascading through and choking the production system. Clark cited the nearly six-week Machinist strike at Triumph Composite Systems in Spokane that ended in late June as one source of parts shortages.
Why in the world would you not want precision automated fit up of composite fuselage sections???
Another veteran employee said each section is coming out of FAUB with hundreds of incomplete jobs. “It’s a nightmare,” he said. …
So if FAUB is intrinsically a bad application for automation, it sounds like it will be a perpetual boon for technicians, no?
forcing catch-up work, some of which is being finished only after the jets roll out onto the airfield.
Is this a unique development, doing assembly completion work on “the field” (outside)?
“supplier issues”
Those would be the same suppliers that Boeing unilaterally put on 120-day payment terms last month, in place of the customary 30 days.
Karma bites.
Why not 240 days?
It seems more and more corporations are getting smarter and squeezing their suppliers (that are corporations themselves) this way.
It’s almost like the old Soviet saying: “We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us”
Thats another thread. Not relevant to the merits of pursuing assembly methods to most precisly mate composite fuselage sections.
Drill down in any business deal like this and no one has clean hands. Pushing down long payment terms is the rule not the exception these days.
Frankly it has been decades that my companies bigger customers ever paid in 30 days. Just the little guys and, even then typically 45-60.
The finance guys all went to the same seminar
Isn’t the 777 still using aluminum for the fuselage? They would have to recertify the fuselage if they went composite.
Likely the skin is aluminum but the support skeleton is composite.
777x –I think still principally an aluminum fuselage skin but w/ composite fuselage bulkheads, integration panels, floor structure, wings etc .
http://www.henkel-adhesives.com/com/content_images/ASA12006_Boeing_777_300dpi_257004_print_1772H_1772W.jpg
https://www.flightglobal.com/sponsored/engine-alliance/777/
Replacing the fuselage crown with tie rods and composite panels been borrowed from the 787 will generate significant savings. Schneider explains that “all systems go through the crown, which has traditionally been designed around a lattice system that is heavy. We are going to a system of tie rods and composite integration panels.”
http://www.boeing.com/company/about-bca/washington/777x-composite-wing-center-04-25-16.page
A friend w A Airlines was showing me just some of the darkside on composite damage repair requirements.
I think there will be a lot of craft work to go around as CF composite replaces aluminum on commercial aircraft.
reading on it, the FAUB system is used for the mechanical fastening the more difficult to reach sections (forward and aft). Fascinating actually. Only makes sense to me.
A friend who worked in aerospace and motorsport once sent me a huge pdf on failure modes and diagnostics for composites, mostly CFRP. Failure analyses are waaaay more complicated than with bulk isotropic metals. It’s sobering to read all the ways it can go wrong. And yes, layup of composite fabrics into good structural components is often very hand labor intensive, although it is sometimes possible to do filament winding or woven preforms almost entirely by machine. A lot of the potential failure modes involve hard points where the composites have to mate to other parts, you can’t just drill and thread a composite piece and bolt it to another piece.
That is not even a joke: I *know* a person who went to exactly that (kind of) seminar when working for Vestas Wind Systems.
Basically, a traveling band of management consultants advise everyone who pays a few thousand EUR per seat to set up accounting rules to pay as late as possible even factoring in the late-payment penalties and do the opposite on the collect-side.
Of course now *everyone* does this so *everyone* is back to square one. Getting paid late and threats & abuse going around.
And … Of course the whole thing later bites Vestas right on the arse because at least one supplier of one-off items with extravagant lead times (huge ball bearings) figured that, since Siemens were paying Now and not nickeling and diming over all procurements, they preferred to ship to them first and put Vestas on “reserve capacity”, so, orders are coming in and JIT goes BOINK.
‘FAUBAR’ ??
FAUB is FUBAR
Fixed it. Thanks!
Re: Bumper Sticker report
On the way to Carlsbad yesterday to see oldest son, a beautiful midnight blue Tesla passed me and on the back was the only election bumper sticker I saw in 240+ miles of driving. Three guesses who the Tesla driver was supporting.
Trump!
Nah. . . I own that car: Gary Johnson sticker.
Where is John Galt 2016?
With the guy who needs roadside assistance phone app to replace the shredded tire on his nuke plant powered Tesla.
Driving around southern VT I see a smattering of Trump signs and that’s it. Saw my first Hillary bumper sticker the other day but it was surrounded by 9 Bernie stickers. Combine this with the general anger/resentment towards Bernie in the state and I wouldn’t rule out Trump winning it.
Any local rumors about Bernie being primaried in 2018?
If I know VT the way I do — from family living there — any rumors will be all over the state. And soon.
Al Giordano, I believe. Good luck with that.
Cthulhu / Giant Meteor
Gary Johnson
oh good one, rich people for Republican-libertarians. I am guessing it’s not Jill Stein or an old sticker for Bernie Sanders.
Here in Whatcom County WA State since the hundreds of Bernie signs have come down, all one sees are occasional Trump signs (often defaced). I don’t think I’ve seen a single Clinton sign ever here. I think she’ll be lucky to get half the votes Bernie would have got here. Almost nobody on social media has anything good to say about Hillary, the only support I see is to push her as an anti-Trump. If she wins as expected, she’ll have no support on the ground among the voters. Even people pressing others to vote for her don’t really seem to like her, she’s just a placeholder across the ticket from Trump. Her actual supporters seem strictly limited to the mainstream media and the gazzilionaires who have bribed her with contributions who don’t want to see that money wasted.
It seems to have been that way for a long time. All the bumper stickers were for Bernie and yet we are told Hillary won the primary (and won locally here). Apparently all those people voting for Hillary just don’t do the bumper sticker thing. There are still more stickers for Bernie than Hillary and he’s not even running anymore. A ghost candidate can beat Hillary maybe a dead person could too.
Maybe a Hillary bumper sticker costs $100?
lol. that’s likely the special discounted rate for clinton foundation donors.
Around Los Angeles there were a lot of Bernie bumper stickers (ours included, which we removed) and there still are quite a few. Since the primary, more HRC stickers have been appearing, unfortunately. No Jill, and have only seen 2 Trump.
Frequent Mason, Jefferson, and (occasionally) Snohomish County WA checking in – never seen either a Hillary sign or bumper sticker…plenty of Bernies (in season) and a smattering of Trump. (One particularly large homemade road sign on Hwy101 for Trump – and a ‘Women For Trump a block later, potential neighborhood romance in the works?)
The only Clinton paraphernalia I have seen is hanging on my Dad’s wall….he is ‘All In’ and With Her, despite my best efforts. He is, sadly, a lot less acute mentally then he used to be so I don’t belabor the point…
Obama?
uhh …’Nobody’?
Kodos ’16!
“Can Kang build a death ray?”
No… It was Hillary, though I’m pretty sure it was Cthulhu behind the wheel..
Here is the local write-up about Sanders stumping for Clinton yesterday in Lebanon, NH. Here is a report from the Burlington, VT station about it. Again, apologies that I couldn’t attend and submit a report for y’all. Cheers.
And here is the Vermont Digger version. Check out the vitriol with regards to Bernie in the comments section.
I imagine vitriol like, “I know your acting career depends on it, but do you have to enjoy kissing her?”
this is my fav:
If the VT Digger comments are any indication, Bernie would be well advised to start looking at his retirement options.
I wonder how many of those commenters there really are….
He lost me at “Brothers and Sisters…
And that gross hug. I always wonder how long it’s going to take me to be sick of a politician’s voice who I happen to think might be OK. It never happened before the election until now.
If you don’t want a politician, that’s fine. Then again, there will be times when you do. Got different options than the ones before us? I mean, from parties with organizational capacity?
Though I try, I’m totally unable to imagine what carrots & sticks might be in play. Betcha they’re real tasty, and bristling with malice, respectively. I wish I had an inkling.
Awful, no doubt. Look at what happened to Krugman; like a horror movie. Fortunately, elections come and go….
Science – https://www.newscientist.com/article/2104654-air-pollution-is-sending-tiny-magnetic-particles-into-your-brain/
Those nano-particles are in actual fact nano-machines, from a secret project codenamed CONVERSION.
When activated, the “user” / “victim” will see the face of God and hear His Word spoken with the power of Glory. His Word can cut and shape reality into another.
God, His Word and desired Shape(s) of Reality are user-configurable, however, once CONVERSION is activated by the Authorized User Credentials, the configuration is fixed and cannot be changed. To the user, God is forever present, His Word is The Law who shapes and forms the universe, His voice, His Face and His Authority is recognized from the configuration data.
So, I guess someone slipped Bernie and Krugman a Mate with a little extra?
Re: Fertility clinics for the elderly in India. The medical ethics in India seem to be to give people whatever they will pay for and this ethic has become a big part of the change in American medicine as well. With this sort of attitude towards childbearing and who will take care of them don`t think they ever will be able to build enough battery operated cars, or send enough people to Germany to save the world from a population disaster even if we all become vegetarians.
So with all these heroin and prescription pill stories you’d think that maybe we could head towards some reasonable opiate policy but… This morning I get an email letting me know that the DEA intends to make Kratom schedule 1 at the end of September. Kratom is the one opiate that is practically non-addictive, impossible to fatally overdose on by itself, the least (some strains none) euphoria inducing opiate, is used mostly by those with chronic pain issues, and doesn’t make pharma any money. I use it to remediate my daily symptoms of Lyme (especially the arthritis – I’m in my 30’s) and chronic back pain from an old injury. Even Vermont, in the depths of probably the worst opiate crisis in the nation, saw the medical value of leaving the leaf legal (thanks to testimony from many with Lyme, fibromalgia, MS, etc) and merely banned high potency extracts. One more way for those who take care of themselves to get kicked in the teeth and sent into the prison pipeline.
To paraphrase Randolph Bourne, “Schedule 1 is the health of the Gulag.”
this country is so messed up. Marijuana gets legalized and kratum made illegal. Kratum is not much addictive, it’s not even much of a high at least for most varieties (unless you consider a cup of coffee also being a “high” and come now while people enjoy coffee noone drinks a cup of coffee to “get happy”).
Then they’ll just tell everyone to take marijuana for pain I suppose. But I doubt it’s a complete substitute for everyone, as they don’t work on the same biochemical pathways.
There must be a Big Pharma story behind this reclassification. Even so it just makes no sense to do this And I will say right here and now I have tried it and didn’t care for it. Have some friends who enjoy it. They are all buying kilos of it now and wondering about cultivation. About a year ago someone told me they read a “news’ story on faceborg where some parents were blaming thier teens suicide on kratom. I knew it was on a limited time at that moment. Even if tragically true (which i doubt) why must we all always be treated/treat each other as the lowest Darwinian?
It’s fully legal in Thailand. Maybe lobbying Thailand for another side agreement would be fruitful at this juncture.
My favorite “Yard Sign”, seen this weekend.
“We’re Screwed – 2016”
Good one. I saw a billboard for a realtor:
pix of both contenders
caption: ‘Let us sell your home when you move to Canada’!
I get nods of approval to my God Bless Spiro Agnew bumper sticker in my cars rear window.
I hope that just means there are more cynical people around than one might think
meteorite 2016
just end it already
in anacortes wa
Re: ‘ The Almost-War on Syria Three Years Ago.’
It’s not clear that McGovern’s account is the whole story, or the always the right story. The idea that Clapper had partial confidence that the Syrian government was behind the Ghouta attack doesn’t pass the smell test. More probably he never had any such ‘confidence’ at all. The ‘not a slam dunk’ story is similar to the story that the CIA tried ever so urgently to dissuade Colin Powell from making his famously ludicrous UN presentation.
http://www.alternet.org/world/exclusive-interview-seymour-hersh-dishes-saudi-oil-money-bribes-and-killing-osama-bin-laden
Hersh never wrote (or published, at any rate) the promised second article on the sarin attack, but then again Hersh has or had apparently been threatened with arrest:
http://livestream.com/theNYPL/Hersh
Re: the Ohio senatorial race, this article ( ‘Clinton Wants to Keep the Republican Majority in Congress’ http://observer.com/2016/08/clinton-wants-to-keep-the-republican-majority-in-congress/ ) may be a bit too conspiratorial, but one could be forgiven for wondering whether Democrats really care about the Senate. It’s not like the Hillary Victory Fund isn’t arrogating millions of dollars raised at the state level…
This is a pretty interesting article, (if you can get past the first few paragraphs that seem to reverse cause and effect ). So much that has gone wrong started in the 80’s.
How Big Business Lost Washington
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/02/how-big-business-lost-washington/
I really wonder what is going on with HRC and these “coughing fits”. True to form she tries to joke it off (“I’m allergic to Trump” and then later on the plane “We looked it up and I always have these coughing fits every Labor Day” [paraphrase]). Firstly, pollen allergies usually cause sneezing not coughing. The latter can be a symptom of many chronic or acute illnesses — or simply a dry throat of course. Team Clinton better be sure there is “no there there”, and pray she doesn’t have one of these fits during the debates.
I am not suggesting anything here, but just as a side note my grandfather had recurrent coughing the last year of his life. Due to his age (90+) there were no investigations. At his death an oesophageal tumour was discovered. So these seemingly trivial events can be a sign of something serious.
The coughing episode on the plane was really striking, and embarrassing. Needless to say the Breitbart and Drudge people are having a field day with the videos:
Hillary Clinton’s Second Coughing Fit Ends Press Conference on Plane (Youtube)
Frankly, they are both too old for the job of POTUS. We need someone younger and more up to date (e.g. with technology).
Good advance work, having the cough drops (or whatever) ready both with Kaine and the woman who handed them (if cough drops they were) to Clinton, as well as having the “allergic” joke prepared.
Really? It struck me as the opposite. Bear in mind, I’m assuming there IS something seriously wrong with her, for many reasons. But, for example: if she had something minor like post-nasal drip, there are numerous ways to medicate it so that she wouldn’t have a massive coughing attack. Cough drops are completely useless for this. They don’t do anything about actual coughing — and apparently, they didn’t. Knowing her health is under attack, knowing she has previously had terrible coughing fits during public events, having nothing but cough drops on hand seems deeply incompetent. Do they not know what’s really wrong with her? Or is it that they all know what it is, it’s something serious they can do nothing about, and the cough drops are just theater to make the excuses easier? But even that seems like bad advance work — she’d have been better off just coughing, and acting like it was unexpected, instead of having numerous people ready with useless cough drops. That sends the presumably unintended message that she’s so sick her people are constantly at the ready with medications, and they’re so incompetent that they can’t give her something that helps her.
The ineffectiveness of the cough drops adds fuel to the fire about her health problems being serious. It occurred to me today that probably TONS of medical professionals know from the sound of her cough that it’s not an allergy. That’s more people whose cognitive dissonance is being further stressed, presuming that doctors are probably a chunk of her actual base. That’s more of her base that may be unable to keep up their mental barriers, and they may share their doubts with others. Better advance work might have been having fake protesters there ready to scream and cover the sound of the coughing (although perhaps then she’d seize, which would be worse.)
The Boss — depressed?
Puts a whole new light on downbeat anthems like The River:
Meanwhile another guy who tends to see the dark side — the good Dr Hussman — exhibits distinct signs of running completely off the rails in his weekly commentary, as he seamlessly alternates between cracking jokes and quoting complex differential equations that not one percent of his readers will understand:
Aiieeee — this man needs a pill. :-0
I’m beginning to wonder if “creative/artistic-types” aren’t naturally more susceptible to problems with drugs/alcohol. something to do with “Higher-highs” and “Lower-lows”
(Not saying The Boss has a problem)
If you have been a poor, wrench-turning schlub like me, you just assume the worst is going to happen. It makes it easier to deal with the problems and the anger/depression when the SHTF, as it usually does, and usually for reasons totally beyond your control.
My job crushes optimists.
Paid Minion, your aviation industry commentary is needed up-thread. In the 777 robotic assembly section.
The artist travels to the realms only they can access to bring treasures back for the rest of us. Insofar as substances help guide, advise, transport, protect and soothe the traveller, they’re a customary hazard of the occupation. No backstage rider can deliver “home”.
That reads like poetry — with music it might become a song. Thank you! There is always a place for more beauty in the world.
:) Jeremy Grimm, ekstase, you’re both welcome. Artistic talent is IMHO largely a matter of sensitivity (which, in many Germanic languages, is the same thing as a sensibility) and the volatility of the artist’s life is IMHO largely a matter of that good psychic shielding as a widespread social tool goes against the aims of those who presume to run the place.
Short forms ftw. If a poet can’t say it in 14 lines, they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Hey! Thanks, man.
Why is Hillary Clinton Always Hiding Something?
As you can see, the American public views Hillary Clinton as dishonest and untrustworthy not because of sexism, but because she is an extraordinarily shady person.
These first two examples of Hillary hiding something we just reviewed relate to her going to great lengths to hide or obscure her communications. With respect to the first case, she continues to hide the comments she made in private speeches to the corporate titans who fund her campaign. In the second case, she has made it impossible for the American public to know precisely what she was up to as Secretary of State due to her brazen and unapproved decision to use a private email server.
While all of that is bad enough, Hillary continues to showcase her compulsive tendency to hide up to the current moment. What I’m referring to is that despite her being two months away from asking the American public to vote for her to be President, she continues to hide from the press and citizenry as a whole, while jet-setting from one of the nation’s most elite enclaves to another, pleading for additional oligarchs money in private fundraisers.
Let’s begin with her absurd and arrogant stance of refusing to hold press conferences. She hasn’t held one in 274, and if you’d like to keep track at home, click on the screen shot below for a live tracker.
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/09/06/why-is-hillary-clinton-always-hiding-something/#more-37319
Happened to read an unusually good article in the WaPo on Sunday that addressed how it is that Hillary and Bill came to this point.
It’s her pattern. And we’ve seen it so often that no one ever believes her initial denials or refusals to be more open: we know there is more.
Hillary Clinton learns the wrong lessons from her experiences. That does not give me any comfort when it comes to her making the kinds of decisions required of presidents.
I found the article interesting, but I wouldn’t have said it was good. For me, it still left me with the overwhelming question, why does she feel the need to have her guard up and be suspicious of people’s motives when they are inquiring about her actions. Certainly if she were really a private person married to a politician who wanted nothing more than to be a small town lawyer overseeing leases and helping people to write their wills, I would say it was because it was offense to her sense of privacy. But we all know that is not HRC. There is only one reason to be so ‘guarded’, it is because she knows damn well there is something to find. Oh, she may be smart enough to set things up in a manner where someone else pays the price for the money laundering but she knows there is a second set of books and the first one doesn’t really pass the smell test.
Where I do agree with you is that Clinton doesn’t learn as in doesn’t change. But when you realize that the money is irresistible and never enough, you get that she will never change. And since she is always on the grift, the last thing she can be is transparent.
“Unusually good” as in “not the usual ass-kissing, nothing-to-see-here” crap the Bezos Post churns out.
Point taken. It did cause me to raise my eyebrows a bit for just that reason
My sister is always guarded, because she is a woman and tired of Always Being Wrong.
She’s right to do so.
My 2c, YMMV. Not a Hillary fan, but this isn’t something I can fault her for.
Oh, baloney. Hillary Clinton isn’t guarded because she’s tired of always being wrong, she’s guarded because she doesn’t think the public she has purported to serve for so many years has a right to question her actions. She is guarded because she doesn’t like the public knowing that she doesn’t feel obligated to play by the rules the rest of us have to.
As for your sister, “always being wrong” may be less a function of being female and more a function of hanging out, working with or being related to some very toxic people.
Or she’s guarded because she actually is crooked and has quite a bit to hide.
Hillary is not “guarded.” My daughter is guarded. I understand why women develop that habit (not just women, btw).
Hillary is an inveterate liar. She lies when she doesn’t need to. She doesn’t correct herself when she’s caught. That is not what “guarded” behavior looks like.
Hillary has failed upwards for decades. It has never stopped her. She has been rewarded again and again for incompetence (like her health care reform disaster — which can be fully laid at her door) and criminality (world’s most fortunate cattle futures trader, anyone?) As a woman who has actually had to battle things like sexual harassment in my career, it particularly enrages me that Hillary Clinton is given credit for suffering she has never experienced, to excuse behavior that is not the result of oppression.
Hillary Clinton refused to comply with government rules and laws so she could hide that she was corruptly conspiring with her husband to enrich the family and enhance its power by selling access to the United States government via her position as Secretary of State. She didn’t even bother to abide by her personal agreement with Barack Obama regarding these issues. Then, when news of her secret email system leaked and her government records were subpoenaed, her staff deleted them and destroyed devices containing them with hammers, to prevent her actual employers, the American people, from seeing them.
That’s not being “guarded.” That’s being criminal. Intentionally, wantonly criminal.
Thank you for saying it so much better than I did
Sounds like you sister really need to lose about 150 pounds of lard: her current partner!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/09/06/people-thought-this-iconic-oregon-rock-formation-fell-on-its-own-then-a-video-emerged/?utm_term=.6f96fa5e7c64
At first, people thought the famous “Duckbill” rock formation at Cape Kiwanda State Natural Area had died a natural death. It’s made up of delicate sandstone, after all, and the popular selfie spot along the Oregon coastline is under constant attack from Mother Nature.
But someone was filming when the rock lost its battle with gravity in late August. The video does not lie: Duckbill’s demise was intentional.
“All eight of them got it to wobble; then five of them backed off and the other three just kept going, kept going, kept pushing,” said David Kalas, who recorded video of the unidentified vandals’ assault on the rock and sent it to several TV stations, including ABC affiliate KATU.
==============================================
In my ever ongoing battle betwixt nihilism and cynicism, I see something like this and I realize I am not nearly pessimistic enough…
Well …. Humans ARE part and parcel to the geologic record ….. are they not ?
If they’d been like the guy who took aim at that saguaro cactus back in 1982, I’d say that there was geologic justice in the world.
To recap the story of the AZ cactus shooter: He shot at the cactus, and attempted to holler “Timber!” But the cactus crushed him before he could shout the second syllable.
something similar happened a few years ago, can’t remember the name of the national park or monument, a rock formation millions years old pushed over for the sake of a selfie.
pretzelattack,
Goblin Valley, Utah.
yes that sounds like what i was thinking of. made me sick.
Why is it, when some idiots pitch over an eroding piece of rock (whatever it’s designation), people rise into a lather, …… but think nothing of shopping at the mall, the car lot, or big box, which had previously been a meadow, or a riparian habitat, or a forest..?? Don’t get me wrong …. I like geologic features too … it just seems like we’re always picking favorite little bits … but not concerned enough about the whole ! Just a thought .
On a side note … I and my neighbors are, this week, going to be witness to the logging out of the entire block of fir, spruce, and whatever mixed species accompany them, on the block across the street from our property. The lot, which was part of a land trust, recently sold, and is soon to be turned into an ugly mess for our viewing pleasure …… because higher lumber prices …. Oh Joy!
the only positive aspect of this is that our garden space will be in full sun year round…
The wording in a piece on CBC, Enbridge buying Spectra Energy for $37B in stock to create pipeline giant, is a bit scary (emphasis added):
Given the drought conditions in the US (which are likely to get worse rather than better) are the oil conglomerates thinking ahead to water distribution? Canada does have a large chunk of the world’s fresh water. Hoping I’m just paranoid :(
I recall reading somewhere — forgot where — that the Great Lakes states were already passing laws protecting their water from transport out of state.
Simpler to just invade Canada, no? I mean, they want to be us anyhow, so what could the problem be….
Regarding the attacks on Native Americans protesting the pipeline, Democracy Now had several feature stories today, of which these seem most important to me:
FULL Exclusive Report: Dakota Access Pipeline Co. Attacks Native Americans with Dogs & Pepper Spray
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/6/full_exclusive_report_dakota_access_pipeline
Did the Dakota Access Pipeline Company Deliberately Destroy Sacred Sioux Burial Sites?
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/6/did_the_dakota_access_pipeline_company
Canine Expert Decries “Egregious” & “Horrific” Dog Attacks on Native Americans Defending Burial Site
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/6/canine_expert_decries_egregious_horrific_dog
The second in particular, which suggests the company used information provided by the tribes in their lawsuit in order to locate the sacred site they bulldozed Saturday, seems particularly offensive, an abuse of the legal process to do irreparable damage. I was reminded of the Taliban destroying an ancient Buddha sculpture, vandalism decried by our government.
Weren’t Plains Indian “burials” done by placing the body in a tree, or placing it on a platform/scaffold? Or left in a lodge? At least that’s how it was described in numerous contemporary journals.
At which point you could pretty much describe the entire country between the Mississippi and the Rockies as “ancient burial lands”.
Prove it isn’t. Or prove it is.
And define “Ancient”. IIRC, the Plains Indian tribes rarely ventured very far or very long out on the Plains before getting the horse. So “Ancient” is 1540, or (probably) much later.
so what, if true. i wouldn’t like some developer desecrating my parents’ graves, or setting dogs on me when i protested.
Especially if they had stolen the property where your parents grave were to begin with!
It’s THEIR land we just live on it.
Not having said ancient, or even read it in the transcript, where it does not appear, I don’t feel obligated to define it. Save the canard for dinner.
In any case, the point here is that the lawyers had provided evidence in a filing Friday afternoon that this was indeed a sacred ground for the tribe, because Energy Transfer had previously claimed that there was no proof of the existence of such sites, and within twelve hours of getting the information on the location they were out there with bulldozers destroying it.
i.e. not having said ancient with respect to the Lakota site. I did describe the Buddha sculpture that way, but that is another matter and has nothing to do with your 1540 date.
Indians were living on the shores of Lake Agassiz, in what is now the Province of Manitoba, Canada, part of the great plains, ten thousand years ago.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/by-staying-silent-roger-goodell-and-the-nfl-won.html
But Goodell and the NFL have taken the Cohn route: Cede nothing and floor it. When there was blood in the water, the NFL simply said, “There is no blood, and there is no water,” and counted on members of the American public to side with the game they love rather than the press that was telling them there was something wrong with them for loving it.
It reminds one of former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue’s argument that concussions were a “journalist issue.” He was derided for the statement, but its strategic wisdom seems clearer every year: The press can call out the NFL all it wants, but until people stop watching football, it won’t make a difference. It points to a disconcerting emergency PR strategy that seems more and more common, and effective far beyond the world of professional sports: Just pretend there is no emergency, rely on the public’s distrust of the press, and wait for the media to punch itself out. One lesson of the NFL’s experience is that probably more of what were once considered PR disasters are ultimately “journalist issues,” more than any journalist would comfortably admit; if you can manage to grin and bear it through a first wave of outrage, chances are you can survive. Fans and customers, in a social-media era, can easily swim around media directives and pick and choose what they want. What they want, in this case, is football.
=========================================
“When there was blood in the water, the NFL simply said, “There is no blood, and there is no water,…”
Deny, Deny, Deny, misdirect, misquote, ignore, semantics is your friend, definitions, deny previously acknowledged points, ACKNOWLEDGE items never in contention and assert forthrightness, litigate, than re-litigate……who does that remind me of???
If Watergate happened today, how many think Nixon would survive it?
The press can call out the NFL all it wants, but until people stop watching football, it won’t make a difference.
And thats it in a nutshell, there exists an entire foodchain down to grade school that treats football as an American institution. Unfortunately at the NFL level, those young people that make that cut will happily sacrifice there lives/health to participate. For that matter, this mentality also applies to College and HS level as well.
I don’t believe the United States has a monopoly on brain concussion related injuries, in due course it will be revealed in the mainstream that this applies to Soccer/European football as well.
I choose not to spectate professional sports in general, but that’s not to say any should be should be banned IMO.
That said, amateur and professional players should be fully informed of the consequences in a formal manner at regular intervals on the premise of providing an accumulation of adverse (realistic) impressions sooner rather than later. Maybe it would make a dent on the parents that live vicariously through their children, directing them to other sporting endeavors? probably not..
The evidence of brain damage should gradually cause the food chain to wither.
You would hope, in a rational world.
I trust most here at NC realize, a rational world is demonstrably a bad assumption.
I think that has already begun. I don’t have the links handy, but before I tuned out at the end of last season, there was already reporting about Pee-wee level football starting to have trouble recruiting. I suspect it would be withering faster if young men had more employment options and career paths available to them. (I mean, even with the known risks, if your choices are football or Afghanistan…) You’re already seeing the NFL try to put a happy face on how many of its stars come from devastatingly impoverished or traumatized backgrounds.
And several very promising pros retired early recently, with a couple of them outright saying “I want to be able to walk and think when I’m forty.”
I think the game of football is incredible to watch. But the business and culture of football is repulsive, to the point that it crushed my pleasure. But the Mister was so thrilled when I got interested that he’s lured me back into watching the games with him, at least for now. As it is, it’s a too perfect example of our oligarchic system: men who often never did ANYTHING productive in their lives (a lot of heirs and criminals among NFL owners) profit MASSIVELY by breaking the bodies and minds of the people with actual ability, hiding risk information from them, forcing them to take unnecessary risks, preventing research and development that would protect the players because they’re just interchangeable widgets to the owners, and facilitating a system that spreads abuse, violence and destruction out to people — especially women — not connected to the sport in any way. That’s not to excuse the players for their criminality and violence off the field. But it’s actively made worse by the way the league and the systems that feed into the league handle it. And it’s not just football, I know. Nate Parker was a wrestler. But football just seems to be the apex of all these problems: physical destruction of the players, economic theft of the players, economic theft from taxpayers for stadiums, violence against women, complicit police departments, using football to sanctify the military and a hierarchical society…
But man, I love me some well-played football. Sigh. (I’m not banned, am I?)
He wouldn’t merely survive it.
He’d write a book about it, cop a $15 million advance, and launch a fist-pumping victory tour.
Richard Rodham Nixon … an inspiration to many! ;-)
Hey, that’s progress!
The Nixon model has gotten better over the years, incorporating the latest scientific and technological breakthroughs.
And that’s good, unless you are an anti-progress (read, anti-getting better) Luddite.
Memory and attention are affected by much lower levels of dehydration than previously thought The Conversation
Previously thought be whom? I think the hydration thing has been known al long time by those that wished to recognize it.
Perhaps dehydration has been a more widespread problem among writers than recognized
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3boy_tLWeqA
Brawndo, it contains electrolytes!
A friend’s dad was a Navy flight surgeon then a neurosurgeon and aviation medical examiner (the Dr that does flight physicals).
He referred to water as “brain food” to us kids. Early morning flights, I’d see him crank down a 16 oz glass of water w/ breakfast (one egg and two slices of toast). IIRC he always wanted to be awake ~ 1.5 hours before flying to ensure the brain was fully online. How many sleep deprived commuters are out there??
Half jokingly he told me ” -an egg–all the nutritional requirements for life (of a chicken)”. This was back in the day when eggs were “bad” for you.
In contrast, for robots with brains, ventilation is more critical and hydration.
A robot brain can go on without water for a long time, but not without a good fan.
Well beef,
water functions as a heat transfer consumable ( like electricity for the computer fan ) to keep the “organic CPU” cool;
and as an electrolyte solvent to conduct power/signal — like the conduction material in the robots brain.computer
Regarding Bill Clinton as honorary chancellor, I noted this article today involving “… one of the largest college closures in American history.”
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/06/itt-technical-institute-closing/
“…an increasing array of allegations that ITT misled students about its success at placing graduates in their fields while defrauding investors-the company faces pending lawsuits from the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Massachusetts attorney general-led the Education Department to restrict the company’s access to taxpayer funds.”
Another 8,000 jobs lost.
ITT Technical Institute is a Laureate college.
I don’t doubt they lied. But do state schools even keep measures of how many graduates get placed in their fields? Do they report them? Well at least they can claim to be too cash strapped to keep this info I guess. Do not-for-profit private schools keep and give out this information?
If education is job training is the information people really need to make informed job training decisions really widely distributed? If anything less than the vast majority of people get jobs in their fields of study especially if it’s a seemly practical job training major (alright so the philosophy majors aren’t all employed in philosophy), doesn’t that indicate something wrong? If people study career related fields and can’t land work in them regardless of where they study, doesn’t that indicate problems?
Of course maybe people in reality are no more equipped to make rational choices in education than they are in healthcare.
Can’t find evidence that ITT is Laureate. How do you know this?
This is just what I have been thinking about today. (Not important: just me)
A young writer who calls herself Holly Wood (Maybe it’s her name for real?) in the Village Voice wrote a piece I really liked because the writing is sharp and the ideas sharper. I have to say she influenced my thinking as much as anyone this election season.
From wonderful little vignettes like this one, “The spectacle of our government’s being bought is so obvious, even the youngest among us can see it. “With Hillary,” eighteen-year-old Olivia Sauder told Times reporters at the Iowa Caucus, “sometimes you get this feeling that all of her sentences are owned by someone.” ” (Sing it LOUD) to this one, “And what did the great tawny-bellied Paul Krugman have to say to the nation’s waywardly progressive? “Sorry,” he pecked in his Times column. “There’s nothing noble about seeing your values defeated because you preferred happy dreams to hard thinking about means and ends.” Pausing to cough up a mouse carcass, he chittered on: “Don’t let idealism veer into destructive self-indulgence.””
So I am left adrift. I don’t really blame Bernie for the tepid endorsement: I am pretty sure this was part of the deal for his having access to the tools to run for president, and he should not be judged so harshly. In truth he did better than any of us imagined and has given voice to the voiceless. The effects of his candidacy will have to be measured in time.
But not right now.
So I sit and think and write a bit and read some. The comment above, “We’re Screwed: 2016” is right.
But if you need to feel a bit envious of some decent writing.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/feeling-the-yern-why-one-millennial-woman-would-rather-go-to-hell-than-vote-for-hillary-8253224
bernie continues to be a us senator, i think he’s doing what gives him the most value on his issues in that venue. He’s on the ship of state and subject to the rules such as they are that guide the ship. We’re outside with toothpicks, but we keep getting more and more toothpicks so we can help in our own ways. The same things have been going on for my adult life and currently there’s comparatively a lot of awareness and we’ve got bernie to thank for it. I think he deserves a break on the purity testing.
It’s not a question of perfection, but of advantage.
Excellent article, sharp writing, and other than the fact that Bernie is gone, still 100% relevant.
Ain’t it the truth.
Where’s the quid pro quo?
Thanks for that link. I hadn’t seen it before.
Thank you for that link. If you could watch for other writings by this Holly Wood they will be of interest. Her voice is strong.
She’s fun: https://medium.com/@girlziplocked
Is Water Cooler late posting today? For some reason, I don’t see it, even after multiple refreshes and even reloading the site.
I was wondering the same thing. I figured it was absent yesterday due to the holiday. Hopefully everything is okay in Maine.
Yes, hopefully all is well with Lambert. IIRC, he has been having some tech issues to deal with recently.
Club Orlov’s also just gone on hiatus for the month. Therefore there must be some Russian connection.
I dropped some change into the tin cup; let’s see if that wakes him up…
If there’s no Water Cooler today, maybe this Theranos story could tide some people over:
How Elizabeth Holmes’s House of Cards Came Tumbling Down
Holmes sounds like a real piece of work.
Go read the glassdoor reviews!
Where can I find said reviews? Thanks.
Right here.
Glass door reviews raised the alarm on this company a long time before the WSJ did.
*snort* – no they are just as suited for deciding whether or not to invade Iraq.
With an all-star cast like that, it’s hard to believe this isn’t a front for something other than Ms Holmes’ personal fortunes. What bioweapons were they *really* working on, asks my foil hat.
Someone else linked me to this article, it’s supposed to be a doozy, havent read it yet.
Of course Holmes is / was also in the orbit of the Clintons.
How did she overlook M. Albright fir the BOD??
Today the Nasdaq Composite and Nasdaq 100 stock indexes reached new record highs.
The Fed’s back in their bunker, and all’s well with the world. :-)
“Happy Days Are Again …………”
i think it’s time to re-read Galbraith’s ‘The Great Crash -1929’ …… things seem REALLY frothy as of late!
The hungrier the serfs, the tastier the hors d’oeuvres at Versailles.
“Put away the brioche tray. Caviar, anyone?”
Bill Clinton Compares Himself to Robin Hood
Michael Krieger | Posted Tuesday Sep 6, 2016 at 2:28 pm
Screen Shot 2016-09-06 at 2.13.49 PM
The newly released financial files on Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s growing fortune omit a company with no apparent employees or assets that the former president has legally used to provide consulting and other services, but which demonstrates the complexity of the family’s finances.
Because the company, WJC, LLC, has no financial assets, Hillary Clinton’s campaign was not obligated to report its existence in her recent financial disclosure report, officials with Bill Clinton’s private office and the Clinton campaign said. They were responding to questions by The Associated Press, which reviewed corporate documents.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide private details of the former president’s finances on the record, said the entity was a “pass-through” company designed to channel payments to the former president.
Under federal disclosure rules for spouses’ earned income, Hillary Clinton was only obligated to identify the source of her spouse’s income and confirm that he received more than $1,000. As a result, the precise amounts of Bill Clinton’s earned income from consulting have not been disclosed, and it’s not known how much was routed through WJC, LLC.
– From last year’s post: Introducing “WJC, LLC” – Bill Clinton’s Little Known Pass-Through Entity Used to Channel Consulting Fees
The man’s shamelessness knows no limits.
The Hill reports:
Bill Clinton said Monday that Republican attacks on his family’s foundation were “funny” and likened his actions as head of the organization to Robin Hood’s.
“They even went after my foundation last week. Now that was really funny,” the former president told a crowd at the AFL-CIO’s picnic in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Labor Day.
“I was sort of Robin Hood, except I didn’t rob anybody,” Clinton said. “I just asked people with money to give it to people who didn’t have money.”
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/09/06/bill-clinton-compares-himself-to-robin-hood/
More like Robin and the seven hoods?What a racket!!
I want to say the movie ‘Men in Tights’ is a funny one, but I recall another more somber one I saw recently, The Man Who Never Was, and a line from which when the guy who devised the ingenuous plan to use a dead man to fool the Germans into thinking the Allies weren’t going to attack Sicily, said: Don’t ask more questions if you don’t want me to lie.
And don’t ask for live press conferences if you don’t want me to lie…that’s for another movie in the future.
PS: the comment is based on imagination, strictly fictional. Any resemblance is a coincidence.
Judge grants partial stop on North Dakota pipeline work [AP]
o Re. Cool-cat Obama: I’m reminded of the Calvin & Hobbes strip in which Calvin convinces Hobbes to wear dark sunglasses like his own so they can both be ‘cool’. Hobbes tries it and replies ‘bumping into things is cool?’
o Re. Obama Says Colin Kaepernick Is ‘Exercising His Constitutional Right’ | PravdaOnHudson:
Latest in the multivolume Obama Lectures on Constitutional Theory. Cue the late Yogi Berra: ‘In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they`re different.’
o “No Limit to Monetary Easing” Says Bank of Japan | MishTalk
I see our perspicacious CB central planners continue to be very vague in their inflation-targeting messaging about what kind of inflation they consider desirable. Their actions, however, have been unequivocal in that regard – asset bubbles to infinity, based on their pet wealth-effect delusion.
“US defence: Losing its edge in technology?”
It probably never had the edge it likes to think it did to begin with, but such as it was it’s certainly gone now. It’s not even an issue of ‘losing’ it, it’s been absent for years. Now the Russian’s can shut down an entire Aegis cruiser with a single ECM plane, are multiple generations into low-band radar to defeat the ‘stealth’ technology the USAF has put so much trust in, and the US military-industrial complex has become incapable of even producing a combat aircraft that can fire its damn cannon (the driver has yet to be written).
Focusing on technology is completely wrongheaded anyway. Just ask the Saudis whose complete technological (not to mention financial) superiority has completely failed to crush the Yemeni Houthis. On top of that those same Houthis are now successfully counter-attacking into Saudi Arabia. If this continues long enough it may even result in the collapse of the Saud monoarchy as it shows it can’t even defend its own borders.
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/09/05/hanjin-bailout-didnt-happen-shatters-complacency-major-container-carriers-immune-to-failure/
Today, Drewry Maritime Research came out with a report titled, “Zombie Apocalypse.” And it spelled out the problem:
In 2009 when the container industry posted operating losses of nearly $20 billion and many lines were said to be minutes from bankruptcy, none died. The “zombie” carriers’ survival methods were varied and complex, ranging from off-hiring ships to requesting government support, but ultimately they worked.
Having survived the worst crisis the industry has ever faced, the assumption grew in strength that major carriers could not be killed off. While some smaller players have fallen by the wayside this decade, none were remotely in the same league as Hanjin Shipping….
Hanjin’s move into administration shatters the complacency that major carriers are immune to failure and can stomach prolonged years of low rates and financial losses.
It was this complacency that blinded most to the very real possibility of Hanjin’s demise. It was common knowledge that the company was in financial trouble; from 2010 to the first-half 2016 the company’s operating loss amounted to approximately $580 million with most of the damage emanating from the container division. Since 2013, Drewry Financial Research Services has warned that Hanjin was dangerously leveraged and living on borrowed time.
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So Haygood (and others) did this happen because:
1. shipping overcapacity (shipping only increases???)
2. trade is actually declining
3. expected “growth” has been subpar going on a decade
4. Unique to Korea
I would like to help out, but I don’t have any discretionary income to buy any more Chinese/Korean crap….(or US crap) – if only the FED would bail me out…
A telling chart from McKinsey shows that shipping demand dipped during the 2008 crisis. But shipping capacity just carried on rising, as if nothing had happened:
Why did capacity keeping rising, in a manner insensitive to demand? Arrest the usual suspects:
It’s the same sad old story, of government “investment” to “create jobs” in sunset industries. Now Korea is going to double down by monetizing the mistakes of its braindead state banks.
thanks
Zephyr Teachout released her first TV ad in NY-19 [NYState of Politics]
This is a great way of framing the trade debate.
“Economic Benedict Arnolds” used to be a thing, and should be again.