Decline of the Empire

Too Big To Jail

On November 25th, the Friday evening after Thanksgiving, the PBS NewsHour ran a segment called In Aftermath of the Financial Crisis, Who's Being Held Responsible? Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism served as one of the four people interviewed, and noted after the fact that the Friday after Thanksgiving is one of the slowest news days of the year. She also noted that the PBS NewsHour format does not permit cross-talk among those being interviewed, which guarantees that no crucial information will emerge in debate. There is no debate.

Everyone agreed on the central fact under discussion: not a single high-ranking Wall Street banker has gone to jail in the aftermath of the Housing Bubble and financial meltdown.

Now, this fact alone should persuade all Americans without a vested interest in the status quo that the fix is in, the criminal political and regulatory system is incapable of self-correction, and therefore the Empire's obvious decline will continue unabated. Still, for reasons which must surely lie very deep in Human Nature, people still feel a need to discuss this criminal negligence as though ... what? Something will be done about it? To finally get to the bottom of this dastardly business? Who knows?

Even I am talking about it, although I am doing so from a distance large enough to give me some valuable perspective on the matter.

To maintain a Fair & Balanced discussion without crosstalk, PBS included a republican lawyer (Anton Valukas), a liberal blogger (Yves Smith), a conservative think-tanker (Mark Calabria), and an actual former SEC regulator (Lynn Turner). Of the four, only Turner and Smith seemed to think it might be a good idea to prosecute some people, to put some people in jail. (My own view is that a few public executions would have a wondrous effect on banking practices.)

Valukas went first, saying that it's hard to pin the blame on specific individuals and it's almost impossible to prove criminal intent. Moderator Ray Suarez then turned to Lynn Turner, who got right to the heart of the matter.

Ray Suarez: Lynn Turner, does that sound right to you — defuse responsibility and hard to prove intent?

Lynn Turner, former SEC chief accountant: I probably differ with Tony on that one. I think there's a number issues here. You've got to keep in mind that during the S&L crisis, we had 1,000 people charged or convicted and we've only got about 39, 40 to date.

We also had very complex cases in Enron, WorldCom, many of the corporate scandals. Those were just as complex as these are this time, and, yet, there was prosecution then. A decade later, no prosecution.

I think it runs to the heart of some of the problems in Washington. I just think there's a lack of resources for prosecutors. And I think there's a lack of willingness on the part of prosecutors to bring cases.

Ray Suarez: A lack of resources? Does that mean your old agency, the SEC, isn't capable of bringing these kinds of cases any longer?

Lynn Turner: When you look at the case they brought against Goldman Sachs, the investment banking firm, on the large transaction called Abacus, they had a grand total of about four attorneys to work on that case. On the flip side, on the Goldman case, they would have had dozens backing up the defense. So, it's almost like a David versus Goliath type battle.

The other thing, though, that also enters into it is there's a tremendous revolving door between the attorneys at the SEC and the law firms who defend these people and people at the SEC know that ultimately they'd like to get a job in one of those firms. So, at times, it's been demonstrated that they're reluctant, really, to take on and go very aggressively against those firms.

There is little to add to Turner's succinct summary of the state of regulatory corruption in the Imperial Capital. Yves Smith agreed with Turner's assessment, noting that the means exist (Sarbanes-Oxley laws) to prosecute financial fraud, but have not been brought to bear. But surely this doesn't matter if the resources required to go after these bankers no longer exist as they once did during the Savings & Loan meltdown of the late 1980s, and the willingness to go after them doesn't exist.

David versus Goliath, except David doesn't have a slingshot or a pouch full of stones. And he doesn't want to fight the giant anyway. David wants to work for Goliath's lawyers some day. Too Big To Jail.

So it's just a lot of talk, talk, and more talk. Only those with a vested interest in our impotent political/regulatory system could possibly defend it. The rest of us are on the outside looking in. We're up shit creek without a paddle.

You do know that when past crimes are not punished, future crimes are inevitable, right?

Here's the video.

Household Debt Mountain Grows, Nobody Cares

The Federal Reserve released its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit report this week. Calculated Risk duly reported on the results, which included this text from the Fed.

Aggregate consumer debt fell approximately $60 billion to $11.66 trillion in the third quarter of 2011 according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit."

The decline in outstanding consumer debt reveals that households continue to try and deleverage in the wake of a challenging economic environment and large declines in home values," said Andrew Haughwout, vice president in the Research and Statistics Group at the New York Fed. "However, our findings also provide evidence that consumer credit demand continues to increase, a positive sign for consumer sentiment."

Even as "consumers" struggled to get out of debt while also facing a "challenging" economic environment—this is a euphemism for the the economy can't suck enough—and large declines in home values, credit demand continues to increase according to the Fed, although aggregate debt fell by about $60 billion out a total of $11.66 trillion. That's $60,000,000,000 out of a total if 11,660,000,000,000, which works out to about 0.5%.

I'll leave it to you to work out the various contradictions in the Fed's statement. Hint: is more debt the solution to a debt problem?

But more importantly, did "consumer" debt actually decline? Consider this stink bomb—

Aggregate consumer debt fell slightly in the third quarter. As of September 30, 2011, total consumer indebtedness was $11.66 trillion, a reduction of $60 billion (0.6%) below its (revised) June 30, 2011 level. The 2011Q2 and 2011Q3 totals reflect improvements in our measurement of student loan balances, which we had previously undercounted ... As a result, student loan and total debt balances for 2011Q2 and 2011Q3 are not directly comparable to earlier data ...

These balances are not directly comparable to earlier data? Oh, yes they are! The first graph below shows 2011Q2, which reflects "undercounted" student loan balances. The second graph shows the new data for 2011Q3, which incorporates those balances.

The 2011Q2 graph from Calculated Risk. Total debt, including "undercounted" student loans, was $11.4 trillion.

The new 2011Q3 graph from Calculated Risk. Total debt, including the revised student loan balance, is now $11.66 trillion.

Using the new accounting, total household debt fell $6 billion relative to the 2nd quarter, the data for which has also been updated in Calculated Risk's current (second) graph above. But if we compare 2011Q2 in the first chart with the 2011Q3 in the second, we see that total debt has increased by $260 billion when that new student loan data is included.

So the Fed has told us that total household debt decreased, which it did if you don't take all the data into account, when in fact total household debt has increased. Do they think we're stupid? I think they do. They certainly think we're dumber than they are, and let's face it, Fed economists are pretty thick. And the worst part of this is that nobody, not even Calculated Risk, noted the disparity. Everybody led with headlines like Bloomberg's Household Debt Falls by 0.6% in Third Quarter. That article noted that there were "improvements" to the Fed's student loan data.

In short, nobody gives a damn. Or didn't bother to look at the previous data.

Here's unorthodox economist Steve Keen talking about why we should forgive all this debt and start all over again. Keen's views, which I have agreed with in the past, are not bullshit, although let's face it, when all is said and done, Keen still an economist. That's always troubling. You'll note that the BBC interviewer Sarah Montague simply can't wrap her mind around the idea of forgiving debt (aka. a debt jubilee). Her cognitive density, the impermeability of Sarah's brain to unconventional thinking, becomes very annoying as the interview goes along.

You see, she has been taught that debt must always be paid back, even if it can't be paid back, or else there is a moral hazard, although the same criteria apparently do not apply to those who issued the bad debt in the first place. Thus you will find that things really bog down in the middle of this long interview, as Sarah keeps asking the same question over and over again, and Keen struggles to answer it each time.

 

For Humans, The Economy Is Everything

Yesterday I wrote about our changing the climate. The study by Schmittner et. al. I cited yesterday, which showed a lower sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, has set off a firestorm of protest among environmental activists, among them Joe Romm of Climate Progress. It turns out that this latest study, if correct, implies that even with a lower sensitivity, there will be "drastic changes" (for example, as expressed in extreme weather events) on land in the mid to high latitudes, which happens to be where most Americans live, not to mention Europeans, the Japanese, Russians, Canadians and so on.

Romm talks about "fast feedbacks" (e.g. water vapor levels in the atmosphere) versus "slow feedbacks" (e.g. methane release from thawing permafrost). Romm talks about all sorts of other things, but here's what you "need to know" about the "flawed study"—

Here’s what you need to know about the study by Schmittner et al in Science (subs. req’d):

1. Its key finding is that the so-called “fast-feedbacks sensitivity” of the climate (to a doubling of CO2 levels) is on the low side.  This finding is likely wrong, according to many leading climatologists (see below).
2. Even if the study’s findings hold up, we are headed toward high warming on our current GHG emissions path.  That’s because we are headed toward a tripling or higher of CO2 levels and because the slower feedbacks ain’t so slow (see “NSIDC bombshell: Thawing permafrost feedback will turn Arctic from carbon sink to source in the 2020s, releasing 100 billion tons of carbon by 2100“).
3. The study finds that small changes in Earth’s temperature can have huge impacts on the land — that’s why it finds a low sensitivity!

I'm going to make this post short and sweet. (Well, OK, maybe not, I'm a wordy son-of-a-bitch.)

This latest study, flawed or not, doesn't matter, just like the many studies which preceded it.

Why doesn't this study matter? Here's why: Homo sapiens—yes, that's you and me folks—is not going to do diddly-squat about climate change. And why not? As if we had to learn this lesson all over again in the three years since the financial meltdown, we have once again discovered that for human beings, the economy is everything.

Stopping or slowing greenhouse gas emissions would require us to shrink the economy instead of trying to grow it. And why is that? Because modern industrial economies require lots and lots of energy to function. As the economy grows, energy consumption grows too. (Efficiency can only take you so far and according to Jevons, only makes matters worse over time.) So unless we have alternative "renewable" sources of energy that scale to the levels required to support a growing global economy, we must shrink that economy to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels. At present, and in the foreseeable future, those viable (scalable) energy alternatives do not or very likely will not exist. Got it? Do not exist.

And nobody—no one important in human affairs—is going to buy off on the idea that we must shrink the economy. Including Joe Romm. Certainly not U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Or the President who appointed him, or anybody else for that matter, if push comes to shove.

Even if an alternative energy miracle occurs, it would take many decades to even partially replace oil, natural gas and coal with wind, solar, hydropower or whatever happens to come along. And remember, all that time the economy would need to be growing, because that's what human beings generally want. It is all that matters to them.

Which brings me to my second point. As I said, and it bears repeating, as the economy grows in the future, energy flows must increase to support that growth. As things stand, it is naive to believe that we wouldn't have to burn even more fossil fuels in the future than we do now. But where are those going to come from? Let me repeat this text from yesterday's post.

...there's a snowball's chance in hell human burning of fossil fuels will culmimate in a doubling of atmospheric CO₂. In short, I don't think levels will reach 560 ppmv. I just don't see where all those fossil fuels are going to come from. Even if viable alternatives to fossil fuels miraculously appear, the possibility that global economic (GDP) growth will simply continue year-after-year in the 21st century seems very remote. There are all sorts of contraints on that growth, not just the availability of cheap energy.

Imagine it if you can: if atmospheric CO₂ were to grow by 3 ppmv per year, it would still take 56 years to get to 560 ppmv. That takes us to the year 2067. No way, Jose!

And that is the real reason the hysterical prognostications I mentioned above have always been laughable. Those making these dire predictions are employing the standard assumption used by economists, commonly referred to as Business-As-Usual (BAU). In short, these "radical" environmentalists assume that economic growth in the 21st century will (or could) mirror the growth of the 20th century. Not so "radical" after all...

All sorts of constraints on growth? Take the oceans, for example. At the rate humans are destroying marine life in the oceans, polluting them and acidifying them, we could end up with biologically impoverished oceans by 2050. So this ongoing climate debate madness just doesn't matter, whether it comes from deniers or environmentalists.

For humans, the economy is everything, i.e. trying to grow the economy is everything, regardless of the consequences of the expansion. Generally speaking, and sadly, this is entirely the purpose of life in the 21st century. And of course the human population just goes up and up.

To expand human economies, you must increase energy consumption. That's just what we've seen in emerging economies like China or Brazil over the last 15 years.To increase energy consumption, as things stand and unless a miracle occurs, humans will have to burn more fossil fuels. But the question then becomes where is all that crude oil, natural gas and coal going to come from to "achieve" 560 ppmv by 2067?

So go ahead, Joe Romm, talk about "fast feedbacks" versus "slow feedbacks" until you're blue in the face. Talk about doubling or tripling the current level of CO₂ in the atmosphere. It won't make any difference in the end.

Unfortunately, the Human Condition is what it is. Nothing is going to be done about mitigating anthropogenic climate change. We've seen this reality demonstrated over and over and over again in recent years. If an alien anthropologist came to Earth to study us, he would—being absolutely objective—arrrive at this obvious conclusion after a cursory assessment of the situation. Here's what the alien would say—

These humans are never going to do anything about their self-inflicted climate problem because for them, the economy is everything.

What would be obvious to the alien is apparently not obvious to human beings. If you've read this post and absorbed its lessons, you now know the true scope of the problems accompanying human existence on the planet Earth. I'll let George take it from here.

Bonus Video — "Circling The Drain". George Carlin tells it like it is.

 

Climate Change — Some "Good News" For A Change?

This past week we've had some "good news" about future climate change based on an analysis published in the journal Science called Climate Sensitivity Estimated from Temperature Reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum by Andreas Schmittner, et. al. Here's the abstract, which I shall explain in layman's terms below.

Assessing impacts of future anthropogenic carbon emissions is currently impeded by uncertainties in our knowledge of equilibrium climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide doubling. Previous studies suggest 3 K (°Centigrade) as best estimate, 2 to 4.5 K as the 66% probability range, and nonzero probabilities for much higher values, the latter implying a small but significant chance of high-impact climate changes that would be difficult to avoid. Here, combining extensive sea and land surface temperature reconstructions from the Last Glacial Maximum with climate model simulations, we estimate a lower median (2.3 K) and reduced uncertainty (1.7 to 2.6 K 66% probability). Assuming paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future as predicted by our model, these results imply lower probability of imminent extreme climatic change than previously thought.

Pre-industrial levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere were approximately 280 ppmv (parts-per-million-by-volume) over the last 10,000 years or so (the Holocene). The standard way for assessing the "sensitivity" of the climate to increased carbon emissions in post-industrial times is to model what might happen if there is a doubling to 560 ppmv. In other words, how much will surface temperatures increase in this case? The best estimate, even from the time the first models were developed in the 1970s, has always been 3°centigrade (C) within a 66% probability range of 2 to 4.5.

This new research suggests that the climate sensitivity is "only" 1.7 to 2.6 C with a 66% probability, and the best estimate within that range is 2.3°C.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study suggests that the rate of global warming from doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be less than the most dire estimates of some previous studies – and, in fact, may be less severe than projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007...

"Many previous climate sensitivity studies have looked at the past only from 1850 through today, and not fully integrated paleoclimate date, especially on a global scale," said Andreas Schmittner, an Oregon State University researcher and lead author on the Science article. "When you reconstruct sea and land surface temperatures from the peak of the last Ice Age 21,000 years ago – which is referred to as the Last Glacial Maximum – and compare it with climate model simulations of that period, you get a much different picture.

"If these paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future, as predicted by our model, the results imply less probability of extreme climatic change than previously thought," Schmittner added...

Some previous studies have claimed the impacts could be much more severe – as much as 10 degrees or higher with a doubling of CO2 – although these projections come with an acknowledged low probability. Studies based on data going back only to 1850 are affected by large uncertainties in the effects of dust and other small particles in the air that reflect sunlight and can influence clouds, known as "aerosol forcing," or by the absorption of heat by the oceans, the researchers say.

To lower the degree of uncertainty, Schmittner and his colleagues used a climate model with more data and found that there are constraints that preclude very high levels of climate sensitivity.

The researchers compiled land and ocean surface temperature reconstructions from the Last Glacial Maximum and created a global map of those temperatures. During this time, atmospheric CO2 was about a third less than before the Industrial Revolution, and levels of methane and nitrous oxide were much lower. Because much of the northern latitudes were covered in ice and snow, sea levels were lower, the climate was drier (less precipitation), and there was more dust in the air.

This is definitely "good news" if the paleoclimatic constraints found by Schmittner and his colleagues do indeed apply to the future. These results may even put the kabosh on hysterical prognostications emanating from the Jim Hansen/Bill McKibben wing of the environmental movement, although I doubt that they will. Needless to say, if these results hold up, an expected warming of 2.3°C is nothing to celebrate. That's still a huge shift in what amounts to no time at all on the geological timescale. The next most rapid warming we know of was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) which took place about 56 million years ago, and in which it took 20,000 years to get a 5-6°C rise in surface temperature.

The news, if true, is even better than generally thought because there's a snowball's chance in hell human burning of fossil fuels will culmimate in a doubling of atmospheric CO₂. In short, I don't think levels will reach 560 ppmv. I just don't see where all those fossil fuels are going to come from. Even if viable alternatives to fossil fuels miraculously appear, the possibility that global economic (GDP) growth will simply continue year-after-year in the 21st century seems very remote. There are all sorts of contraints on that growth, not just the availability of cheap energy.

Imagine it if you can: if atmospheric CO₂ were to grow by 3 ppmv per year, it would still take 56 years to get to 560 ppmv. That takes us to the year 2067. No way, Jose!

And that is the real reason the hysterical prognostications I mentioned above have always been laughable. Those making these dire predictions are employing the standard assumption used by economists, commonly referred to as Business-As-Usual (BAU). In short, these "radical" environmentalists assume that economic growth in the 21st century will (or could) mirror the growth of the 20th century. Not so "radical" after all. See what I mean?

Take this "good news" about future climate with a grain of salt. The path humankind is traveling still ends in disaster long before the year 2067. The Awful Truth is that this disaster is no longer impending. It has already begun. You'll see.

Bonus Video — here's some typical crapola from Bill McKibben (see my comments on this post).

 

Remedy du Jour -- November 26, 2011

PBS recently ran a 2-part documentary about Woody Allen in the American Masters series. It was quite informative. For example, Woody didn't think Manhattan was a great film. In fact, he thought so little of it that he didn't want the picture released. Not only was it a great movie, but some consider it one of the best movies of all time. It's certainly among Woody's top three. Woody works on the quantity theory. If you make enough movies, some of them are bound to be good.

That's only one example of Woody's cluelessness among many, including the fact that he took up with Mia Farrow's very young adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn (Farrow) in the early 1990s, which is why I assume Mia won't have anything to do with him. (As I recall, she wasn't interviewed in the PBS documentary, which I don't think was an accident.) In Manhattan, Woody's first girlfriend (before Diane Keaton) is 18-year-old Mariel Hemingway. Get the picture? Few people seem to.

I came to same conclusions after the documentary that I had held before it: Woody can be a great storyteller but he's unconscious, hasn't learned much (if anything) about the Human Condition which he didn't know when he was 18, has made some great movies and some truly awful ones, and all of it seems to have occurred by accident (incidentally). I stopped watching his movies in 1997 when I saw the god-awful Deconstructing Harry in a theater with a friend. Woody wasn't getting more conscious, but I was changing. I was through with him.

Nevertheless, great art often comes about accidentally, comes right out of the Unconscious. We've got the opening scene of Manhattan, the wonderful ending scene from the same movie, and parts 8 and 9 of Broadway Danny Rose, which is probably his most underrated film. Both movies were shot in black and white, which is one of the reasons I like them.

 

 

 

 

A Note On The "Holiday Season"

Day after mind-numbing day between now and New Years Day, Americans will be subjected to an astonishing commercial bombardment designed to help them "celebrate" the holidays. In my local tree-killer the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sara Bauknecht tells us to Get Merry with these holiday TV specials.

You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout — it's holiday TV time.

That's right, it's that part of the year when seasonal staples such as Charlie Brown, the Grinch, Scrooge, Ralphie Parker, Rudolph and the rest of the gang reprise their spots on the small screen. Joining them will be newcomers, such as the animated "Hoops & Yoyo Ruin Christmas," the romantic charmer "12 Dates of Christmas" and "A Michael Buble Christmas," the Canadian-born singer's first holiday special that will air on NBC. And come Dec. 31, count down to 2012 with Carson Daly, Ryan Seacrest and Dick Clark in Times Square.

So whether you plan to cozy up by the fire, bake cookies or just enjoy the company of family and friends, there's sure to be something on this list to help make the moment a bit merrier.

There follows a list for each day between November 25—the day after Thanksgiving—and January 1 of holiday-related TV specials. Here's today's items. There are only 35 days of this soul-crushing nonsense left to go.

NOV. 26
• "This Christmas," TBS, midnight
• "The Three Gifts," HALL, 12:30 a.m., 6 a.m.
• "Bad Santa," COM, 1:07 a.m.
• "Denis Leary's Merry F... Christmas Special," COM, 3:08 a.m.
• "The Nuttiest Nutcracker," HALL, 5 a.m.
• "Santa Jr.," HALL, 8 a.m.
• "WPXI Presents: My Macy's Holiday Parade," WPXI, 9 a.m.
• "Richie Rich's Christmas Wish," ABCFAM, 10 a.m.
• "The Case for Christmas," HALL, 10 a.m.
• "Holiday on Ice Around the World," WKBN, 12:30 p.m.
• "A Christmas Wish," HALL, 2 p.m.
• "Debbie Macomber's Mrs. Miracle," HALL, 4 p.m., 6 p.m.
• "Secrets From a Holiday Stylist," HGTV, 4 p.m.
• "Unlikely Angel," CMT, 5:45 p.m., 11 p.m.
• "The Dog Who Saved Christmas," ABC-FAM, 6 p.m.
• "Wintertime Treats Unwrapped," FOOD, 7 p.m.
• "The 85th Anniversary of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade," WJAC, WTOV, WFMJ, WPXI, 8 p.m.
• "Debbie Macomber's Trading Christmas," HALL, 8 p.m., 10 p.m.
• "Holiday Block Party 2011," HGTV, 8 p.m.
• "Elf," USA, 8 p.m.
• "Celebrity Holiday Homes," HGTV, 9 p.m.
• "WPXI Presents: My Macy's Holiday Parade," PCNC, 9 p.m.

I want to make two simple points.

• You're living in an insane asylum where nothing is real
• It didn't used to be this way

The late Joe Bageant called the asylum the media hologram. I wrote an essay about it called Thinking Outside The Box — Part II. (There is a Part I). Nothing that happens within the hologram is real in the sense that it is fake, artificial, wholly contrived. Get merry with these holiday TV specials? These specials are designed to "entertain" you in order to sell you shit during the interminable commercial breaks. Getting "merry" has nothing to do with it. If you're feeling really cheerful, which is highly unlikely given the state of the world, it isn't because today you watched Debbie Macomber's Trading Christmas on the Hallmark channel. It's more likely you just ingested 3 double bourbons in 15 minutes.

Needless to say, Jesus has nothing to do with any of this. More pertinently, you might ask yourself why it takes 18 months to elect a president in the United States. You might also ask yourself why there are (at least) 30 tedious college football bowl games with names like The Bank of America You-Take-It-Up-The-Wazoo Sodomy Bowl. There used to be four—the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Cotton Bowl and the Sugar Bowl. (Later joined by a fifth, the Fiesta Bowl).

My second point is perhaps even more important than the first, for it demonstrates that the insane asylum (media hologram) was deliberately brought into existence by corporate hustlers through the ceaseless application of the rule More Is Better. This atrocity came about at a fairly late point in the "evolution" of American "culture" (such as it is). When I was a kid, there was A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), a few holiday special editions in the week or so before December 25th on venues like The Andy Williams Show, and that was it. That was all there was. And I can tell you, people were a hell of lot more cheerful then than they are now.

And that's all I have to say (for now) about the "Holiday Season".

Bonus Video — A quote from the Huffington Post: After [this] video went viral, sites all across the web began to offer their commentary. Gawker wrote that the video embodies everything that's "awesome" about America, including the "horrible economy, aggressive consumerism, mindless violence and a complete lack of concern for one's fellow human beings."

 

Planet Stupid — Black Friday, Pepper Spray Edition

It's Black Friday, which actually started late in the day on Thanksgiving. This is also a cleverly disguised open thread, so feel free to comment on any subject. Traffic will be light today.

Things got off to a fabulous start yesterday when a woman at a California Wal-Mart pepper-sprayed her fellow shoppers to clear the competition for some discounted goods.

Black Friday holiday shopping got off to a violent start as officials said a woman unleashed pepper spray on fellow shoppers late Thursday night at the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch.

In what officials called a "shopping rage," the unidentified woman, trying to as snag more discounted merchandise, attacked 20 customers, including children, minutes after the store opened at 10 p.m.

Her "competitive-shopping" strategy, used in several parts of the store, left victims with minor skin and eye irritation and sore throats, according to a Los Angeles Fire Department official.

Authorities are still searching for the woman.

Dianna Gee, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said she couldn't yet confirm the details of the incident, but "No one was seriously injured."

The violence was not confined to California. There was some tasering in Milford, Connecticut. We've got video!

 

Bloomberg gave us an overview of today's events in Black Friday Lures ‘Extreme Couponing’ Buyers.

From Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, to The Galleria in Houston, retailers unleashed a blizzard of deals as Black Friday — the biggest shopping day of the year — got off to its earliest start ever. The discounting has been more widespread than last year as retailers tried to woo shoppers spooked by global economic uncertainty and stagnant job growth.

“It’s a good sign that the consumer is coming out, and that all the distractions didn’t sway the consumer from having a good holiday,” said Marshal Cohen, an analyst at Port Washington, New York-based NPD Group. Shoppers were spending about the same as last year, said Cohen, who visited stores in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.

Yes, it's a good sign that the consumers are coming out. You DOTE regulars are likely to think you're living on Planet Stupid, and of course you are right. You may be thinking: does this nightmare ever end?

If we're talking about pepper-spray shopping and extreme couponing, the hopeful but true answer is yes, someday it will. All such insane behavior patterns must eventually backfire and fall apart. The increasingly desperate consumption party will end, very likely in the lifetime of most DOTE readers.

Unfortunately, as comedian Doug Stanhope reminds us below, if we're talking about the ever-disappointing and unchanging Human Condition, the news is not so good. Life on Planet Stupid mirrors this standard summary of the Laws of Thermodynamics—

• You can’t win.
• You can’t break even.
• And you can’t get out of the game.

Here's Doug.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving, and although many Americans have little to be thankful for, I would like to believe this will be a good day for many others. Enjoy what's left while you can. Here's a recent story from National Propaganda Radio for you to read. It will help to listen (3:37) as you read along.

Don't fret, there is video clip after the story which will make you feel much, much better. Remember, if you throw up early in the day, you can eat more turkey later. Unless of course you work for Target, Best Buy, Toys-R-Us, Macys, or Wal-Mart, in which case you won't be eating turkey with the family. You'll be asleep in anticipation of going to work at 11:00 PM.

Happy Thanksgiving. And here's a special holiday shout-out to you, Anthony.

Anthony Hardwick, a Target employee from Nebraska, made headlines for his petition drive against the company's plan to open stores at midnight after Thanksgiving.

Is it wrong to make employees work right after they finish Thanksgiving dinner?

Or is Target simply giving customers what they want?

Hmmm... is this going to be one of NPR's infamous Fair & Balanced stories?

It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

When the holidays roll around, how much shopping is too much shopping? Hordes already pile to the stores before the sun is up on the morning of so-called Black Friday. This year, Target, Wal-Mart and some other retailers are opening even earlier - midnight, as Thursday turns to Friday. And some workers are protesting.

NPR's Chris Arnold waded into the retail trenches to get the latest.

CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: If Dr. Seuss were alive today, he might want to write a sequel to "The Grinch," who this time is stealing Thanksgiving. At least that's how some retail workers feel and their complaints seem to have struck a chord.

In recent days this story has spread across the Web, blogs and network TV.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Now those full contact shoppers can start even earlier, midnight on Thursday.

ARNOLD: ABC and most other networks talked to a Target employee in Omaha, Nebraska. Anthony Hardwick didn't like being told that he had to report for work at 11 PM Thanksgiving night.

ANTHONY HARDWICK: I'm going to have to get some sleep and I'll probably go to bed at two and miss my family Thanksgiving dinner completely.

ARNOLD: Hardwick started an online petition called Tell Target to Save Thanksgiving. A couple hundred thousand signatures were delivered in paper form to Target's headquarters. The pages were stuffed into those red and white Target shopping bags.

For its part, Target says its customers want to go shopping on Thanksgiving night. And no doubt, some will.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: That's about as American as you can get, turkey and shopping.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ARNOLD: In the historic Downtown Crossing Shopping District in Boston, a small charity band is already playing holiday music. High school teacher Kate Newburgh says that she probably won't be shopping one on Thanksgiving. But Danny Jones, who's walking by with his cousin, might be.

DANNY JONES: Thanksgiving, man, is not only about food. So what if you need something? It's good to have something open because nothing is going to be open that day.

MIKE JONES: (unintelligible)

JONES: To have an option.

ARNOLD: Danny's cousin, Mike Jones, though, says he wants to eat turkey and watch football and settle in for some quality time on the couch. And he thinks the Friday after Thanksgiving shopping craze is chaotic enough. Opening after Thanksgiving dinner, he says, might be asking for trouble.

JONES: Dangerous for the employees, man, 'cause, you know, people come out there after eating and drinking. And them people be rowdy, man.

JONES: That's true though.

JONES: Shoot, I don't want to work on Thanksgiving. I mean, or after Thanksgiving. I want to have the whole week off.

ARNOLD: With the down economy some workers might be happy with some extra hours. Some shoppers said that stores should try to find people who want to work on Thanksgiving, but they should try not to force people.

JULIO ARROYO: I already put my notice a month ago, just in case.

ARNOLD: That you weren't going to work on Thanksgiving?

ARROYO: Yup.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

ARROYO: Just in case.

ARNOLD: Julio Arroyo is working as a security guard outside a shoe store.

ARROYO: I mean, I look out for this 'cause I work almost seven days a week anyways, 'cause I got to support my family. But personally I want that day off.

JOHN INKLEDON: I think there should always be some things that are more important than a day at work.

ARNOLD: John and Christine Inkledon are visiting from Weybridge, England, where they say you can actually still see store closed signs hanging up in shop windows.

INKLEDON: There's a thing in England called the Lord's Day Observance Society and it's still powerful. We've always had restrictions on opening hours. Sunday is an example, you know, you can only open half a day. And, generally, I think that's a popular thing, as well.

ARNOLD: But come Friday night here in America, workers at Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Toys 'R Us, Macy's and other stores will be hustling around the aisles and ringing up some well-fed and perhaps tipsy shoppers.

And here's the Thanksgiving video which will make you feel much, much better.

 

Where's That Next Meal Coming From?

It is the day before Thanksgiving, and CBS News, not exactly a radical, alternative news source, informs us that 1 in 6 Americans don't know where their next meal is coming from. And I am wondering how many of those self-aggrandizing, power-mad assholes in Washington know what's going on in the hinterlands outside the Imperial Capital.

That 1 in 6 number is no doubt based on the alternative measurement of poverty recently released by the Census Bureau. It turns out that some of those assholes in Washington are fully aware of poverty in the United States, except they don't think the poor are actually poor. Let's quote from the Christian Science Monitor's New poverty calculus: Cause for alarm or political deception?

The Census Bureau's attempts to improve how the government measures poverty have unleashed criticism from conservatives who say the move is a bid to politicize America's class struggles.

The new Census measure suggests that the ranks of the poor – at 49 million – are 3 million larger than previously thought. The increase comes in the new way poverty is measured. The new Census report for the first time includes government subsidies and benefits such as food stamps as a part of household income, but it also factors in rising costs, such as health-care expenses. The result creates a new poverty line and a new view of who in the US is poor. 

The new threshold for poverty for family of four, for example, is $24,343, as opposed to $22,113. And the revision reveals greater poverty trends among Asians, Hispanics, whites, and the elderly, and declining poverty for blacks and children, who tend to be greater beneficiaries of food stamps.

Sociologists say the new numbers give greater nuance to the portrait of poverty in the US, highlighting the degree to which government programs are keeping struggling Americans afloat. Critics counter the numbers are engineered precisely to make government assistance appear indispensable and to pave the way for a broader redistribution of American wealth toward the poor.

If you've lived on this planet long enough, and you've learned a few things along the way, which most people decidedly do not, you'll find that Human Beings can spin (rationalize) anything to suit their purposes, however evil those purposes might be. Government assistance is indispensable to the impoverished, but those who want to take it away from them don't want it to appear that way. Take the case of Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, who is quoted by the Chistian Science Monitor.

"This [new count] is a deliberate deception, a Trojan horse to smuggle the goal of income leveling in under the slogan of poverty," says Robert Rector, a poverty expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "The reason they call it poverty instead of income inequality is that there's not a lot of political demand for income equalization in the United States"...

An overwhelming majority of both Democrats and Republicans in a Rasmussen poll in September said they believe that someone who has adequate housing, air conditioning, cable TV, and a computer in the house – which government data show is typical for a poor family – is, in fact, not poor.

The real poverty rate, by the measurements of Mr. Rector, who helped engineer President Clinton's welfare reform in 1996, is likely closer to 4 percent.

"When the average American thinks about poverty, they're thinking about significant material hardship, where you're living in a boarded up house and your kids are malnourished," he says. "I'm not saying they're living in luxury, but to pretend that [deprivation] is typical of someone in poverty is ridiculous. Those people are an even smaller portion of this new poverty population that's being defined."

The rationalization Rector employs is straightforward: the so-called "poor" are not really poor. All Robert needs to do is raise the bar so high for being poor that only 4% of Americans make the new grade—basically, the homeless and those close to it.

Since I am expert in this particular area, I have crafted a response. I live on less than $20,000 per year, and I have adequate housing, air conditioning, cable TV and a computer in the house, though not a working automobile. (I don't drive anymore).  Am I poor? You betcha! At least financially, but not in spirit.

But according to a "majority of both Democrats and Republicans," I am not poor. Unlike those who are officially impoverished, I don't receive government assistance, whereas almost all of the rest do, as they try to scrape by on incomes of at most $24,434 per year for a family of four. (I live alone.) Are they poor? According to that majority, and Mr. Rector, they are not.

What is the solution to this puzzle? Clearly, we should take away their government assistance, and then do a quick count of how many people are truly poor before most of them die off of starvation or exposure, frozen to death on the couch in front of the TV set. That will tell us how many people were poor (before the die-off) and has another virtue as well: it will considerably reduce the ranks of the poor. Talk about killing off two birds with one stone!

See my older post 29% Of Americans Say It's Difficult To Afford Food (January 3, 2011). That post also reports that 51% say it is difficult to afford health care, while 48% say the same about their home heating and electric bills. And what about those living above the official poverty line?

Nearly half of all Americans lack economic security, meaning they live above the federal poverty threshold but still do not have enough money to cover housing, food, healthcare and other basic expenses, according to a survey of government and industry data.

The survey, released on Tuesday by the advocacy group Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW), found that 45 percent of U.S. residents live in households that struggle to make ends meet.

That breaks down to 39 percent of all adults and 55 percent of all children, the group found.

"This is a wake-up call for Congress, for our state policy-makers, really for all of us," said Donna Addkison, President and CEO of WOW.

"Nearly half of our nation's families cannot cover the costs of basic expenses even when they do have a job. Under these conditions, cuts to unemployment insurance ... and other programs families are relying on right now would push them from crisis to catastrophe."

Here's the CBS News video describing America's new poor. Bear in mind that according to Mr. Rector and a majority of polled Democrats and Republicans, the people shown or interviewed are not actually poor.

 

Hopey-Changey Goes To Australia

The disconnect between America's deteriorating domestic situation and its imperial ambitions could not be greater. We might even say that those inside the nation's capital have wholly departed from Reality, although we have come to expect this kind of thing. Barack Obama's recent trip to Australia was a case in point.

Obama to China: US is here to stay in Asia

Associated Press (reprinted in the Hindustan Times)
Canberra, November 17, 2011

Signaling a determination to counter a rising China, US President Barack Obama vowed on Thursday to expand US influence in the Asia-Pacific region and "project power and deter threats to peace" in that part of the world even as he reduces defense spending and winds down two wars. "The United States is a Pacific power  and we are here to stay," he declared in a speech to the Australian Parliament, sending an unmistakable message to Beijing.

Obama's bullish speech came several hours after announcing he would send military aircraft and up to 2,500 Marines to northern Australia for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia. He declared the US is not afraid of China, by far the biggest and most powerful country in the region.

China immediately questioned the US move and said it deserved further scrutiny.

Emphasizing that a US presence in the Asia-Pacific region is a top priority of his administration, Obama stressed that any reductions in US defense spending will not come at the expense of that goal.

"Let there be no doubt: in the Asia-Pacific in the 21st century the United States of America is all in," he said.

The United States is a Pacific power? Here to stay? All in?

One might have thought that the Korean "conflict" and Vietnam War would have established that the United States is not a Pacific power, but these invaluable lessons were not learned, or have been forgotten.

Virtually everything Obama is doing on his nine-day trip across the Asia-Pacific region has a Chinese subtext, underscoring a relationship that is at once cooperative and marked by tensions over currency  human rights and military might.

Human rights? What about our right to freedom of assembly in the United States? The right to protest enormous socioeconomic injustice without being mugged and pepper-sprayed by the police? 

And what of China's alleged military might?

China's military spending has increased threefold since the 1990s to about $160 billion last year and its military recently tested a new stealth jet fighter and launched its first aircraft carrier.

A congressional advisory panel on Wednesday urged the White House and Congress to look more closely at China s military expansion and pressed for a tougher stance against what it called anti-competitive Chinese trade policies.

Outside of those poor Buddhists in Tibet—we shouldn't forget them—Chinese "military expansion" does not exist. Let me repeat that with emphasis: does not exist. There may be a "Chinese subtext" here, but it pales in comparison to the American subtext. Oh, no! The Chinese have an aircraft carrier! Time to put Marines in Australia. We're here to stay, all in!

Hopey-Changey did not go to Australia to promote the Pax Americana. He went there as a provocateur, the representative of a bully nation hoping to intimidate the Chinese and distract its people from their own suffering. He had the gall to speak of the choices before us.

For Obama, Asia represents both a security challenge and an economic opportunity. Speaking in broad geopolitical terms  the president asserted:

"With most of the world s nuclear powers and some half of humanity, Asia will largely define whether the century ahead will be marked by conflict or cooperation, needless suffering or human progress."

We know which side Hopey-Changey represents. When was it ever different?

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again,
there is nothing new under the sun
   — Ecclesiastes, 1:9