Links 10/13/14

Animal welfare bill seeks to punish cruel pet owners Bangkok Post (furzy mouse)

Five-year-old who pretended crayon was gun forced to sign contract by kindergarten Daily Mail (Chuck L)

‘Frack-for-the-cure’ breast-cancer awareness campaign offers latest example of corporate ‘pinkwashing’ Minnesota Post

I’m Sorry, But You’re Just Not The Man I Hoped You Would Become When We Got Married Onion

Ebola

The Origins Of The Ebola Crisis Counterpunch

Texas Health Worker Tests Positive For Ebola Huffington Post

US warns of possible rise in Ebola cases Financial Times

Madrid hospital staff quit over Ebola fears Guardian

Dallas Nurse Caught Ebola Because CDC Protocols Are Inadequate George Washington

Hong Kong

Clashes at Hong Kong protest site BBC

Hong Kong police remove barricades and gather at protest site Guardian

Getting Real About China New York Times (David L)

Shock China coal tariff decision throws Australian free trade talks into turmoil Sydney Morning Herald (EM)

How Greed Destroyed Spain’s Oldest Savings Bank Wolf Street (David L)

Can Greece stand on its own feet? Yanis Varoufakis

Rumors Swirling About Israel’s Shocking ‘Endgame’ Plan for Palestinians in Gaza Alternet (furzy mouse)

Evo Morales declares victory in Bolivian election CNN

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: No Country is an Island – Or is It? Alan Tonelson (Bob H)

Syraqistan

War against Isis: US strategy in tatters as militants march on Independent

Turkey says US can use air bases for IS fight France 24

As ISIS Slaughters Kurds In Kobani, The U.S. Bombs Syrian Grain Silos Counterpunch

U.S. Air Force probed for scrapping costly planes bought for Afghans Reuters (EM)

VA earns certification for whistleblower protection after retaliation complaints Washington Post

Dems want White House shakeup The Hill (furzy mouse)

Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes Washington Post

Whither Markets?

The Weekend Is Over, And The Global Selloff Is Continuing Business Insider

Europe stocks stumble on economy fears Financial Times

The Methodical Fed Tim Duy

Is the Dollar Correction Over, or Just the First Leg? Marc Chandler

US mortgage rates fall after Gross’s exit Financial Times

Big data challenge perplexes fund managers Financial Times (David L)

Class Warfare

How 14 People Made More Money Than the Entire Food Stamp Budget for 50 Million People Alternet (furzy mouse)

Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Campaign to Dismantle the Post Office

Antidote du jour (furzy mouse). An albino humpbacked whale.

albino whale links

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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57 comments

  1. gonzomarx

    Pay squeeze worst since Victorian age, study finds
    British workers are suffering biggest slump in real wages since economic crises in the 1860s and 1870s, according to TUC

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/11/british-pay-squeeze-worst-150-years-tuc-study?guni=Keyword:news-grid%20main-1%20Main%20trailblock:Editable%20trailblock%20-%20news:Position7

    My life as a northern soul boy: rebellion on the dancefloor in the 1970s
    http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/11/northern-soul-rebellion-dance-floor-paul-mason

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      When real wages drop, even if food prices stay the same, that is ‘INFLATION,’ for us the Little People

      And ‘that inflation’ is a feature of the current way of money printing under the status quo….it goes to speculating and not the little people.

      The more real wages drop, the bigger this relative ‘inflation.’

  2. gonzomarx

    HEADLINE: French economist wins Nobel Prize
    first 2 sentances: The prize, officially called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was set up in 1968 It was not one of the original awards set out in dynamite industrialist Mr Nobel’s 1895 will. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29599016

    So why the unholy C*$£*&g Feck do you put Nobel Prize in the headline without quotes! and how many other MSM outlets wont bother with that disclaimer?

    NHS unions tell Hunt: talk to us or face further strikes
    Unions say industrial action will be repeated next month unless government offers more money to meet demand for 1% pay rise
    http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/13/nhs-unions-jeremy-hunt-talk-further-strikes-pay-rise

    1. Bene

      Actually, Alfred was pretty clear about it; there was NOT to be a Nobel Prize in mathematics, of which economics was then considered a subset. Seems he suspected (or knew) his wife was messing around with one of them, and this act of collective punishment was his way of making know his intense displeasure.

  3. D. Mathews

    Wesley Clarke: “Even more worrisome, China’s foreign policy relies on keenly calculated self-interest,”
    And the United States doesn’t do this at all, stearing its foreign policy to strictly altruistic purposes.

    1. Jim Haygood

      So true, D. Americans — always willing to sacrifice for others:

      Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, President Obama’s top military adviser, said Sunday that no circumstances had yet arisen that warranted recommending the limited use of American ground troops as advisers in combat conditions. But, during an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” he added, “There will be circumstances when the answer to that question will likely be yes.”

      http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/world/middleeast/police-chief-of-embattled-province-killed-in-iraq.html

    2. Christopher Fay

      No, the United States doesn’t do this in self-interest or altruistic purposes. The governance of the country does it to order of who pays best, and the good things are supposed to trickle down.

    3. cwaltz

      Wow! Spoken like a true 1%er!

      As long as a monied interest benefits from our intrusion it’s altruism.

  4. John Zelnicker

    At first glance in my email, I though the antidote was an iceberg. Beautiful picture of a beautiful animal.

    1. diptherio

      My first thought was “Oh look, it’s the oppressor of the oceans!” It’s possible I was projecting a little bit….

      ‘Tis a beautiful beast, though…

          1. abynormal

            wicked Petal…another sighting site for escape and solitude. (few yrs ago a hidden camera on barn owl hatching’s swirled an uncommon comfort’)

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      The whale evolved, first from ocean to land, and then from land to ocean.

      Thus, we know we can go home again.

      ‘The message from the Whale: ‘You, too, can go ‘home’ to simplicity and Luddite living’

  5. milesc

    Re Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes
    ^ This and other guilty-until-you-can-show-otherwise initiatives are out of control. Seriously, when did it become illegal to carry large quantities of cash?

    1. not_me

      When one takes cash from a bank, she/he reduces the reserves of the banking system. Now banks can always borrow reserves from the Fed if necessary (from the discount window) but that destroys the illusion that the banks are mere intermediaries between borrowers and savers instead of what they really are: a source of new purchasing power for the sake of the rich and other most so-called creditworthy at the expense of the poor and other least so-called creditworthy.

      But if law enforcement is opposed to cash then why aren’t they lobbying for an alternative to the banks, a Postal Savings Service for the risk-free storage of and transactions with fiat?

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      I think when you pay your taxes to the IRS in cash, with quarters, your money is NOT destroyed, unless there is a metal salvage yard at the Treasury.

      That is to say, taxation does not destroy money.

      And that’s not good, because taxation should destroy money.

  6. John Zelnicker

    Re: Five year-old signing contract. The child didn’t even know what suicide means. WTF is wrong with these people!?

    1. John Zelnicker

      This happened at the school just up the street from me that both of my daughters attended. The stupidity of the administration there goes back a long way.

      1. Banger

        On the other hand, this sort of thing proves to children that the authorities are completely insane and will and, therefore, authority will eventually have no legitimacy. Today, anyone who believes the current regime in all its chaotic manifestations should be willingly followed has to be deluded.

        1. abynormal

          exacto.

          “Kids have fewer biases and hence are better able to discern emergent social norms rooted in subjective valuation that elude adults precisely because the longer we live, the more we are inclined to believe that we are right and the world around us is wrong. We become ever less willing to consider realities that are not our own.”

    2. craazyboy

      BWAHAHAHAHA!

      Kids have to use crayons for toy guns in Alabama? The place is impoverished!

      Congress needs to do something quick! Future generations are going to fight the War on Terror with crayons? c’mon, now. Get real.

      Besides, crayons are a gateway drug to the horrible eight grader crayon porn plaguing our school system.

      One more reason to cut art class out of the budget too.

      https://www.google.com/search?q=guntoys&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS386US387&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=E9Q7VL3BBofjoATq3YDoBQ&ved=0CCwQ7Ak&biw=1363&bih=771

  7. Jim Haygood

    Standard sleaze in the securities industry:

    Many consumers say they didn’t realize that their broker wasn’t required to follow the most stringent requirement for financial professionals, known as the fiduciary standard. It amounts to this: providing advice that is always 100 percent in the consumer’s interest.

    Registered representatives are required only to recommend “suitable” investments. “Suitable” may sound like an adequate standard, but there’s a hitch: It can mean that a broker isn’t required to put a customer’s interests before his own.

    The Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law of 2010 gave the S.E.C. the authority to propose a rule that would require brokers to act as fiduciaries — but the law didn’t actually require the S.E.C. to enact new regulations.

    The Labor Department expects to issue a new proposal in January for a rule that would broaden fiduciary requirements for retirement accounts. In 2010, the department withdrew an earlier proposal after fierce opposition from the financial services industry.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/business/mutfund/before-the-advice-check-out-the-adviser.html

    There’s a fundamental conflict of interest between selling products and providing objective financial advice. When brokers recommend products, they invariably have an agenda: (1) a fat commission; (2) unloading the firm’s inventory; (3) generating commissions via churn.

    The corpse of Wall Street’s defunct wire house model stinks, but the SEC’s too corrupt to kill it off.

  8. rich

    Political Campaign Donors of PEU Variety

    CNBC reported the impact of shadow bankers on this years political elections.

    A small group of ultra-wealthy private fund managers are dominating political spending this cycle, making up for declining involvement from banking executives.

    Private equity professionals also are giving in record amounts for the midterms, which historically attract far less cash than presidential election years. PE pros have donated $28.8 million this election cycle, up from $20.5 million in 2010, according to CRP. Like hedge funds, the industry gave equally to both parties in 2010 but now favors the GOP nearly 2 to 1. Top PE firm donors include J.W. Childs, Blackstone Group, BLS Investments, Bain Capital and Carlyle Group.

    The rise of PE and hedge fund spending comes as bankers slow down.

    PEU wankers replace banksters and this is somehow comforting?

    It all adds up to a record for the financial community. “Wall Street has ramped up its giving this cycle, delivering more than $120 million and already exceeding what they spent throughout the entire last midterm.”

    I sense another free pass for preferred carried interest taxation. That should be safe and sound for the sixth or seventh time.

    http://peureport.blogspot.com/2014/10/political-campaign-donors-of-peu-variety.html

  9. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    No to ‘end game.’

    No to ‘end solution.’

    No to ‘final game.’

    We have to get along and getting along takes continuous effort to win the hearts and minds…just ask any couple.

  10. Ping

    Re: ‘Fracking for the cure’

    The Susan B. Komen Foundation, who should be on the front lines of environmental issues, is instead hypocritically selling vapid feel good public relations to carcinogen spewing industries.
    I refuse to participate in any of the pink ribbon **** fundraisers.

    1. bob

      But, it’s pink. It can’t be bad!
      Bad Boobie Branding.
      They’d sell their name, and color, to Prince Al if they thought they could hire another director.

      1. abynormal

        i figure they hired LiveStrong PR
        i see pink ribbons on red bull now…do they know how bad that stuff is?

      2. Prince al

        Hey, that’s not fair. I own at least 4 sets. That’s right, I own them outright, as part of the whole package.. Who’s got more skin in the game than me?

    1. abynormal

      great…now i got the giggles

      Class Warfare

      How 14 People Made More Money Than the Entire Food Stamp Budget for 50 Million People Alternet (furzy mouse)

      Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Campaign to Dismantle the Post Office

  11. Doug Terpstra

    It seems that “Wither Markets” analyses are now about as academic as “democratic” (s)elections. The stock rackets are now so centrally controlled by the “Fed” syndicate that plunges of any significance are all but inconceivable, especially just before midterms. For those with money to gamble, craazyman, buying the dip now is a sure thing. It’s possible a contained “correction” will be permitted post-(s)election, but meanwhile, IMO, the “Fed” will print whatever it takes and (in)directly buy any volume of stocks and bonds necessary to protect its cartel and sustain the “integrity” of the free rackets. This will continue until the derivatives implosion ultimately goes nuclear and overwhelms the “Fed’s” printing capacity and propaganda output. John Hussman’s and Doug Noland’s brilliant analyses of “the grandaddy of all bubbles” simply don’t factor in the scope and scale of the cartel’s systemic corruption. Under the new imperial politburo, the charade will probably go on for some time, until the eventual collapse of rigged market cannibalism finally dwarfs that of the USSR.

    http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

  12. Paul Tioxon

    http://www.laprogressive.com/costa-gavras-capital/

    How greed destroyed Spain’s oldest savings bank. Costa Gavras, the 80 year old left film maker has produced another delicious movie about the banking crisis and how it continues to be a huge source of instability, if not immediately blowing the global economy to pieces. Although set in France, it is international in scope, as is global capitalism. The movie titled “CAPITAL” depicts a large French bank under the command of newly appointed CEO, who realizes he is a place holder for his backers, an American hedge fund manager who proposes building a Goldman Sachs like colossus with a merger of the French bank and a Japanese target, all supported by American capital. The story of Spain is repeated around the world and Costa Gavras serves as another messenger of warning in this the financialized era.

    Excerpt from a WaPo interview:

    “He has won numerous awards, including a 1983 Oscar for best screenplay adaptation for “Missing.” The 1969 political thriller “Z” was awarded an Oscar for best foreign language film.

    Why did you make a film about global finance?

    It’s because we have a new kind of dictatorship, which is legal, completely legal, and accepted by almost everybody. It is very new, in my feeling, in our world. It’s the people who run the economy.

    Most of the time, not all the time, they are much stronger than the people we elect to run the countries for one simple reason. The people who run the countries, who have control of the banks or the people who deal with the economy, don’t succeed in doing it (controlling them), here, in Europe and everywhere. They let them be completely free . . . and we have gotten to the point where we are now, which is a very difficult point.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/director-costa-gavras-on-new-film-capital-a-look-at-the-ruthless-world-of-finance/2013/10/24/f3a2b216-3c07-11e3-b7ba-503fb5822c3e_story.html

  13. CaitlinO

    Re: 5 year old school threat.

    We thought we could keep our kids from becoming enthralled with guns by not having any toy guns in the house or watching gun violence on TV.

    One night at dinner when our oldest was 3 he picked up a pork chop by the bone end, pointed it around the table and said “Bang bang.”

    It really is hopeless.

    1. Paul Tioxon

      I saw a similar snippet of young male aggression, the 3 or 4 year old variety at a local movie complex a few summers back. The dutiful dad was ordering the necessary kiddie tray of popcorn crap in order to fully experience the weekend at the movie animation blockbuster with all of the other young dads and moms. These were 2 very calm and quiet kids, leaning and staring intently into the glass display case of brightly colored boxes of everything I ate as a kid, as well as everything else that was too new for me to be nostalgic about, but my kids ate when they were younger. When dad turned and gave them their paper covered straws, they carefully pulled the paper wrapper off and then leaped back a step, arms thrust outward and started a plastic straw sword fight. And they were so well behaved just a minute ago? Hmm nature and nurture in perfect symbiosis.

  14. Garrett Pace

    Way to go WSJ:

    “The Problem with Too Much Leisure in Retirement”

    http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2014/10/13/the-problem-with-too-much-leisure-in-retirement/?mod=trending_now_1

    Though its focus (and target audience) is Bo-Bo boomers who have funded 401k’s, it’s thought provoking in the extreme, for pointing out the richness and variety of life for people who aren’t worried about bankruptcy or debtor’s prison.

    Upon reaching a financial position where it is no longer necessary to earn income from work, you have the freedom to choose any job you want, based not on what you need to earn, but simply based on whatever you want to do.

    Wouldn’t it be great if there were more people like that? After a day like today, there are probably fewer.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      That’s the ultimate utopia – the freedom to choose any job you want…simply based on whatever you want to do.

  15. JTFaraday

    Woah– too much to read and none of it good. This seems to be the state of affairs.

    Maybe I’ll read it later. I’m going for a walk.

  16. Bunk McNulty

    Krugman:
    “Obama has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history.”

    About 20 paragraphs in, there’s this:
    “Let’s be clear: The financial crisis should have been followed by a drastic crackdown on Wall Street abuses, and it wasn’t. No important figures have gone to jail; bad banks and other financial institutions, from Citigroup to Goldman, were bailed out with few strings attached; and there has been nothing like the wholesale restructuring and reining in of finance that took place in the 1930s. Obama bears a considerable part of the blame for this disappointing response. It was his Treasury secretary and his attorney general who chose to treat finance with kid gloves.”

    Nonplussed am I. At very least the bar for “success” seems awfully low.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Let’s be clear: When we introduce our million-dollar bills (that’s six zeroes), his face will be on it.

    2. psychohistorian

      Unfortunately, history is written by the winners.

      Yet another reason to treat and speak of Krugman as the whore that he is.

    3. Demeter

      They didn’t say those were POSITIVE consequences. Truth is, I cannot think of even one “positive” consequence resulting from the Obama regime. Even the chance of another minority ever being elected to the office has dropped below zero.

    4. Demeter

      Krugman didn’t explicitly say those were POSITIVE consequences. Truth is, I cannot think of even one “positive” consequence resulting from the Obama regime. Even the chance of another minority ever being elected to the office has dropped below zero.

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