Yearly Archives: 2013

McDonalds, Taco Bell as Welfare Queens: Over Half Their Workers Use Public Assistance

Like Walmart, the fast food industry has taxpayers as a silent partner. But sadly, we don’t get shares or dividends.

Bill Black: The Tea Party’s Tactical Brilliance and Strategic Incompetence

Yves here. While I agree with most of Black’s assessment, I take issue with his Fox News v. James Stewart/Stephen Colbert argument. Each preaches to its own choir. One can also argue that the Tea Party is still misunderstood. Michael Lind provided the best single analysis I’ve seen so far in a piece that describes it as the “newest right” which promotes the interests of “local notables” who are wealthy leaders in their communities but second-tier nationally. Thus Tea Partiers are best positioned to act as spoilers rather than drive national political initiatives. But as Black indicates, they may have played the spoiler role too aggressively in the shutdown/debt ceiling row for their own long-term good.

Debt Deal Back on Track and Why the Wheels Came off Yesterday

Bloomberg and other news services are reporting that a “stop the default meteor from hitting the planet” deal is back on.

Links 10/16/13

IRS Wakes Up to Private Equity Scam

For decades, the IRS has been oblivious to the tax dollars that private equity firms have been stealing from the U.S. Treasury via this abusive fee waiver tax shelter. But NC readers in the tax world have alerted us to recent IRS pronouncements indicating that both the Service, as well as influential tax commentators, have woken up to the scam and don’t like what they see in terms of its compliance with tax law.

Shutdown Roundup: Weather, and Craft Beer, and Bonds, Oh My!

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Imaginary gardens with real toads in them. –Marianne Moore

Here’s a survey of Default/Shutdown information for the morning of the 17th, a crucial date. Or not! The first section, “The Great and the Good,” collects views from global movers and shakers mostly on Default (they’re against it), starting with the Chinese, who came back as the bond market. The Second Section, “The Rest of Us,” collects statements from the United States on the shutdown (bad for business). I deliberately left the quotes long, because all the speakers really seemed to want to stretch out about the role government plays in their lives.

Michael Klare: Fossil Fuel Euphoria, Hallelujah, Oil and Gas Forever!

For years, energy analysts had been anticipating an imminent decline in global oil supplies. Suddenly, they’re singing a new song: Fossil fuels growing scarce? Don’t even think about it! The news couldn’t be better: fossil fuels will become ever more abundant.

This movement from gloom about our energy future to what can only be called fossil-fuel euphoria may prove to be the hallmark of our peculiar moment.

Home Stretch for Our 2013 Fundraiser!

We are three and a half hours away from the end of our fundraiser. If you can give a little, give a little. If you can give more, give more. If you can give a lot, give a lot. You are investing in being part of the solution.

Down to the Wire!

Only a bit over six hours remain in the Naked Capitalism fundraiser. Show your support of critical thinking, merciless evisceration of lame punditry, deep diving into muddy financial waters, and cute animal pictures. As our guest blogger, Michael Hudson, has said:

Glenn Greenwald Starting His Own News Organization

This is major.

Final Hours of Fundraiser, Getting Closer to Our Targets

The Naked Capitalism community is speaking! You’ve said you want this site to be even more valuable and you’ve been willing to provide tangible backing for your desire to have us demystify finance, call out chicanery, parse propaganda, and in our small way, help promote the creation of a more just society.

We’re closer to both our donor and financial targets.

A Debt Deal is Nigh! A Debt Deal is Nigh! Or is It?

If you make a quick scan of the headlines, which is the way a lot of people interact with the news, you’d see numerous reports stressing that Senate leaders had made “progress” in the “let’s try not to crash into the debt ceiling” talks and were hopeful of getting a deal done. Stock markets took cheer from these reports.

Last Day, Last Chance for Our 2013 Fundraiser!

We’ve had 792 of you give our fundraiser, and are close to reaching our goal of 1000 donations. The goal here is to build a culture where we pay for truth, instead of accepting being lied to for free.

Links 10/15/13