Brinksmanship

Greetings good citizen,

What a week to round out a year spent waiting for the other shoe to drop, eh?

Seems we aren't the only ones incapable of rolling back the tax structure:

French Council Strikes Down 75% Tax Rate
By SCOTT SAYARE 11:33 AM ET

A council opposed a plan to impose a 75 percent marginal income tax rate on the wealthy that would have applied to annual income above 1 million euros, or about $1.3 million.

Like I said in yesterday’s post, this ‘criminal elite’ shit transcends the ‘Nation State’ (via the global banking cartels.)

Which, ironically, leaves us here:

If a deal is reached, votes in the Senate could begin Sunday.

Obama Urges Senate Leaders to Put Together a Tax Deal
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and ANNIE LOWREY 12:03 PM ET

In his weekly address, President Obama again urged lawmakers to find a last-minute solution to avert a fiscal crisis that would begin Jan. 1.

As many of my contemporaries point out, the ‘fiscal cliff’ only exists in the ‘neocons’ heads.

It is being used as an excuse to extend tax cuts the wealthy should never have received and to cut desperately needed social programs as the global economy continues to tank.

The question none of our so-called ‘betters’ is prepared to answer is what they intend to do about the badly broken and now largely rogue criminal banking sector.

It CAN’T be ‘repaired’ (and certainly not by the criminals currently in charge!) so it has to be ‘replaced’…and none of the chiselers has given this predicament a single moment of thought.

So we get bullshit stories like this:

Several of Walmart's suppliers had used the factory in Bangladesh where 112 workers died last month.

As Walmart Makes Safety Vows, It’s Seen as Obstacle to Change
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and JIM YARDLEY

After a deadly factory fire in Bangladesh stirred soul-searching around the apparel industry, critics say Walmart has not done enough to improve safety standards.

And naturally those ‘critics’ will be dismissed as being ‘anti-capitalist’ and ignored.

Business always does the right thing (for the company, if some employees become collateral damage, so what?)

There was an interesting story in the local rag praising a recent government decision to make restitution to the families of workers who unwittingly handled highly hazardous material (which proved fatal for almost all of them!)

And the decidedly conservative local rag was praising the government for doing the ‘right thing’…while totally ignoring the private sector employer who murdered these people (by failing to disclose, never mind failing to provide adequate safeguards so these workers might have had a fighting chance.

Again it is being swept under the rug under the mantle of ‘state secret’ and the situation does involve The Manhattan Project and how the uranium was processed.

And the private sector contractor didn’t pay these people a single cent extra…(probably terminated them when they got sick!)

(I know, nothing personal, it’s just business! Where are your fucking ‘job creators’ when people die because of their recklessness? Sadly the twits are still thumping their chests, damn proud of what they’ve done!)

Stupid is as stupid does…

Did I mention capitalism is a bad idea? How about another example:

Utility workers in Seaside Heights, N.J., making pole repairs after the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy.
Hurricane Sandy Alters Utilities’ Calculus on Upgrades
By DIANE CARDWELL, MATTHEW L. WALD and CHRISTOPHER DREW

It is typically much cheaper for a utility, and its customers, to skip prevention measures and just clean up the mess after a catastrophe, but Hurricane Sandy has changed that thinking.

This particular headline sends a chill up my spine because of what’s implied here. The US no longer ‘needs’ its robust power infrastructure (as our ‘betters’ continue to export our jobs wholesale.)

Will our ‘private sector’ power companies take the ‘cheap out’ once again and only replace what is needed to restore service, even if that means reduced capacity?

What the hell, the peasants don’t need it (and can’t pay for it anyway…)

Have you ever wondered what would happen if our mostly imported economy stopped?

Unlike the fiscal cliff, the fuckers in charge bowed to the longshoreman’s demands…partially anyway.

Ports in Newark and more than a dozen other cities will stay open after longshoremen reached an agreement with shipping companies to avert a coastwide strike.

Partial Deal With Union Averts a Strike at 14 Ports
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Shipping companies and dockworkers reached a deal on their main dispute, and the longshoremen’s union agreed to drop its threat of a strike this Sunday.

Probably just a mistaken perception that ‘brinksmanship’ has become the watch-word of the day. Fiscal cliff on one hand with a shutdown of the real economy looming on the other.

Yeah, it just ‘looks like’ they’re playing ‘hardball’ (because if they really try it there can be ‘no escape’ for most of them.)

And stiffing so many of their minions would leave them in a bad way when it came to cleaning up the mess the peasants are going to make.

Yeah, life can really suck when you look down on everyone like they’re beneath dirt.

Just something to ponder as we head off the non-existent ‘fiscal cliff’…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner