April 26, 2013

Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever (Taibbi - Rolling Stone)

Must-see article in GD, please keep it kicked:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022759250

April 26, 2013

Fast-food, retail strikes echo Occupy

via Occupy Detroit

Fast-food, retail strikes echo Occupy

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130426/EMPLOYMENT/130429846/fast-food-retail-strikes-echo-occupy

Could the fast-food and retail wage movement be the next Occupy Chicago?

Hundreds of fast-food and retail workers in Chicago went on strike this week to call for a living wage of $15 an hour and the right to form unions without interference. Organizers, including the activist groups Arise Chicago and Action Now, say the strikes are part of a quickly growing national movement.

“The low-wage workforce is growing so fast that (the movement) can't help but grow exponentially,” said Action Now Executive Director Katelyn Johnson.

The minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25 an hour.

(More at the link.)

April 25, 2013

Congressman Finally Takes Action To Remove Needless Requirement Bankrupting The Postal Service

OccupySD ?@OccupySD

Congressman Finally Takes Action To Remove Needless Requirement Bankrupting The Postal Service. #USPS cp~ http://fb.me/FS2PjAax


http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/25/1919381/postal-services-defazio/?mobile=nc

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) has introduced legislation to try to save the US Postal Service from its incipient bankruptcy, and he is asking for the public to help him pass it.

DeFazio’s bill would repeal the needless requirement — one no other business or entity must face — that the Postal Service pre-fund 75 years’ worth of employee health benefits. That requirement has hugely contributed to the USPS defaulting for the first and then second time in its history last year. Analysis from 2012 estimated that the USPS would have a $1.5 billion surplus without the benefit requirement.

But DeFazio recognizes that facts alone will not influence his colleagues to take up and pass the legislation, so he has also turned to the White House’s petition platform, We The People, to petition President Obama to take a stand against the health benefit requirement. He also points out many of the other flaws in how Congress has managed the postal service:

About 80% of USPS financial losses since 2007 are due to a Congressional mandate to prefund 75 years of future retiree health benefits over 10 years. In 2012 USPS lost a record $15.9 billion, but $11.1 billion of that loss went to prefund healthcare. This must change.

(More at the link.)

April 25, 2013

Breaking: Crowds Surround Congress in Madrid demanding freedom. LIVE

Global Revolution ?@GlobalRevLive

Breaking: Crowds Surround Congress in Madrid demanding freedom. LIVE on
http://bit.ly/UXC5vP
http://bit.ly/Zntb0T
#AsediaelCongreso #25A
Retweeted by #occupybrussels

April 25, 2013

ACLU: CISPA Is Dead (For Now)

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/04/25/aclu-cispa-is-dead-for-now?s_cid=rss:aclu-cispa-is-dead-for-now&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

CISPA is all but dead, again.

The controversial cybersecurity bill known as the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives last week, will almost certainly be shelved by the Senate, according to a representative of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

The bill would have allowed the federal government to share classified "cyber threat" information with companies, but it also provided provisions that would have allowed companies to share information about specific users with the government. Privacy advocates also worried that the National Security Administration would have gotten involved.

"We're not taking [CISPA] up," the committee representative says. "Staff and senators are divvying up the issues and the key provisions everyone agrees would need to be handled if we're going to strengthen cybersecurity. They'll be drafting separate bills."

(More at the link.)

April 25, 2013

Wondering why CISPA passed? Democrats got bought, for $84 million:

Occupy Wall Street ?@OccupyWallSt

Wondering why CISPA passed? Democrats got bought, for $84 million: http://ow.ly/kkOJm


http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130419/17153622773/everywhere-big-brother-is-smiling-congress-sells-your-privacy-cool-84-million.shtml

In case you were wondering why so many Democrats switched sides during the most recent CISPA vote, the answer is exactly what you think it is: $$$. And lots of it. Last year's CISPA vote only managed to secure 40 Democrat supporters. This time around, the number leapt to 92.

new coalition of special interests, which include America's two largest cellular service providers AT&T, Inc. and Verizon Wireless -- jointly owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc. -- as well as two of the nation's largest software firms Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp., came together to create a similar data grab bill (Microsoft has since renounced its support). Security firms like Symantec Corp. also backed the bill.

Pushing the bill through was $84M USD in funding from special interest backers.

$84 million is change-of-heart money, although one imagines those contributing checked and double-checked their "sponsored" representatives to make sure they were all on the same page. As DailyTech points out, nearly $86 million went into the SOPA push and most of that turned out to be wasted money.

(More at the link. Cross-posted from Occupy Underground because NOT ONE WORD ABOUT CISPA IN GD WTF.)

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Occupy Wall Street ?@OccupyWallStNYC 7m

Justice Dept gave immunity to AT&T & others to break Wiretap Laws. Under #CISPA immunity would be automatic. http://ow.ly/1VDpED #privacy

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norwind ?@norwind

Money out of politics! #OWS | Top #CISPA lobbyists are also top Obama reelection donors; I wouldn't bet on a WH Veto

http://bloom.bg/11vILal

April 25, 2013

Boston police now want drones hovering over next year's marathon:

Drones ?@drones 19m

Boston police now want drones hovering over next year's marathon:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/24/boston-police-want-drones-for-marathon-security/ …


Boston’s top cop wants drones hovering over next year’s marathon, but getting his hands on one may be easier said than done.

More than 30 states, including Massachusetts, are rushing to restrict the use of drones by law enforcement, with some seeking to ban it in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Even if unmanned aerial systems could have shortened the search for the terrorists who wreaked havoc on Boston last week, many people are deeply skeptical about giving authorities carte blanche to use potentially dangerous technology.

“It’s not surprising that you have law enforcement agencies rushing out to use [the Boston bombing and subsequent manhunt] as pretext to secure additional powers but I think we have to maintain perspective and realize that civil liberties and the protections we’re granted under the Constitution and our rights to privacy, to a degree, are nonnegotiable,” said Massachusetts state Sen. Robert Hedlund, a Republican and sponsor of a drone restriction bill in the legislature.

(More at the link.)

April 24, 2013

We get up early to BEAT the crowds.

April 23, 2013

The average student loan balance among 25-year-olds w/ studentdebt has increased 91% since 2003

I AM NOT A LOAN ?@iamnotaloan

The average #studentloan balance among 25-year-olds w/ #studentdebt has increased 91% since 2003
http://huff.to/13kE82C


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/17/student-debt_n_3100940.html?utm_hp_ref=college&ir=College

BOSTON -- The overhang of student debt on young workers may inhibit consumption and future borrowing, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York warn, potentially imperiling the economic recovery for years to come.

In a new study, New York Fed researchers said Wednesday that younger workers with student debt are less likely than their unburdened peers to have home mortgages or auto loans -- the first time that has been observed in at least 10 years and a worrying development for policymakers who have traditionally associated student debt with college education and higher incomes.

Borrowers with student loans also shed other forms of consumer debt at a much higher rate than borrowers without educational debt, the researchers found, in a sign that consumers with student loans may have lowered their expectations for higher future earnings and may have less access to loans as a result of rising student debt despite their "comparatively high earning potential."

(snip)

"Lowered expectations of future earnings and more limited access to credit may have broad implications for the ongoing recovery of the housing and vehicle markets, and of U.S. consumer spending more generally," the New York Fed researchers cautioned.

(More at the link. Remember that Plutonomy in the US reveals that the top 20% or so of the rich are the actual economy of the country, and that what occurs to the bottom 80% doesn't affect them much at all, except to provide cash cow opportunities such as foreclosure land grabs and interest on debt.)

April 23, 2013

What one hacked @AP tweet did to the US stock market:

Jim Waterson ?@jimwaterson

What one hacked @AP tweet did to the US stock market: pic.twitter.com/a2ZB2EIB6V
Retweeted by Anonymous Operations


https://twitter.com/charlesforelle/status/326746314232692737/photo/1

https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/326746632995622912/photo/1

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From A Twitter Hack To The Complete Evaporation Of All Market Liquidity In One Chart

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-23/twitter-hack-compete-evaporation-all-market-liquidity-one-chart

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zerohedge ?@zerohedge

Photo of the AP hack
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-23/ap-reports-two-explosions-white-house-obama-injured …

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Mike Baker ?@MikeBakerAP 9m

The @AP hack came less than an hour after some of us received an impressively disguised phishing email.