10 Friday AM Reads

“Baby boomers are what’s wrong with America’s economy” Let the generational war and scapegoating begin! Our problems have nothing to do with 40 years of increasingly rapacious capitalism! It’s those greedy Boomers!

Keystone: pound sand!

The GOP desire to circumvent EPA rules and fast track this one project was first pitched as a desperate need for energy. But we’re swimming in it.

Then they pitched it as being anti-business. But Obama’s opening up natural gas export and widening distillate export rules, so there goes that one. and a…. Scoreboard – stock market.

Then the Republican said this would piss off Canada. Well, the people who ran Canada (voters) tossed out the asshat Harper who pretended this was some vital foreign policy issue.

Of course if you believe that asshat Scot Walker we need a wall between us and Canada (with a hole for the pipeline I presume) but Americans were sick of Walker, his record in Wisconsin, nearly impeached and his foregn policy plan was to build wall along the longest free peaceful border in the world.

Now we have a governor in Illinois who refuses to sign any budget (Tea Party like) until we get rid of all unions (Scot Walker like) after he demanded we cut our income taxes, which we did.

These old ideas hang on, ever when they’re bad. That I think is the worst definition and application of conservatism. Old things that have been proven not to do what they intended ala tax cuts for the rich will lower deficits. But they keep selling that snake oil.

Re: Arbitration. “It’s a little unfair to say that the little guy is going to lose in an arbitration case”…

http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Bartholet%20Testimony%20072308a.pdf

Her testimony is a bit long, but this is probably the core.
” I issued an opinion for the first time in any of my NAF cases ruling for the consumer […] I was prevented from deciding the next 11 cases to which I was assigned, all of which involved the same credit card company.”

So yeah, the arbitrator can rule against the company. Once.

Square Takes an IPO Bullet for All of the Overpriced Unicorns
By Jason Del Rey
November 6, 2015

Square announced plans on Friday morning to price its IPO at $11 to $13 a share, meaning an IPO in that range would value the company at much less than the valuation it secured in its last round of private financing.

If the company prices at $13, Square would carry a value of about $4.2 billion based on the approximately 323 million shares it says will be outstanding. Square, Jack Dorsey’s payments company, was valued by private investors at about $6 billion in its last round of private financing, according to insiders.

To be sure, Square’s bankers could increase the price range before the IPO if they get feedback from investors that demand is higher than expected. But the range would have to jump a fair bit to even match what Square thought it was worth in its last round of funding.

…

http://recode.net/2015/11/06/square-takes-an-ipo-bullet-for-all-of-the-overpriced-unicorns/

health inequality?
http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2015/11/health-inequality.html#.Vj0bRmu6i_h

or dont live in the south east

hm. claiming public info is protected data and must be redacted?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/11/blackstone-executive-commits-perjury-via-declaration-that-information-in-sec-order-is-confidential-and-trade-secret.html

really?

“Baby boomers are what’s wrong with America’s economy”

Yep, I fully expect that there will be a grab for the social security benefits we boomers have paid for and earned. Look millennials you are fighting with the wrong people: The government dishonestly accounted for the social security trust fund: Since the Reagan era the treasury has been using that Social security surplus to cut taxes for the wealthy, pad the pockets of the fat cats and waste money in the Military Industrial Complex that could have been better spent on your education and dearly needed infrastructure projects. Since 1977 the US government budget was not recording the purchase of the SS trust fund bonds as a deficit: instead the deceptively recorded the SS surplus as an addition to the general budget. Now, as they have to start paying it back they are deceptively recording it as deficit now.

You’re going after the wrong folks: It is the oligarchy that runs the world economy that has looted your resources. Our legislators used to really listen to us circa 1970-1999 but after GW came in somehow the lobbyists that are employed by the oligarchs have managed to pillage much of the wealth by getting big pharma a drug market protected from international competition and a “no negotiation” drug contract with Medicare which costs us collectively around 200 billion per year. You have a for profit medical industry that costs twice as much per capita when compared to every other country in the world and the unregulated “rack rate” billing applies rack rates to those who are of lesser means without good insurance who can fend well for them selves. It is immoral.

And then take a look at wall street and the banks: They wrecked the economy which caused the greatest downtown since the 1930’s depression and how many have gone to jail?

If you go to the fancy hotels in any big city, the more expensive hotels are occupied by the three groups of oligarchs who are stealing our money by rigging the system: Big Pharma, Physician and Hospital groups and the brokerage and financial industry. Those are the people you should be mad at.

I hope you millennials do not fight with us because we are not your enemies: we should collectively go after the real enemies: the oligarchs who steal from us by buying and controlling out government. We all have a vote and collectively we really can force change that will be better for us all.

However, you would be well advised not to mess with our social security benefits. There are 70,000,000 million of us and collectively we have the ability to sway elections and we are the same folks who protested the Vietnam War, the military draft and racism in the 1960’s and 1970s. If we end up in old age poverty because the social security benefits that we earned were significantly reduced we can take to the street in that same spirit of protest and we, as a group, could really makes your lives quite uncomfortable: multiply “Occupy Wall street” by a factor of 30. We could probably shutdown the economy if we chose to by blocking ports, roads, college campuses, shopping centers and even your beloved Starbucks.