The WSJ points the finger at....

Oh the hypocrisy of it all.

Everyone and their mother has an opinion regarding how we, and much of the rest of the First World, wound up in the current economic mess/crisis/disaster/(insert your preferred word here). And leave it to the ever-so-smart folks at the Wall Street Journal to have their scapegoat as well: the Federal government.

Take a peak at the article titled "Synchronized Boom, Synchronized Bust" by Marc Faber over at the WSJ website:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123491436689503909.html

It's quite short, but it really doesn't take much time to skewer the government.

It would seem that all our current financial woes were due to poor insight and planning by the federal government; the Federal Reserve in particular. Nothing to do with Wall Street. Of course not. Perish the thought.

Funny though....while the article (and the many commentators that followed) talk about run up during the boon times there isn't anything stated to indicate that Wall Street had any problem with the policies that led to the boon times. The sharp criticism for poor Fed policy only seems to come now: during the bust.

Why exactly is that?

Could it be that as long as there was a boon and folks working in and on Wall Street were making money hand-over-fist there was absolutely no reason to point out the alleged folly of Federal Reserve policy? I mean, why tip over the apple cart when the eating is so good, right?

But now that things have gone awry the best thing Wall Street can do is stick out it's collective hand for a collective hand-out, and then point the finger of blame at the very folks saving their asses today.

Amazing.

I don't know how they do it. They truly must have brass ones.

Don't mess with Texas.....because you'll get salmonella

If you have been following the news at all in recent weeks you will be well aware of the salmonella outbreak that has resulted in over 600 illnesses and potentially 8 deaths. These illnesses and deaths have been traced to peanut products processed by Peanut Corp. of America's Georgia facility and potentially its Plainview, Texas facility as well.

First, let me state that I do not believe that only the higher ups in Peanut Corp. of America should be hung by their tits and testicles in a public forum. No. I think all the employees at these plants should join the bosses. I don't believe for one minute that these employees didn't know what was going on (the filth, the rats, the feces, etc.) and elected to do nothing. No whistle-blowing to the appropriate authorities and/or agencies. No anonymous reports to local news organizations. Nothing. They are just as guilty and should suffer the same consequences as do their bosses and managers; which I really believe should be a public hanging.

Second, let's hear it for good ol Texas. Yep. That bastion of "Don't mess with Texas,". That "Hey! We gave you W. Weren't you lucky?!" That state that makes it alright to shoot and kill a person in the process of repossessing your automobile. Yep. Texas.

How about this bit of news from the folks who are supposed to be watching out for the health and welfare of fellow Texans, "The plant in the Panhandle city of Plainview, which employs about 30 people, must close indefinitely after operating unlicensed and uninspected for nearly four years since it opened in 2005." (courtesy of http://www.wsbtv.com/news/18707694/detail.html#-)

Look at that again: unlicensed and uninspected for at least three years. Okay. One could make a variety of excuses as to why this plant remained both unlicensed and uninspected for so long, but check out this additional information from the same article, "David W. Evans, executive director of the Hale County Industrial Foundation, said the company was lured to the area with tax breaks and
incentives for maintaining an employee quota. He said that quota wasn't met." So it is clear that the State of Texas, and whatever other local taxing authorities were involved in this deal, were well aware that the plant both existed and was in operation during this time period, yet somehow the state and/or local authorities never bothered to ask themselves "Hey? Is the plant licensed? Has it been inspected since starting operations?" But don't worry because it gets even better.

Again, from the same article, "Health department spokesman Doug McBride said it was up to Peanut Corp. to inform its clients of the recall, but it wasn't immediately clear if the company was complying."

Can I get a What The Fuck?

Let me get this straight, the Texas department of Health wants the company who has been knowingly selling tainted peanut products without a license or inspection to exercise due diligence and notify its customers that they need to return any and all of Peanut Corp. of America's products. (when I say "knowingly" I should add an allegedly, but I think we can all agree that they knew based upon what has come out thus far in news reports)

Huh? Are you fucking kidding me? This is an example of the full power of the Texas Department of Health? This is an example of the Department of Health's concern for further potential victims of this salmonella outbreak? Jesus fucking tap-dancing christ.

Amazing. But should we expect anything more from a state that put in an express lane for executing prisoners when the rest of the nation has found many death penalty inmates to be not-guilty after DNA evidence has been examined when such wasn't possible during the original trial? Go Texas!

But this story isn't just about corporate greed, corruption, laissez fair employees and Texas being pretty much at the bottom of any semblance of intelligence. No. It's actually a story with two concerns.

Let us return to one of the above quotes, but jump right to the most interesting part, "...the company was lured to the area with tax breaks and incentives for
maintaining an employee quota. He said that quota wasn't met." If you follow the news on a regular basis you will regularly, and sometimes frequently, come across articles about how governments (local, county and/or state) will offer companies all sorts of incentives to lure them to build plants/open stores in their tax district. Often they will cut or completely remove things like impact fees, corporate income tax, offer to build roads, etc. on based upon the notion that if you can attract a business to your community it will, even with all the tax/fee breaks, generate income through employment.

Really?

I have yet to read one single news piece that has researched whether or not this policy of rolling out the red carpet actually results in a net benefit to the tax base for any given location across this nation. The Peanunt Corp. of America clearly received some sort of incentives to locate to Plainview, but it also (apparently) didn't live up to part of the bargain. So what was done about this issue? Did the relevant taxing authorities come in and say "Sorry. You haven't lived up to your end of the bargain/our expectations, so you need to start paying property taxes/income taxes/reimburse us for those impact fees we waived." Do you really think this is happening? I don't.

I think companies go out of their way to convince government authorities that offering all those breaks to attract them will help grow the local economy through employment, sales taxes, employment taxes, etc., but I haven't seen anything in the way of a study done to show whether or not this sort of sweet-heart deal actually results in a benefit to the taxing authorities. Not one. And here is an example where a company hasn't lived up to it's promise, but nothing is done and I want to know why. Actually the people of Texas should be asking why.

But it seems pretty clear that Texans aren't on the ball anyway.

The never-ending march of technology

Being 44 I'm old enough to remember a world without cell phones. Hell, I'm old enough to remember a world where only the Bell Company controlled all our telephony communications. I'm old enough that I remember the days before call waiting, call forwarding and answer machines.  

Well maybe the answer machine thing isn't completely true. I know they were around, but let's just say that I'm old enough to remember a time when answering machines were expensive and about the size of a VCR.  

Anyway.....the daughter is home today from school; ill. Or faking it. Who can tell? She was supposed to have a two-hour stint of car driving with her driving instructor, but we have opted to phone and try to reschedule seeing how the daughter doesn't feel well. Or pretends to not feel well. The daughter phoned the firm earlier to inquire about rescheduling today's lesson and the woman said that she would call back.  

It's now 1455 and we haven't heard back so I suggested to the daughter that she phone again, which she did. The daughter came into the t.v. room, where I was vegging, with this perplexed look upon her face, phone in hand, and said "Listen to this," and she proceeded to dial the phone number. Turning on the speaker phone I listened and heard the busy-signal that we so rarely hear today in a world of call waiting, call forwarding, voice mail, etc. Instead it was that awful cacophony of noise that used to tell us that the other party's line was engaged and that you would have to try them again later.  

The daughter looked truly perplexed and I had to explain that she was hearing a busy signal, etc. It suddenly struck me how odd her world is compared to mine at that age. Technology has truly changed the face of our everyday world. Just a few generations ago technological advances didn't typically have much impact upon the everyday life of consumers, but this clearly isn't the case today and for our future.  

It leaves me wondering what sort of sights and sounds will be completely unfamiliar to my daughter's children when they reach her age and how funny she will find those moments.