Friday, July 15, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
UAW
Chrysler Auto Workers in Trenton Caught Smoking and Drinking During Lunch Breaks: MyFoxDETROIT.com
Wheels of Soul 1%
Chicago area motorcycle gang members face murder, drug charges
Staff report
2:41 PM CDT, July 12, 2011
Seven Chicago-area members of a motorcycle gang known as the Wheels of Soul have been named in federal indictments on charges ranging from racketeering to murder in three different states including Illinois.
The men were arrested this morning in Chicago by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Chicago police and other agencies.
The Chicago-area men include: Maurice Thomas, 31; Toney Sims, 39; Thomas Bailey, 41; Anthony Robinson, 24; Carlyle Fleming, 32; and Bryant Palmer, 51, all of Chicago. Also charged was Allan Hunter, 33, of Wheaton.
The men were indicted in St. Louis and are awaiting extradition hearings to be transferred to St. Louis to face charges, officials said in a press release today.
In addition to those men, Robert Hughes, 51, of south suburban Lansing, was charged with four firearms offenses and lying to ATF agents; he remains in federal custody pending a detention hearing at 3 p.m. Thursday before Magistrate Judge Michael Mason in Chicago.
Curtis Johns, 41, of Chicago, was also charged with three counts of illegally possessing firearms after being convicted of a felony.
The indictment handed up June 9 was unsealed today in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, and all but four of those indicted have been arrested. Police are seeking the remaining suspects. Three others not named in the indictment have been arrested on weapons charges, said Terry Dougherty, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in St. Louis.
The indictment alleges that a select few members of the Wheels of Soul gang achieved "1%er," or "Diamond" status for particularly violent activity.
Some of the accusations are breathtaking; one member allegedly stabbed another person in the head during a fight at a Chicago motorcycle club, then shot another in the stomach. The indictment says gang members are required to carry weapons, mostly guns but also hammers, knives and others.
Federal authorities cite meetings in St. Louis in 2009 in which a Wheels of Soul member, Dominic Henley -- known within the gang as "Bishop" -- told others in the gang that a member in Gary, Ind., had been threatened. He instructed them to retaliate by robbing the rival gang members of their colors by "any means necessary."
Gang members raised money through robberies and by distributing drugs, especially crack cocaine, but also heroin, the indictment alleges. They are accused of plotting and carrying out several acts of violence including kidnapping, robbery and murder.
In 2009, gang members allegedly shot and killed a member of the rival Sin City Titans gang in St. Louis. The shooting came weeks after a meeting in which, the indictment says, members were told that one chapter of the Wheels of Soul had declared "open season" on the Sin City Titans.
In January, a member of Wheels of Soul allegedly shot and killed a person in Chicago during an altercation with the rival Street Soldiers gang. And in March, a member is accused of shooting three victims in the back as they fled from a party in Marion, Ohio, killing one and seriously wounding another.
In January, six of the accused went to an East St. Louis nightclub intending to kill members of the rival Outkast OMG gang, according to the indictment. The plan was foiled because several police officers were seen near the club.
A message seeking comment from U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan was not returned. It wasn't immediately clear if any of the defendants had attorneys.
Wheels of Soul gang members wear black vests adorned with patches on the back and commonly refer to the gang as "the Nation." The indictment accuses gang members from St. Louis of planning to extort smaller gangs by requiring them to purchase a "support patch" that demonstrates subservience to the Wheels of Soul.
The indictment alleges that the Wheels of Soul is governed by the "Mother Chapter" in Philadelphia, with regional chapters around the country. Federal agents raided two Wheels of Soul clubhouses in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
Those indicted are from seven states: Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, Wisconsin and Kentucky.
Progressive Chicago
Bloomberg grant to help ‘re-invent’ Chicago city government
By FRAN SPIELMANCity Hall Reporter July 14, 2011 10:16AM
Mayor Rahm Emanuel likes to talk about “re-inventing” Chicago city government, making it less costly and more efficient and reducing the “time-in-line” it takes residents to access basic services.
Now, he’ll have $6 million in a foundation grant to help deliver on that promise over the next three years, courtesy of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Chicago is one of five cities awarded grants by Bloomberg Philanthropies, a foundation created by the Big Apple’s billionaire mayor. Chicago got the most money. Other winners of the 100-city competition: Atlanta, Louisville, Memphis and New Orleans.
In Chicago, officials plan to use the money to create a Bloomberg-style “Innovation Delivery Team” of efficiency experts, with marching orders to reduce the time it takes Chicagoans to access city services, and to create “Energy Efficient Target Zones” across the city in an effort to dramatically reduce energy consumption.
Bloomberg established similar teams to address sustainability, poverty and government efficiency. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair did the same for transportation, education, health and criminal justice.
“Mayors are uniquely positioned to tackle some of our most pressing challenges — from growing jobs to fighting climate change to keeping quality of life high,” Bloomberg said in a written statement distributed by Emanuel’s office. “The Mayors Project will fuel these efforts by spreading effective programs and strategies and helping mayors work together in new ways around solutions.”
Emanuel’s transition report, put together as he prepared to succeed former Mayor Richard M. Daley, called for creating a performance accountability system even more elaborate than the General Electric-style system implemented in 2005 by Ron Huberman, who was then Daley’s corruption-fighting chief-of-staff.
“Critical services will be prioritized and benchmarked against comparable cities and public and private sector performers for both quality and cost,” the report stated, promising “benchmarks” for garbage collection, construction, maintenance and infrastructure repairs.
Department heads who “significantly out-perform” their performance benchmarks will be given “greater autonomy.”
Emanuel said the “generous grant” from Bloomberg Philanthropies will bankroll the salaries and support services needed to create a “topnotch team in the mayor’s office to help us deliver better services to taxpayers for less.”
Last year, Bloomberg was in Chicago as Daley accepted a two-year, $200,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Chicago used the money to hire a full-time “chief service officer” to craft a citywide volunteerism plan, in part to help at-risk youth. Bloomberg had earlier formed the Cities of Service Coalition and had already appointed a chief service officer of his own.
http://www.suntimes.com/6508669-417/bloomberg-grant-to-help-re-invent-chicago-city-government.html
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Progressives's Secret War
Monday, July 11, 2011
The Information Age
Travel agents, proofreaders, transit security all are seeing big declines
majority of America,” financial guru Suze
Orman told Forbes last year, speaking about
her upcoming book "The Money Class."
The dream she was referring to isn’t a
Cinderella story. Rather, Orman believes the
hope of someday owning a home, of working
one job for life and retiring at 65 has been
crushed by the financial crisis. “The middle
class has disappeared,” she said. “Many of the
millions of jobs lost I don’t think are coming
back. I am really afraid for the majority of
Americans today.”
endangered species? Economists say: Sort of.
family, get a good job, keep it for life and have
a comfortable living is all but gone,” says Kevin
Hallock, professor of labor economics and
director of the Institute for Compensation
Studies at Cornell University. “Long-term job
stability is declining, and there aren’t good
unionized jobs like there once were.”
The recession may have just complicated and
compounded what was already occurring.
Generally, jobs are disappearing where there’s
been a technological advance — “where a
human was doing something, now a
technology is doing it" — or a change in the
way that organizations function, says Hallock.
And not only are old-fashioned assembly line
jobs on the decline, several white-collar office
positions are also in jeopardy.
“There has been some long-term decline in
middle-income jobs,” says Harry Holzer,
Georgetown University economist and co-
author of "Where Are All The Good Jobs
Going." “Specifically, it’s good-paying
production and clerical jobs that are
disappearing.”
been “shrinkage,” he remains confident that
there are many good jobs in the middle — they
may just look different.
New technology has gradually cut into many
steady jobs that had previously been critical to
the market. Clerical occupations are shrinking
fast, as companies tighten budgets and easy-
to-use software enables workers to do their
own administrative tasks. According to data
provided by Moody’s, nearly 300,000 office
and administrative support positions gradually
disappeared in the five years before 2009, and
the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects
continued contraction throughout the next
decade.
Because over 20 million people count on
clerical work, the vanishing act is a major blow
to the middle, but there are other more niche
positions that are also on the chopping block.
Internet travel sites have essentially erased the
need for travel agents, an occupation which
declined by 14 percent and 12,500 jobs in the
last five years for which data is available.
Similarly, proofreaders — generally highly
skilled workers with a four-year college
degree — were once vital to publications and
communications departments. These
positions shriveled by 31 percent, likely due to
advanced software, Holzer says.
immune to the shifts in the labor market,”
notes Holzer. “It is a testament to the churning
in the U.S. market.”
Educated and skilled professionals sometimes
sectors. Broadcast news analysts and
advertising and promotions managers
experienced five-year declines of 16 percent
and 33 percent respectively. The adjustment
follows a wide-spread media transition to
online content and shrinking advertising
revenue and budgets. Likewise, agricultural
engineering jobs contracted by 18 percent,
despite the general demand for engineers,
because agriculture is a declining sector.
Economists hope these changes will result in
creative destruction — new middle-class jobs
will emerge to balance out those that were
lost. However, Hallock believes companies are
still nervous about growing their ranks. “It’s
expensive to hire and fire workers,” he says.
“Companies are reluctant to hire now. It’s
exacerbating the problem.”
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Airborne World Tour 2011(Afghanistan)
Monday, July 4, 2011
4th of July 2011
Harvard: July 4th Parades Are Right-Wing
Democratic political candidates can skip this weekend's July 4th parades. A new Harvard University study finds that July 4th parades energize only Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost the GOP turnout of adults on Election Day.
"Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation's political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party," said the report from Harvard. [See political cartoons about the 2012 GOP field.]
"The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats. According to this interpretation, there is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican party. Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans," write Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott and Bocconi University Assistant Professor Andreas Madestam. [Enjoy political cartoons about President Obama.]
Their findings also suggest that Democrats gain nothing from July 4th parades, likely a shocking result for all the Democratic politicians who march in them. [Check out editorial cartoons about the Democrats.]
"There is no evidence of an increased likelihood of identifying as a Democrat, indicating that Fourth of July shifts preferences to the right rather than increasing political polarization," the two wrote.
The three key findings of those attending July 4th celebrations:
- When done before the age of 18, it increases the likelihood of a youth identifying as a Republican by at least 2 percent.
- It raises the likelihood that parade watchers will vote for a Republican candidate by 4 percent.
- It boosts the likelihood a reveler will vote by about 1 percent and increases the chances they'll make a political contribution by 3 percent.
What's more, the impact isn't fleeting. "Surprisingly, the estimates show that the impact on political preferences is permanent, with no evidence of the effects depreciating as individuals become older,"said the Harvard report.
Finally, the report suggests that if people are looking for a super-patriotic July 4th, though should head to Republican towns. "Republican adults celebrate Fourth of July more intensively in the first place."
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Seriously?
Our Lefty Military
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
As we search for paths out of America’s economic crisis, many suggest business as a paradigm for cutting costs. According to my back-of-the-envelope math, top C.E.O.’s earn as much as $1 a second around the clock, partly by cutting medical benefits for employees. So they must be paragons of efficiency, right?
Actually, I’m not so sure. The business sector is dazzlingly productive, but it also periodically blows up our financial system. Yet if we seek another model, one that emphasizes universal health care and educational opportunity, one that seeks to curb income inequality, we don’t have to turn to Sweden. Rather, look to the United States military.
You see, when our armed forces are not firing missiles, they live by an astonishingly liberal ethos — and it works. The military helped lead the way in racial desegregation, and even today it does more to provide equal opportunity to working-class families — especially to blacks — than just about any social program. It has been an escalator of social mobility in American society because it invests in soldiers and gives them skills and opportunities.
The United States armed forces knit together whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics from diverse backgrounds, invests in their education and training, provides them with excellent health care and child care. And it does all this with minimal income gaps: A senior general earns about 10 times what a private makes, while, by my calculation, C.E.O.’s at major companies earn about 300 times as much as those cleaning their offices. That’s right: the military ethos can sound pretty lefty.
“It’s the purest application of socialism there is,” Wesley Clark, the retired four-star general and former supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe, told me. And he was only partly joking.
“It’s a really fair system, and a lot of thought has been put into it, and people respond to it really well,” he added. The country can learn from that sense of mission, he said, from that emphasis on long-term strategic thinking.
The military is innately hierarchical, yet it nurtures a camaraderie in part because the military looks after its employees. This is a rare enclave of single-payer universal health care, and it continues with a veterans’ health care system that has much lower costs than the American system as a whole.
Perhaps the most impressive achievement of the American military isn’t its aircraft carriers, stunning as they are. Rather, it’s the military day care system for working parents.
While one of America’s greatest failings is underinvestment in early childhood education (which seems to be one of the best ways to break cycles of poverty from replicating), the military manages to provide superb child care. The cost depends on family income and starts at $44 per week.
“I absolutely think it’s a model,” said Linda K. Smith, executive director of the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, which advocates for better child care in America. Ms. Smith, who used to oversee the military day care system before she retired from the Defense Department, said that the military sees child care as a strategic necessity to maintain military readiness and to retain highly trained officers.
One of the things I admire most about the military is the way it invests in educating and training its people. Its universities — the military academies — are excellent, and it has R.O.T.C. programs at other campuses around the country. Many soldiers get medical training, law degrees, or Ph.D.’s while in service, sometimes at the country’s finest universities.
Then there are the Army War College, the Naval War College and the Air War College, giving top officers a mid-career intellectual and leadership boost before resuming their careers. It’s common to hear bromides about investing in human capital, but the military actually shows that it believes that.
Partly as a result, it manages to retain first-rate officers who could earn far higher salaries in the private sector. And while the ethic of business is often “Gimme,” the military inculcates an ideal of public service that runs deep. In Afghanistan, for example, soldiers sometimes dig into their own pockets to help provide supplies for local schools.
Granted, it may seem odd to seek a model of compassion in an organization whose mission involves killing people. It’s also true that the military remains often unwelcoming to gays and lesbians and is conflicted about women as well. And, of course, the opportunities for working-class Americans are mingled with danger.
But as we as a country grope for new directions in a difficult economic environment, the tendency has been to move toward a corporatist model that sees investments in people as woolly-minded sentimentalism or as unaffordable luxuries. That’s not the only model out there.
So as the United States armed forces try to pull Iraqi and Afghan societies into the 21st century, maybe they could do the same for America’s.
Hoo-ah!
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
CNN/MSM Propaganda Machine
Monday, June 6, 2011
Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Decline and fall of the American empire
America clocked up a record last week. The latest drop in house prices meant that the cost of real estate has fallen by 33% since the peak – even bigger than the 31% slide seen when John Steinbeck was writing The Grapes of Wrath.
Unemployment has not returned to Great Depression levels but at 9.1% of the workforce it is still at levels that will have nerves jangling in the White House. The last president to be re-elected with unemployment above 7.2% was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The US is a country with serious problems. Getting on for one in six depend on government food stamps to ensure they have enough to eat. The budget, which was in surplus little more than a decade ago, now has a deficit of Greek-style proportions. There is policy paralysis in Washington.
The assumption is that the problems can be easily solved because the US is the biggest economy on the planet, the only country with global military reach, the lucky possessor of the world's reserve currency, and a nation with a proud record of re-inventing itself once in every generation or so.
All this is true and more. US universities are superb, attracting the best brains from around the world. It is a country that pushes the frontiers of technology. So, it may be that the US is about to emerge stronger than ever from the long nightmare of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The strong financial position of American companies could unleash a wave of new investment over the next couple of years.
Let me put an alternative hypothesis. America in 2011 is Rome in 200AD or Britain on the eve of the first world war: an empire at the zenith of its power but with cracks beginning to show.
The experience of both Rome and Britain suggests that it is hard to stop the rot once it has set in, so here are the a few of the warning signs of trouble ahead: military overstretch, a widening gulf between rich and poor, a hollowed-out economy, citizens using debt to live beyond their means, and once-effective policies no longer working. The high levels of violent crime, epidemic of obesity, addiction to pornography and excessive use of energy may be telling us something: the US is in an advanced state of cultural decadence.
Empires decline for many different reasons but certain factors recur. There is an initial reluctance to admit that there is much to fret about, and there is the arrival of a challenger (or several challengers) to the settled international order. In Spain's case, the rival was Britain. In Britain's case, it was America. In America's case, the threat comes from China.
Britain's decline was extremely rapid after 1914. By 1945, the UK was a bit player in the bipolar world dominated by the US and the Soviet Union, and sterling – the heart of the 19th-century gold standard – was rapidly losing its lustre as a reserve currency. There had been concerns, voiced as far back as the 1851 Great Exhibition, that the hungrier, more efficient producers in Germany and the US threatened Britain's industrial hegemony. But no serious policy action was taken. In the second half of the 19th century there was a subtle shift in the economy, from the north of England to the south, from manufacturing to finance, from making things to living off investment income. By 1914, the writing was on the wall.
In two important respects, the US today differs from Britain a century ago. It is much bigger, which means that it benefits from continent-wide economies of scale, and it has a presence in the industries that will be strategically important in the first half of the 21st century. Britain in 1914 was over-reliant on coal and shipbuilding, industries that struggled between the world wars, and had failed to grasp early enough the importance of emerging new technologies.
Even so, there are parallels. There has been a long-term shift of emphasis in the US economy away from manufacturing and towards finance. There is a growing challenge from producers in other parts of the world.
Frenzy
Now consider the stark contrast between this economic recovery and the pattern of previous cycles. Traditionally, a US economic recovery sees unemployment coming down smartly as lower interest rates encourage consumers to spend and the construction industry to build more homes. This time, it has been different. There was a building frenzy during the bubble years, which left an overhang of supply even before plunging prices and rising unemployment led to a blitz of foreclosures.
America has more homes than it knows what to do with, and that state of affairs is not going to change for years.
Over the past couple of months, there has been a steady drip-feed of poor economic news that has dented hopes of a sustained recovery. Optimism has now been replaced by concern that the United States could be heading for the dreaded double-dip recession.
In the real estate market, which is the symptom of America's deep-seated economic malaise, the double dip has already arrived. Tax breaks to homeowners provided only a temporary respite for a falling market and millions of Americans are living in homes worth less than they paid for them. The latest figures show that more than 28% of homes with a mortgage are in negative equity. Unsurprisingly, that has made Americans far more cautious about spending money. Rising commodity prices exacerbate the problem, since they push up inflation and reduce the spending power of wages and salaries.
Macro-economic policy has proved less effective than normal. That's not for want of trying, though. The US has had zero short-term interest rates for well over two years. It has had two big doses of quantitative easing, the second of which is now ending. Its budget deficit is so big it has led to warnings from the credit-rating agencies, in spite of the dollar's reserve currency status. And Washington has adopted a policy of benign neglect towards the currency, despite the strong-dollar rhetoric, in the hope that cheaper exports will make up for the squeeze on consumer spending.
Policy, as ever, is geared towards growth because the great existential fear of the Fed, the Treasury and whoever occupies the White House is a return to the 1930s. Back then, the economic malaise could be largely attributed to deflationary economic policies that deepened the recession caused by the popping of the 1920s stock market bubble. The feeble response to today's growth medicine suggests that the US is structurally far weaker than it was in the 1930s. Tackling these weaknesses will require breaking finance's stranglehold over the economy and measures to boost ordinary families' spending power and so cut their reliance on debt. It will require an amnesty for the housing market. Above all, America must rediscover the qualities that originally made it great. That will not be easy.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
McCrony Capitalism
Let's Take the "Crony" Out of "Crony Capitalism"
It's time to choose the free market
John Stossel January 14, 2010
When Judge Richard Posner, the prolific conservative intellectual, released his book A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent Into Depression last year, you might have thought the final verdict was in: Capitalism caused the economic downturn and high unemployment.
That this verdict was pronounced by someone like Posner, who is associated with the University of Chicago and the free-market law and economics movement, gave moral support to all the politicians who were intent on exploiting the recession (as they exploit all crises) to increase government control of the economy.
But what exactly is this "capitalism" that is blamed?
The word "capitalism" is used in two contradictory ways. Sometimes it's used to mean the free market, or laissez faire. Other times it's used to mean today's government-guided economy. Logically, "capitalism" can't be both things. Either markets are free or government controls them. We can't have it both ways.
The truth is that we don't have a free market—government regulation and management are pervasive—so it's misleading to say that "capitalism" caused today's problems. The free market is innocent.
But it's fair to say that crony capitalism created the economic mess.
Crony capitalism, by the way, will be the subject of my TV show this week on the Fox Business Network (Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern; Friday at 10).
What is crony capitalism? It's the economic system in which the marketplace is substantially shaped by a cozy relationship among government, big business, and big labor. Under crony capitalism, government bestows a variety of privileges that are simply unattainable in the free market, including import restrictions, bailouts, subsidies, and loan guarantees.
Crony capitalism is as old as the republic itself. Congress' first act in 1789—on July 4, no less!—was a tariff on foreign goods to protect influential domestic business interests.
We don't have to look far to see how crony-dominated American capitalism is today. The politically connected tire and steel industries get government relief from a "surge" of imports from China. (Who cares if American consumers want to pay less for Chinese steel and tires?) Crony capitalism, better know as government bailouts, saved General Motors and Chrysler from extinction, with Barack Obama cronies the United Auto Workers getting preferential treatment over other creditors and generous stock holdings (especially outrageous considering that the union helped bankrupt the companies in the first place with fat pensions and wasteful work rules). Banks and insurance companies (like AIG) are bailed out because they are deemed too big to fail. Favored farmers get crop subsidies.
If free-market capitalism is a private profit-and-loss system, crony capitalism is a private-profit and public-loss system. Companies keep their profits when they succeed but use government to stick the taxpayer with the losses when they fail. Nice work if you can get it.
The role that regulation plays in crony capitalism is unappreciated. Critics of business assume that regulation is how government tames corporations. But historically, regulation has been how one set of businesses (usually bigger, well-connected ones) gains advantages over others. Timothy Carney's book about this, The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money, explains why Phillip Morris joined the "war on tobacco," General Motors pushed for clean-air legislation, and Archer Daniels Midland likes ethanol subsidies.
As economist Bruce Yandle writes, "(I)ndustry support of regulation is not rare at all; indeed, it is the norm."
If you wonder why, ask yourself: Which are more likely to be hampered by vigorous regulatory standards: entrenched corporations with their overstaffed legal and accounting departments or small startups trying to get off the ground? Regulation can kill competition—and incumbents like it that way.
When will Michael Moore figure this out? His last movie attacked what he calls capitalism, but his own work shows that it's not the free market that causes the ills he abhors. Had he called the movie Crony Capitalism: A Love Story, he would have been on firmer ground.
It's time we acknowledged the difference between the free market, which is based on freedom and competition, and crony capitalism, which is based on privilege. Adam Smith knew the difference—and chose the free-market.
What's taking us so long?
John Stossel is host of Stossel on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of Give Me a Break and of Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity. To find out more about John Stossel, visit his site at johnstossel.com.
COPYRIGHT 2010 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS, INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/14/lets-take-the-crony-out-of-cro
Can we say, US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank? Be prepared, you will learn about these two private entities soon enough if you aren't aware already.
Ronald McDonald has been using his fast food world empire and is playing patty-cakes with Obama. They just received an exemption from Obamacare. Why, do you ask? Perhaps, it could be this:
11:13 AM, Jun 3, 2011 • By MARK HEMINGWAY
According to the unemployment data released this morning, the economy added only 54,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate up to 9.1 percent. However, this report from MarketWatch suggests data is much worse than that:
McDonald’s ran a big hiring day on April 19 — after the Labor Department’s April survey for the payrolls report was conducted — in which 62,000 jobs were added. That’s not a net number, of course, and seasonal adjustment will reduce the Hamburglar impact on payrolls. (In simpler terms — restaurants always staff up for the summer; the Labor Department makes allowance for this effect.) Morgan Stanley estimates McDonald’s hiring will boost the overall number by 25,000 to 30,000. The Labor Department won’t detail an exact McDonald’s figure — they won’t identify any company they survey — but there will be data in the report to give a rough estimate.
If Morgan Stanley is correct, about half of last month's job growth came from the venerable fast-food chain. That is hardly the sign of a healthy economy.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/half-last-months-jobs-came-single-employer-mcdonalds_573220.html
Thursday, June 2, 2011
James Catron
Korean War Veteran Dies While Replacing Flag at Ohio Home on Memorial Day
Published June 02, 2011
FoxNews.com
An 83-year-old Korean War veteran died on Memorial Day while trying to replace a weathered American flag outside his Ohio home, his family said Thursday.
James Catron, of Richville, Ohio, died of natural causes as he was replacing the tattered flag on his 20-foot TV tower with a new one, his daughter, Sharon Harold, told FoxNews.com.
"He served his country and he thought it was so important to display the flag, " Harold said. "He was so proud to be a veteran."
Harold described her father as a humble man who never boasted about his service and who worked as a volunteer driver for "Meals on Wheels," a program that delivers food to the elderly.
"He had received two bronze stars during his service but never told us," she said. "He was a great man."
A neighbor saw Catron slumped over the tower Monday and called 911. Rick Walters, with the Stark County Coroner's office, said Catron, who had a history of heart trouble, may have died about an hour earlier and was safely belted to the tower. Catron was brought down by fire department paramedics.
Perry Township Fire Chief Larry Sedlock tells The Repository firefighters with a ladder truck returned later on Memorial Day to replace the flag.