Category: Business

Virus D/Bag!

Closing Thought–01Apr20– #2

We see all kinds of stories coming out during this time of crisis….but the good news is that some Americans will receive some financial help….not enough in my opinion…..and then there are those d/bags that will try and profit off workers benefits.

Like a company in Oklahoma……

One of the few positive things about the Coronavirus pandemic is that it shows us just how greedy, heartless and merciless some corporations can truly be.

For example, we have learned via the Ogle Mole Network that ImageNet Consulting – an Oklahoma City-based “Information Technology Solutions” firm that sells high-dollar copiers, scanners, and IT services to companies all across the country – wanted their remaining employees to forfeit a portion of their April paycheck that is equal to the amount they will receive from their government-issued Coronavirus stimulus payment.

OKC-based company wants to keep employees’ $1,200 stimulus payments….

Is this some person that the stim money was to protect?

This person and anyone like him should be help up as a “war profiteer” and shot as soon as possible.

People have asked me why I dislike capitalism so much and this man is a prime example of how it exploits……before I get hate mail…..I am NOT against companies making a profit but they should be more responsible and work to make this country better not make themselves richer.

But more….after giving a company $13.8 million to produce ventilators and so far nothing…..

A Pennsylvania company that received $13.8 million in tax dollars to produce cheap, portable ventilators is now selling them overseas as the U.S. scrambles to find enough of the devices to sustain hospital patients affected by the coronavirus, according to an investigation by ProPublica.  

In 2015 the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contracted the company to produce the ventilators, which were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2019. Not a single version of the model, Trilogy Evo Universal, in the U.S. stockpile.

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/490339-stockpile-of-us-manufactured-ventilators-sold-overseas-report

These types of cowardly traitors should be identified and held responsible….and eventually made to pay for their actions….especially when they are stealing taxpayer money.

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“lego ergo scribo”

The Cash Scramble!

Just like the crash of ’08 businesses are scrambling to preserve their profits by getting the government to give them money……and now that the markets have slid another 3000 points the screams are growing louder by the day….

These daily slides have wiped out about 96% of the profits it created in the Trump years so far.  If this continues then Trump has lost his best re-election weapon.

How about those businesses like the airlines……seems everyone is scrambling to get a piece of the government’s pie.

“We’re going to be in a position to help the airlines very much,” President Trump said Monday when asked about possible government aid in the wake of the huge drop in passenger bookings. The airlines have now put an amount on that promise: $50 billion. That’s more than three times as much as they received after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Wall Street Journal reports; the tab for the auto industry bailout was $80 billion. Cash payments, loans and tax help could be part of the deal being discussed by the airlines with Trump administration officials and members of Congress. United Airlines said it plans to cut service in half for April and May because of the coronavirus outbreak and figures the flights it keeps running will only be one-fourth full. “We have to back the airlines,” Trump said. “It’s not their fault.”

The airlines also made a plea for urgency. “We cannot afford to wait long for assistance,” the A4A trade group said. “This is a today problem, not a tomorrow problem,” the group’s CEO said, per the Washington Post. Airports could ask for federal aid, too. “Airlines may be the most visible part of our aviation system,” a House GOP spokesman said, “but we have to ensure that a stabilization package addresses the needs of airports, regional and charter airlines, cargo airlines, manufacturers, and general aviation business.” An industry analyst called the plan “an aggressive request” but cautioned that it could be just a starting point. “You have to remember the A4A’s job is to shoot for the universe in hopes of getting the moon,” he said.

I say give the greedy bastards the money….but take it out of the Pentagon’s budget for it is pretty bloated.

My feelings are…”F*ck ’em”!

How much have they used to buy back their own stocks?  Maybe they should say screw short term gains and look to the future.

Just saying…….

And the games being played in the Congress is so typical of the gutless wonders we elect…..

With an urgency unseen since the Great Recession, Congress is rushing to develop a sweeping economic lifeline for American households and businesses capsized by the coronavirus outbreak. Democrats said at least $750 billion would be needed, the AP reports. “We will need big, bold, urgent federal action to deal with this crisis,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Monday. Republicans did not object, as a roster of America’s big and small industries lined up for aid. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he wants a comprehensive approach with “significant steps” for the economy, particularly Main Street businesses. Senators had returned to an emptied-out US Capitol, clear of tourists or House members, to confront an even more dire situation than the one they left for a long weekend, before Trump declared a national emergency.

Stuck in the Senate is the aid package approved Saturday by the House, with sick pay, free testing and emergency food. Some Republicans want changes, and the House has technical corrections to make. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who negotiated the package with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, arrived late Monday on Capitol Hill to confer with Senate GOP leaders, saying they were trying to fix the hangup and turn to next steps. The House, Senate and White House agree the pending bill is not nearly enough. The Chamber of Commerce called Monday for legislation including a three-month cancellation of the taxes companies pay to support Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance, for example. The Democrats’ plan would boost hospital capacity, unemployment insurance and other direct aid for households, businesses and the health care industry.

Not to worry the Senate will go on a three day hiatus just when we need their worthless asses to get things done…..so typical.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Economic Humor For A Friday

Closing Thought–14Feb20–#2

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the lovers here on IST…..I hope your day will be good and filled with love…..

I always like it when some self-absorbed d/bag feels he/she needs to add his/her voice to any conversation…..this time it is the candidacy of Bernie Sanders……

The face of a crook that got away with massive theft….

Premium: Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs 170920

This time it is the former CEO of Goldman-Sachs has added his voice to the attacks on Bernie…..

Following his win in the New Hampshire primary last night, Sanders has emerged as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination to face President Donald Trump in November’s election.

In a rare outburst on Twitter, Blankfein suggested that Sanders becoming the nominee would mean “the Russians will have to reconsider who to work for to best screw up the U.S.”

“Sanders is just as polarizing as Trump AND he’ll ruin our economy and doesn’t care about our military. If I’m Russian, I go with Sanders this time around,” the former Wall Street titan tweeted.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/12/former-goldman-ceo-blankfein-if-im-russian-i-go-with-sanders.html

How good is this the same d/bag from Goldman-Sachs that helped blow up the economy in 2008?

This d/bag is not worried about Bernie’s economy he is worried that if Bernie wins election he will have to pay taxes on the cash he stole from the people.

How pathetic….some wealthy crook telling the American people to watch out for someone who will blow up the economy….

Seriously?

This would be humorous if it weren’t so goddamn pathetic.

Just another d/bag trying to look like he cares about anything but the accumulation of wealth and fucking anyone in their way.  Capitalism at its worse.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Cleaning Up

Never now and then I will see, hear or read something that I feel I must share with my readers….and this one is a great one to share…….

I once was a co-owner of a small cleaning business…..it might of lasted longer if we had employed this type of business model….back in those days if a man lost his job he started a lawn service and women started a house cleaning service…..

Nikki Belton, 33, runs a cleaning company with her employees raking in up to £95-an-hour ($A185) by stripping off and polishing clients’ houses in lingerie or completely nude.

The successful businesswoman from the UK, transformed her £16.50-an-hour ($A30)

service when she realised a nude version would earn her more cash, The Sun reported.

The Naked Cleaning Company offers various domestic cleaning services from lingerie wearing, topless and fully naked cleaners from £75-per-hour ($A145) to up to £95-per-hour ($A185).

“I launched the Naked Cleaning Company as a branch off my main cleaning company because I noticed that there was nothing like it out there,” Ms Belton from Devon, England said.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/woman-behind-the-185-per-hour-cleaning-business/news-story/563f86cc9ba5199b06010a62c43aad9c

Maybe if I had been forward looking I would have tried this approach and my defunct cleaning business would be the stuff of special interest reporting……

Hind sight and all that…..

“lego ergo scribo”

I Thought Socialism Was Bad

The term “socialism” is seeing a rebirth…the Right is seeing that old bogey man from the past in everything…..

I guess it is not so bad until used by a conserv to lie about an opponent.

But first one of the tenets of socialism or so dipsticks would want you to believe is the nationalization of companies and put all under government control…..and yet a Trumpite thinks it is a good idea.

And Trump has been throwing around the “S” word liberally (no pun intended) in the past couple of months….after all there is an election coming and he needs a good bullshit story to spread…..

But his AG Barr and good friend and butt boy of Trump has suggested that the US take control of some foreign businesses…..

Barr suggests US govt take control of major foreign telecoms

In comments that appear far-afield of his normal law enforcement duties, Attorney General Bill Barr suggested in a speech on the “threat” of China that the US government should buy out control of Nokia Corporation and Telefonaktieboladget LM Ericsson (generally referred to as Ericsson) and use them to fight against China’s Huawei Technologies.

The Trump Administration has long viewed Huawei with hostility, and has been making the rounds internationally, threatening and cajoling other nations not to do business with Huawei on 5G infrastructure.

The problem is, Huawei is broadly the market leader in telecommunication infrastructure, and the preferred option for many in 5G transitions. US objections are generally not to Huawei’s competence, but rather to them being Chinese, leading the administration to claim they’re a spying risk.

Barr suggests that Nokia and Ericsson could compete better with Huawei if they had the financial might of the Federal government behind them. But they’d need to be American companies to do that, and Barr says they should be either outright state-controlled by the US, or held through a consortium of private US corporations that would make them quasi-state-controlled.

It’s not clear how this could be achieved. Nokia is a $23.8 billion corporation, and Ericsson is another $27.3 billion. As they are Finnish and Swedish, respectively, there is no obvious mechanism by which the United States could nationalize other nations’ major telecommunications companies

(antiwar.com)

Seriously?  Does anyone else see how moronic this idea really is?

Once again this show just how ignorant the toads are that work for this person in the White House truly are…..

Nationalization of foreign companies is one of the first steps to socialism…Iran in the 1950s, Fruit in Guatemala in the 1950s, Chile in the 1970s for examples….

Maybe some idiot in the White House should take this dolt aside and explain this move to him.

I thought he, Barr,  was an idiot and nothing but a yes man for Trump from the beginning of his lame ass mouth began talking…..now I know….

He is another mental midget in the seat of power.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–23Jan20

I have been an opponent of the massive amount of spending that tghe country does on its so-called defense.

We have American citizens starving and dying of inadequate health care but yet we can spend trillions on worthless endless wars.

Those damn defense contractors! (Let me state here that not all contractors for the defense department are crooks….but there are too many as it is now)…….

Shell companies….tjose techniques used by drug dealers and terrorists to hide their money are also employed by some defense contractors…..

Shell companies have come under attack for obscuring illicit money flowing into real estate. But it turns out they’re also a problem for the Pentagon.

Some Defense Department suppliers have used such front companies to fraudulently win manufacturing bids, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office study of Defense Department contractors.

In some cases, the shell companies helped contractors obscure that they were making U.S. military equipment abroad, the GAO said, posing a risk to national security and quality control. More often, they were used to win contracts meant for companies owned by disabled veterans or minorities, it said.

The government watchdog reviewed 32 cases that made their way to criminal prosecutions or lawsuits between 2012 and 2018. Taken together, they illustrate how the Pentagon’s $350 billion in annual contracting can be gamed using companies that exist largely on paper.

The problem could be far bigger, since the GAO’s study wasn’t intended to gauge its scope. The watchdog said the Pentagon had made only spotty efforts to pierce the secrecy of shell companies.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-04/how-the-pentagon-was-duped-by-contractors-using-shell-companies

32 cases and $350 billion…….

Whatever happened to “oversight”?

Apparently that is a thing of the past as long as the Congress gets most of the cash from lobbyists and corporations.

This is a pathetic sytory that plays out every budget and the American people just shrug and allow their money to be pissed away on crap and politicians.

Plus the M-IC can get away with murder…..

According to the Washington Post, General Dynamics is “the fourth-largest corporate recipient of US government contract dollars” and Mattis himself one of at least 50 “high-level government officials” hired by defense contractors since the Trump era began. In fact, on the very board that Mattis rejoined sit six other former military officers and officials, including a former Navy admiral, a former Air Force general, a former deputy secretary of defense, and Novakovic herself who once worked for the CIA and the Pentagon. And while we’re on the subject, don’t forget about all those figures from the world of the weapons makers who have headed the other way like Mark Esper, the current secretary of defense, who was previously a lobbyist for Raytheon.

How The Military-Industrial Complex Gets Away With Murder

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–01Nov19

Can a president while in office make $500 million off a business deal?

I ask because of a story that I found while surfing them web…..the Trump Hotel in DC may hit the market soon…..

President Trump’s real estate company might unload a palatial hotel over complaints that government-ethics laws are being cast aside, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Trump Organization has hired a real estate firm to let go of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, where Trump and other White House officials often dine and visit. Asking price: over $500 million, or $2 million per room, for leasing rights that extend nearly 100 years. This as Democrats, watchdog groups, and the inspector general of the General Services Administration—a federal agency that leases the hotel—raise red flags about the president possibly receiving “emoluments,” or things of value beyond his government paycheck.

Meanwhile, a federal appeals court said last month that plaintiffs (like competitors of Trump’s restaurants and hotels) can make legal claims against his businesses, per USA Today. And House committees led by Democrats are looking into possible emoluments problems involving Trump. “I’m skeptical that this latest development isn’t an attempt to make a massive profit that directly benefits the Trump family, so I will be following this marketing attempt closely,” says Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon. Eric Trump doesn’t deny it’s an issue: “People are objecting to us making so much money on the hotel, and therefore we may be willing to sell,” he says. Profits at the hotel increased by roughly $400,000 to $40.8 million in 2018.

I think that he should not be able to until after all evidence is presented……

Trump is NO longer a proud New Yorker….he now resides in Florida…….

President Trump is now officially a Florida man. According to documents seen by the New York Times, the president—who was born in Queens and has described himself as a lifelong New York City resident—changed his “primary residence” from Manhattan to Palm Beach, Florida, around a month ago. After the Times reported the change, Trump confirmed that he will be making Palm Beach, where he owns the Mar-a-Lago resort, his “Permanent Residence” after leaving the White House. He tweeted that while New York and its people will always have a special place in his heart, “unfortunately, despite the fact that I pay millions of dollars in city, state and local taxes each year, I have been treated very badly by the political leaders of both the city and state.”

“I hated having to make this decision but in the end it will be best for all concerned,” Trump added. Melania Trump filed the same “declaration of domicile” in Palm Beach County. NBC reports that the president has spent 99 days at Mar-a-Lago since becoming president—around 10% of his time in office—but only 20 at Trump Tower in Manhattan. Sources tell the Times the move is largely for tax reasons: Trump isn’t happy about Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance pursuing his tax returns, and Florida has no state income tax or inheritance tax.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”