Mammon category archive
The Sneering Economy 0
Flint-Hearted 0
Click to see the original image.
Aside:
What happened in Flint is what happens when you “run the government like a business.”
The business model of choice amongst those who would “run the government like a business” is invariably Enron.
Afterthought:
The cartoonist left out “racism.”
This is America.
Never leave out “racism.”
If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0
Pap and Howard Nations discuss corporate America’s “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
The Retirement of Sisyphus 0
Philadelphia, like many jurisdictions (not just cities), has a “pension crisis.”*
The cause of the crisis is not pensions. The cause of the crisis is the decision of governments small and large to agree to pensions, then choose not to fund them. Now that funding time is due, the solution of choice seems to be to screw the workers who have been paying their share of the pension plans all along through payroll deductions.
The Philadelphia City Controller, looking at the example set by professional fraudsters, has proposed a novel idea: buy out pensions at a cut rate so that the pensioners, now that they have reached retirement age, can keep right on working. A snippet from the story:
The payments would represent only a portion – say, 50 percent – of what a retiree could expect to receive over a lifetime. Still, a fair number of retirees might be enticed by the prospect of a cash windfall they could invest on their own, Butkovitz said.
“This would give people the opportunity to start a business,” he said. “Or do something that could potentially change their life and provide financial security long-term. And, of course, they could convert it into an annuity.”
You can take it from me, starting a new business or gambling at the Wall Street track is not a retirement dream of most persons at retirement age.
Retiring is the damned retirement dream, one which is more and more a stolen dream.
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*In Philadelphia’s case, the problem is exacerbated by the systematic screwing given Philly by the Republicans in the state legislature. For example.
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
Welcome to the “health care marketplace”:
Federal prosecutors said Tuesday it was all part of an illegal effort by Olympus Corp. of the Americas, based in Center Valley, Pa., near Allentown, to induce doctors and hospitals to buy its products: the pricey medical devices called endoscopes.
My ex is a nurse (and a damned good one, at that).
When I first met her, she was an OR nurse. The OR staff, including the doctors, at the little hospital where she worked at the time always looked forward to visits from pharma reps, because those visits meant free hoagies courtesy of Big Pharma.
This is called “unbiased evaluation of medical technology in the marketplace.”
Follow the link for the gruesome details.
Flack the Children 0
We have a polity assemblage that believes in magic demands the government provide services while simultaneously refusing to pay for them.