Masters of the Universe category archive

Via C&L.

Just where did that grocery item come from, anyway?

That’s become a bit of an issue in these parts since major stockholders in Smithfield Foods forced its sale to a Chinese firm so they could cash in on their major stockholdings. The issue strikes close to home because iffy Chinese industrial and consumer safety practices have struck (close to) homes here before.

Anyhoo, the answer to the question at the beginning is, “Good luck, suckers.”

Here’s a nugget from an excellent column in my local rag.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines require that products list a “responsible party,” said Donnell Scott, technical manager of food labeling for AIB International, a research and consulting firm in Manhattan, Kan., that assists the food industry with government regulations.

“It’s who’s going to take responsibility for that product,” she said, but not necessarily the entity that controls that responsible party.

Boxes of the cereal Weetabix, originally a British brand, say it is “manufactured by The Weetabix Food Co. Ltd.” in Ontario, Canada, and identify it as a “product of Canada.” Nowhere does it mention Bright Food, the Chinese company that bought Weetabix last year.

Read the rest.

No surprise here.

Management has found a new way to rip employees off: pay their wages through fee-heavy debit cards.

Gunshannon said she didn’t sign the card and chose to not enroll in the payroll system offered because she felt the fees would be exorbitant and actually drop her earnings below minimum wage.

She was to be paid about $7.44 per hour – her paystub didn’t list her hourly rate. Minimum wage is $7.25.

According to the complaint filed, the JP Morgan Chase payroll card lists several fees, including a $1.50 charge for ATM withdrawals, $5 for over-the-counter cash withdrawals, $1 per balance inquiry, 75 cents per online bill payment and $15 for lost/stolen card.

Gunshannon said she had taken her concerns to the main office of the franchise holder – Albert and Carol Mueller, trading as McDonald’s, in Clarks Summit. She was told that the card was the only option, she said.

You don’t have take-home pay any more.

You just get to watch it go by, without even choosing where it goes.

Afterthought:

It’s hard to argue with this, from later on in the story (emphasis added):

“I can’t afford to lose even a few dollars per paycheck. I just think people should be paid fairly and not have to pay fees to get their wages.”

Wonder whether the franchise owners are getting any kickbacks benefits from Chase.

This master of the universe hit the wall yesterday.

1st Commerce Bank, North Las Vegas, Nevada

And now for today:

Mountain National Bank, Sevierville, Tennessee

I’m outsourcing this to Pandora.

I have nothing to add but invective.

Pocket change.

Facebook billionaire Sean Parker’s lavish, $10 million Big Sur wedding got even more expensive Monday.

The California Coastal Commission and Parker said they have reached a $2.5 million settlement to pay for coastal conservation programs after the Napster co-founder built a large movie-set-like wedding site in an ecologically sensitive area of Big Sur without proper permits.

What the entitled wants, the entitled takes.

I forgot the check the roster of deceased banks yesterday. One went missing.

Banks of Wisconsin, Kenosha, Wisconsin

Ken Eisold tries to explain how Apple (and other companies) came to have such cash reserves stashed in off-shore tax shelters. It’s all wrapped up in the opinion that the stock market is the be-all and end all of economic value (emphasis added).

In the old days of traditional capitalism, new businesses sold shares to investors who thus became owners. In return, the shareholder-owners would get dividends, and with luck and good management the shares might also increase in value. That concept became obsolete when investors got interested in the far greater returns that could be gotten from flipping the shares. Companies then got interested in driving up the value of their shares, less interested in providing a reasonable and secure rate of return. The profitability of a company became less important than its ability to “increase shareholder value,” as that strategy became known — and in fact many companies stopped bothering to pay dividends at all. They wanted to raise “value.”

That’s how Apple’s ballooning nest egg of $145 billion came about. But then their shares did not continue to go up. What were they going to do with all that money? And how could they stimulate an increase in share prices? The ingenious solution was to borrow money to pay dividends. The problem with just paying out the money they already had was that then they’d have to pay taxes on it first. And the borrowed money could be used to buy back shares, and that too would bolster their price.

Apple, swimming in money, would rather borrow to pay dividends than pay them with money they already have.

It’s not as if they were borrowing money to invest in R&D or a new factory (they lease their manufacturing to low-wage off-shore employers). It was just more Wall Street three-card monte.

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this one.

Dick Polman reports on the sad state of bridges and other infrastructure, then identifies part of the problem.

Accountants say that hundreds of other U.S. corporations have been following Apple’s lead, although it appears that General Electric has done just fine on its own initative — given the fact that G.E. paid no U.S. taxes in 2010.

There it is, your bridge repair money at work.

More like this, please.

Via Bartcop.

I missed it when it happened, because such things usually go down on Friday, so the mess can be cleaned up over the weekend, but yet another bank disappeared, this one on Tuesday:

Central Arizona Bank, Scottsdale, Arizona

Mike reports on the efforts of corporations to steal privatize our public schools.

MarketWatch looks back at last year’s Facebook IPO.

They are not sanguine. A nugget:

In the world of tech IPOs, Facebook’s May 18, 2012, debut was at once the shining Oz of social media investing, and the man behind the curtain.

An IPO that was held up as a symbol of nearly limitless potential and possibility for entrepreneurs also came to show how Wall Street’s relentless temptation to take one more nickel from the table can poison the whole affair.

If you like the true crime genre, read the rest.

Dick Destiny would likely call it one more story from the culture of lickspittle.

Return of Masters of the Universe Meet the FDIC!

Today’s stricken Masters going down before the dreaded regulators include:

Pisgah Community Bank, Asheville, North Carolina

Sunrise Bank, Valdosta, Georgia

Takers, not makers.

George Monbiot explores the reasons why the persons who have everything keep wanting more. For example:

As the immensely rich HL Hunt commented several decades ago: “Money is just a way of keeping score.”

The desire for advancement along this scale appears to be insatiable. In March Forbes magazine published an article about Prince Alwaleed, who, like other Saudi princes, doubtless owes his fortune to nothing more than hard work and enterprise. According to one of the prince’s former employees, the Forbes magazine global rich list “is how he wants the world to judge his success or his stature”.

The result is “a quarter-century of intermittent lobbying, cajoling and threatening when it comes to his net worth listing”.

Welfare for the rich, poverty for the rest of us.