Well…as I was watching the news as I do most nights, my heart broke a little with watching the footage of the police crackdown on the OWS protesters in Oakland, California. If you haven’t seen it, the protesters and police were faced off in downtown Oakland…the protesters standing in a group, not moving, not making any threats to the police, when one of the police shot a tear gas round at point blank range into the face of one of the protesters; knocking him to the ground and fracturing his skull. While this Iraq war veteran was lying on the ground, critically injured, some of the protesters gathered around him, trying to give him aid when one of the police, in the second row of their phalanx, behind barricades, and perfectly safe, tossed a “flash-bang” grenade into the people trying to provide medical attention. On the video, you can see this jack booted thug smirking as he pulls the pin and tosses the grenade; knowing full well that he could be doing great bodily harm to these American citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights. And, what has happened to this thug? The mayor of Oakland comes out and says that her police force acted to protect their safety. Oh, really, from what? Against unarmed protesters who are clearly not moving toward this thug? I am outraged and have had enough of the police thinking they are above the law, that they can abuse American citizens like the Egyptian citizens were terrorized and abused in Tahir Square…that the police have the power to “grant” us our constitutional rights and limit them in any way. All of us should be outraged at this abuse of power, at this usurpation of our rights…rights that are not limitable to what is convenient for the police but exist to protect us from this kind of behavior….geez…
Category Archives: Misc
Some thoughts on Netflix…
Well…with all of the turmoil that is going on with Netflix and the giant mistakes they have made over the past few months, I thought a few comment on their management might be in order. As you know, the stock has been in free fall since the ceo, Reed Hastings, made the stupid decision to raise prices almost 60% and split the company into two parts, losing almost 8 billion dollars in shareholder value in the process. What I don’t understand is the lack of economic understanding of the market they operate in and the utter hubris of their decision making. If you know anything about economics and how markets operate, you know that in the early days of Netflix they were operating as consumers of marginal output…that is they were the only purchasers of content that the providers had already paid for as an addition to the normal channels like HBO and Starz, giving the content suppliers marginal revenue that standard economic theory says should be taken at any cost. And, until competitors come into the market, Netflix got a bargain on this content that they then built their streaming services around. But, what they missed is the fact that as more channels are available for content providers, the price will rise as marginal demand for the product increases. That is exactly what happened in this case and this was compounded by the fact that the supply side of the equation changed as well, limiting the amount of price increases that the market will bear. So, in every possible part of the economic equation, Reed and his cronies got it wrong and they are now paying for it by the company’s valuation plunging by almost 75%….it just looks like a karmic payback for trying to screw the customers that made them successful….couldn’t have happened to a worse bunch…
Another scam by Murdoch and Co….
Well….I read a short little article today in the Guardian today the exposes another scam by Murdoch and co…this time involving the Wall Street Journal and it’s European edition. What these ethically challenged idiots did this time was inflate the circulation of the paper by having secret contracts with other companies to purchase bulk amounts of each days excess production…in effect cheating their advertisers by being able to charge higher rates for more eyes on the paper that don’t exist. With the phone hacking scandal, the general lying of fox news, and the smearing of opponents, the picture of an organization that is approaching the worst excesses of William Randolph Hearst is slowly being revealed and should be a huge cause for concern for anyone who values the truth and journalistic integrity. But, I may be the only one left in this country that cares about that anymore….geez…
The extortion continues…
Well…I was laughing my butt off a few minutes ago when I read an article in the Washington Post that covered the new round of extortion that is being foist on the public by many of the biggest corporations in the US. These shameless thieves are claiming that they are ready, willing, and able to create jobs if they just get some teensy little concessions in regulations…like being able to write the regulations that cover the oil and gas industry or the ability of the telecom industry to continue to consolidate until there is just one huge carrier that can then steal even more from the public. These thieves are even saying that when they merge, it will create jobs….never mind that the primary reasons for these mergers are higher profits by the reduction of redundancies….which, in corporatespeak means that jobs will be cut, not created. When are we, as a country, going to stop letting these greedy idiots steal everything? Geez….
Steve Jobs…
Well…just a short one to talk a little about Steve Jobs who died yesterday…while I’m not a fan of Apple or it’s business practices, you can’t deny he was a brilliant man who almost single-handedly dragged us into the digital age. People like that don’t come along every day and he will be missed.
This one’s personal…
Well….there is something that has been boiling my blood lately and that is the increasing erosion of our privacy by entities large and small ranging from the Onstar that keeps recording your driving actions even after you cancel the service to the one that spurred this one….the institution of a “card” that is necessary to receive the sale prices at the local Family Fare grocery store. I find this to be a particularly onerous requirement…having to give up your personal information and have all of your purchases tracked to be able to get these prices, if you don’t, you pay full price. I liken this to blackmail and I will never shop in that store again….the owners say that there is no use for the information other than to make sure you get the best deals…and haven’t we heard this from every other corporation that has sold personal information to make a profit? What’s next…you have to give up your firstborn to be allowed to set foot in the store? People…in this new world, about the only thing we have left of value is our personal information and to give it away to save a few pennies at a store whose prices are not competitive anyway is just stupid….boycott Family Fare until this farce is ended…geez….
It’s a lack of demand, stupid…
Well…I had to laugh the other day when the repubs continued to push tax cuts as the only way to create jobs here in the US….and you’ve heard me talk about how boneheaded that is considering the excess capacity that exists in the economy. Corporations will not add one job when there is no demand for the products that that job will create…and lowering taxes, even to zero, will do nothing to create that demand. What is the mechanism that tax cuts use to create jobs? I’ve never heard that described by any of the repub idiots out there…but they don’t believe in the science of economics any more than they believe in the science of evolution so why should anyone be surprised? I still think that the lack of demand in this economy is the direct result of the collusion between the repubs and business to cut the real wages of working people by making them compete with overseas workers that earn a dollar an hour and by the union bashing that is one of the central tenets of the repub philosophy. I’ll ask the same question I’ve asked many times before…”who is going to buy your 40 thousand dollar Suburban when everyone is making minimum wage?” Geez….
Wandering, wandering, wandering….
Well…haven’t been able to come up with one topic to fill this thing so I think I’ll just muse a little and wander around in my head a bit….I just love ole Rick Perry….as I said a few days back, he is going to be a hoot commenting on over the next year or so and yesterday, he did not disappoint. He told a youngster in new England that they teach creationism in Texas schools….something that is illegal in the US…nice job, Rick, you don’t even know what is going on in your state…how are you going to run the country? Okay, that one sounded better in my head but you get the idea….
I did want to talk about cars a little today…it has been on my mind for a couple of days. What was your first car? I still remember my white 1962 Comet that I inherited when my father died…144 cubic inch straight six with a three on the tree as we used to call it…the laws back then would let you get your license on the day you turned 16 and take off in your car with no restrictions that same day…and that’s what I did…it was so cool to get in that thing and go…and gas was only 24 cents a gallon so the 55 cents an hour I made at the Dog and Suds in Ada would pay for both gas and beer….can you remember pulling into a gas station and asking for a bucks worth? The next car was the family wagon…a 55 Ford that I took over after the Comet died…but that’s another one for later….
A few things…
Well…It’s been a long day already and I am a little disappointed with the turns today…I did get a bike ride in but I am so frickin sore that I can barely move and I can’t understand it…okay, I know, I can go take a couple of ibuprofen and I’ll be better but I just don’t want to have to go buy more…yeah, that’s as stupid as it sounds….but I have been feeling like that lately. Another month has gone by and I still haven’t done much this summer…I can’t afford to do much but there should be something to do that doesn’t cost a lot…
I still don’t understand this whole debt ceiling nonsense….it has been raised 47 times under repub presidents and now it can’t be done because we have a dem administration. Didn’t these guys understand that they have to govern after they got elected not just posture for their base? I am really glad that I’m getting older…I don’t want to see this once great country hijacked by the know nothings that dominate the repub party…they are the worst sort of true believers who see their election as a crusade and you take no prisoners in a crusade…some of these guys have even said they don’t need to do anything since god will take care of them and the country….geez…
More wandering….
Well….heard this lyric on the bike ride “now my bitter hands cradle broken glass of what was everything”….and, while I know it was a romantic lament from “Black” by Pearl Jam, I was struck by how it was a such a great descriptor of where my life sits at this very moment….and I still struggle to understand how age trumps everything that you’ve accomplished in your life…shouldn’t it be that all of that experience and education means something? Oh, well…I won’t bore you with any more musings about that…I’ve already done that enough….I’ve had this uneasiness that has settled over me the past couple of weeks and I know the core of it is this question “what if I never find another job?” This is a brand new sensation to me and I really don’t know how to cope with it yet….cripes, more musings…have to stop that.
I was going to talk about politics in this one but since I’m running behind in the count this month, I’m going to leave that for a later one today…probably in about an hour so come back after lunch…you really didn’t want to work anyway, did you?