All posts by Hutchins AAron

Born in Deutschland 1965, hometown was Bütthart, parents were not U.S. government employees. However, when father was tricked into joining the U.S. Air Force Civil Service, in 1969, with the promise that we could remain in Germany, we were promptly shipped off to Iran. Due to one of my Iranian educators being disappeared, along with her husband, by the U.S. ally Shah of Iran's Israeli & U.S. created Savak (for the then official terrorist act of promoting the idea that women can vote), and due to my U.S. citizen mother being placed on Savak's Terrorist Arrest List (for supporting the idea that women should vote, at that time the U.S. ally Shah of Iran did not allow women to vote, now they can) we left Iran for the United States in 1973, literally in the middle of the night. At the U.S. Embassy airbase the CIA operated Gooney Bird (C-47) was so packed with other U.S. citizens fleeing our ally Iran (because the Shah gave the OK to arrest any U.S. citizen for such terrorist acts as promoting the concept of voting) that we were turned away by the Loadmaster and had to take a chance on a civilian flight out of Tehran's airport. My father told me he and my mother had three culture shocks; first when they arrived in Germany as civilians, then after being shipped off to Iran as U.S. government employees, then again returning to the United States as unemployed civilians (because so much had changed in the U.S. while they were gone, their only news source was the U.S. Armed Forces Radio & Television Service which heavily censored information about the home front). Since I graduated high school in 1982 I've worked for U.S. government contractors and state & local government agencies (in California), convenience store manager in California, retail/property management in Georgia, California and Idaho. Spent the 1990s in the TV news business producing number one rated local news programs in California, Arizona and Idaho. 14+ years with California and Idaho Army National Guard and the U.S. Air Force. Obtained a BA degree in International Studies from Idaho State University at the age of 42. Unemployed since 2015, so don't tell me the economy has recovered.
Business/Economics, U.S.

Government Incompetence: Social Security lists 14,000 living people as dead, every year, can you check to see if your really dead?

The U.S. Social Security Administration has been listing as many as 14,000 people, who are alive, as being dead and cutting off payments.

Between 2007 and 2010, 36,657 living people were declared dead.  I wonder if that’s had any affect on consumer spending?

Living people who’re declared dead by the Social Security Administration not only lose benefits, but have to prove they’re still alive.  That can take months.  Until then you won’t be able to make any financial transactions with banks, etc.

Most people find out they’re dead when their checks start bouncing, then their Social Security payments don’t show up.

Some people discover that not only were they declared dead, but the Social Security Administration “lost” their file, forcing the “dead” person to literally start over with the SSA.

The “deaths ” are listed in a Death Master File.  Many genealogy web sites offer a Social Security Death Index search service, that lets you search a person’s history using their social security number.  Maybe you can search for yourself, if you show up you know you’re dead.

Business/Economics, Idaho, Opinion, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Idaho Poverty rates highest in the U.S., new report also insults single parents

“We need to really be concerned about the growing number of children in poverty. Our poverty rates are growing faster than the rest of the nation and that has long-term consequences.”-Lauren Necochea, Idaho Kids Count

The latest Kids Count survey found Idaho leading the country in poverty rates for children.  The national average is 18%, from 2000 to 2009.  During the same time period, Idaho’s poverty rate hit 29%!

To make things worse Idaho politicians are slashing and burning federally funded social programs.

Other bad news from the survey: Idaho teens who drop out of school, and are unemployed, are increasing year after year, 8% in 2008, 9% in 2009.

The Kids Count report also says teen deaths are on the increase.
Strangely the report considers single parent families to be a bad thing! It says single parent families are on the increase, but my own experience shows that is not a bad thing!  I’m a single parent and raised three children who were A/B students in grade school, now they’re all working adults, with two of them also taking part time college courses.  They have their own newer model cars, one is a homeowner, another is a landlord (on top of her job and going to college).  Tell me how being a single parent hurt my kids!

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: Nuclear Plant workers say Reactor 1 was already melting down even before the Tsunami hit, decreasing radiation levels due to fuel rods being washed away

Many workers who were at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant the day of the 11 March 2011 quake and tsunami, say reactor 1 was already in trouble and possibly melting down, immediately after the 9.0 quake.

“There’s certainly a great deal of evidence that appears to suggest that the first reactor, reactor number one, was melting down by the time the tsunami hit. So, if that’s the case that the reactor was melting down as a result of the earthquake, and not as a result of the tsunami, a nine-point earthquake is something that has the potential to happen throughout Japan, and that would put the reliability and the design safety of all of these reactors in question.”-Robert Jacobs, Hiroshima Peace Institute

Also, Tokyo Electric Power Company has been reporting decreasing radiation levels coming from Pacific Ocean water inlets and outlets.  It’s not a sign they have things under control, because they certainly don’t.  Rather, after 5 months of ongoing nuclear disaster, what’s happened is that the remains of nuclear fuel rods have been washed out into the Pacific Ocean by TEPCo’s continued water injection.

“When you have a fragile structure that’s already suffered a great deal of damage and when you have continual aftershocks at the level of six-point, or there’s been some even higher, what we have now is we have the radioactive core that has melted down into the basement, into the bottom of the containment vessel of these reactors, and if the radiation level is going down, where it’s been monitored inside the buildings, and if the water pressure is going down, and the temperature is going down, it’s not that the radiation is just suddenly going away, it means that the radioactive material, the melted core, is simply moving further away from where it’s been measured.”-Robert Jacobs

 

U.S.

Operation BART: U.S. Media says no transit shutdown, U.K. Media says 4 BART stations shut down, who’s right?

August 16, protestors shut down four of San Fransisco’s BART stations, according to media in the United Kingdom.  Yet the San Fransisco Chronicle says no such shutdown took place!

August 17, the San Fransisco Chronicle published an article titled “No BART protests”.  The article claims that BART service was not interrupted by any protestors: “Tuesday’s commutes were hassle free, despite rumors that more protests were planned.”

Yet, at the beginning of the article it clearly states: “…protesters disrupted yet another commute…” Which is it San Fransisco Chronicle, commutes were hassle free or not?

August 16, the British Daily Mail published an article which states: “Four San Francisco subway stations had to be shut down temporarily last night as the hacker group Anonymous continued its protest over free speech and police brutality.”

The U.K. Daily Mail even has pics.  Clearly, and as usual, the U.S. media can not be trusted.

 

 

Business/Economics, International

Government Incompetence: Plastic Recycling actually destroying environment in China, government shut it down, now as many as 70,000 people in one city are unemployed

So much for saving the environment by recycling plastic bottles.  One city, Wen’an, serves as the plastic recycling center for Beijing.  The problem is that the process of recycling plastic was actually destroying the local environment.

The recycling is done by very small businesses, or even families, and their processes of recycling plastics has destroyed their air and water.  It got so bad the Chinese government shut down the whole city.

To make sure the locals didn’t restart their recycling operations, the Chinese government cut off electricity to most of the city.  Also, Chinese police patrol the roads leading to the city, to stop any vehicles that look like their carrying plastic to be recycled.

You can see more in the Chinadaily video report.

Business/Economics, U.S.

Dumb Americans, like Frogs in a Boiling Pot: New study shows economic inequality in the U.S. as bad as some African countries, yet most U.S. citizens think everything is fine

Psychologist Dan Ariely designed a test, a test to see how much the average Joe in the United States knows about their own country’s income equality, or lack of.

Not surprisingly, to me anyway, the overwhelming majority (in the 90% range) of U.S. citizens still think the U.S. is equal when it comes to income distribution.  The reality is that income distribution is so unequal it’s as bad as many African countries: “…if we were to compare us with African countries, dictators in different places, you know, taking a lot of the wealth from normal people, we would be among the top half of the African countries of inequality.  So, the U.S. really has reached an extraordinary level of income inequality.”-Richard Freeman, Harvard economist

Here’s some facts about who holds the most income, and who doesn’t: “People don’t understand how much wealth the top 20% have.  They actually have 84% of the wealth.  And they think they have much less.  And more disturbingly, people don’t understand how little wealth the bottom of the distribution have.  The bottom 40% of the U.S. have about 0.3% of the wealth, basically zero.  And people think they have much more than that.”-Dan Ariely

This is what I call frogs in a economic boiling pot; by the time they realize they’re being screwed it could be too late to do anything about it!

But here’s a really interesting fact: “In the last 30 years or so, the share of national, of income that has gone to the upper 0.1%, not to the upper 1.0%, 0.1%, rose by 10 percentage points. That is one of the most astounding patterns I have ever seen in data.”-Richard Freeman

That’s right, the segment of society in the United States, that’s seen the most growth to their wealth, makes up only 0.1% of the population!

To see more on this important study, and WAKE UP AMERICA, go to PBS News Hour.

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery? Germany & France pushing for tax on stock market deals, taking steps to turn the EU into a single economic & political entity

August 16, France and Germany decided against creating and selling Euro Bonds, and came up with another way to help raise money for EU governments; a stock market transaction tax.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Euro Bonds would come later, when the economic situation was more stable.  Instead he, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, are pushing for a new tax (as if Europeans didn’t have to deal with enough taxes).

The new financial transaction tax would affect the purchases made on stock markets.

Merkel and Sarkozy are also calling for more economic and political unity for the EU.  They want EU members to modify their constitutions to reflect commitment to building a strong, more united European Union, and, they want to create a new EU council to oversea efforts to create a more unified EU.  That council will meet twice a year, and have a president who serves a two year term.

Business/Economics, International

Global Economic War: EU officials say they want economic sanctions against other EU countries

“We are in complete agreement in the Dutch cabinet that imposing automatic sanctions as much as possible against countries who do not stick to the rules is the only way to ensure the euro’s long-term success.”-Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of Netherlands

Officials in Netherlands, an economically stable member of the European Union, is pushing other EU members to impose economic sanctions against EU countries that don’t meet the EU standards.

The Dutch claim that for far too long there are some EU countries that have not been playing by EU rules, and they’re the ones dragging down the EU economy.  They want sanctions placed against those member countries, or they want them expelled.

Many citizens of Netherlands, and Germany, would like to see Greece, Ireland and Portugal kicked out of the European Union.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Government slight of hand & Media Incompetence: GDP numbers continue to get revised donward, after being publicly reported, U.S. no better off than EU

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis says the GDP for the second quarter of 2011 was a stagnant 1.3%.  But what some media outlets didn’t report was that the previous quarter was revised downward from 1.95% to 0.4%!

This kind of slight of hand has been going on for years now.  It turns out that real GDP has been much lower during this whole recession/recovery BS.  Don’t be surprised that the second quarter GDP numbers get revised downward when the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reports the 3rd quarter results.

The revision of the 1st quarter, down to 0.4%, shows that the United States is no better off than the European Union, which is in real big trouble.

Germany hit a surprising low of 0.1% GDP.  France, the second biggest EU economic powerhouse after Germany, flatlined at 0% GDP!  For the whole of the EU Gross Domestic Product was only 0.2% for the second quarter.

 

 

 

Technology, U.S.

Operation BART: Anonymous hacks San Fransisco Transit Police, retaliation for police cutting off cell service

“Anonymous demands that this activity revolving around censorship cease and desist and we know you are already planning to do this again.”-warning to BART police from Anonymous

In retaliation for the Bay Area Rapid Transit police cutting off cell service, to prevent a mass protest, Anonymous hacked them and took personal data of at least 2,000 BART users.

San Fransisco’s BART officials say the Anonymous hack will not stop them from cutting off cell service in the future: “It’s one of the tactics we have at our disposal. We may use it; we may not. And I’m not sure we would necessarily let anyone know in advance either way.”-Jim Allison, BART

Operation BART is now being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security.