Incomplete list of announced closings and layoffs:

U.S. legal drug pusher, Merck, laying off 8500 people, and that’s on top of the 7500 jobs they’ve already eliminated!!!

JCPenney shutting down at least 15 JC’s Five Star Outlet stores across the U.S., 1400 jobs lost!!!

Northeast Utilities laid off 160 people in its IT ops!  The job cuts are connected to the merger with NStar.

Cloud data storage company, Nirvanix, now bankrupt “…to preserve its assets and to pursue all potential options to maximize value for its creditors….”.

Groeb Farms now bankrupt.  U.S. Department of Justice says the honey maker is bee-hind the biggest case of food fraud in U.S. history!  It involves illegally  importing Chinese honey.

Alabama: What automotive industry recovery? In Tuscaloosa, tire maker BF Goodrich laid off as many as 110 people! The local union boss says tire sales have been going down.

California: Paramount Pictures laid off 110 people!  Company officials blamed it on “..an increasingly competitive environment…” NBC Digital laid off four employees, and refused to explain why.  In Corona, Activis laid off 19 employees.  In Los Angeles, DTT laid off 64 people.  In Santa Clara, French-Italian STMicroelectronics laid off 52 workers.

Illinois: What automotive industry recovery? Once again, Caterpillar laying off more employees.  This time Caterpillar officials are not saying how many are going to become unemployed. In Machesney Park, JC’s Five Star Outlet (formerly known as JCPenney) shutdown (see above).

Indiana: In Fort Wayne, Nyloncraft shutdown.  111 jobs lost! Company officials blame a shrinking “customer base”.

Kansas: LaRocca’s Pizza shutdown.

Kentucky: In Madisonville, Goldenrod Dairy shutdown after 80 years in business. 140 jobs lost!  Company officials are consolidating operations.

Mississippi: Non-profit United Blood Services shutdown in Meridian.  It’s part of their adjustments to Obama Care, which they warned about back in 2012!

New York: The State Thruway laid off another four employees. Officials would only say it was a personnel matter.  In Buffalo, Will Poultry on William Street shutdown, ending 113 jobs!  In Wappingers Falls, Southeastern Container finally shutdown, letting go the last 15 employees.

North Carolina: What automotive industry recovery? In Salisbury, Performance Fibers laid off 16 workers, and blamed it on crashing sales.  The company makes fibers used in products like vehicle seat belts.

Ohio: In Marietta, the Christian god can’t stop the Salvation Army from shutting down their thrift store.  Salvation Army officials said sales at the thrift store had crashed so much they couldn’t pay the utilities!  In Salon, Aclara shutdown, 79 jobs lost.  The electronics company is up for sale.

Pennsylvania: Beiter’s shutdown its furniture, appliances and electronics store in Wilkes-Barre.  Store owners said because of the bad economy they were hoping for a break in the rent from the landlord, but the landlord refused.

Tennessee: The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is asking 475 employees to voluntarily quit!  It’s blamed on federal spending cuts.  Sears announced it will close its Hickory Ridge Mall Towne Centre store.

South Carolina: In Berea, after 42 years the Apollo King Restaurant shutdown. It’s blamed on family health problems.

Wisconsin: In Portage, PolyOne shutdown, 86 jobs lost.

09 January 2014 (15:17 UTC-07 Tango)/07 Rabi ‘al-Awwal 1435/19 Dey 1392/09 Gui-Chou (12th month) 4711

Several newly released studies and books show what many in the main streamer news media have discounted for decades: The rich just keep getting richer, and the poor stay poor.

The City University of New York’s Graduate Center says their research shows people who live in New York City are fools, at least the ones who aren’t rich are fools.

The bottom 20% of people working in the Big Rotten Apple saw a pathetic $1,028 USD increase in the average incomes from 1990 to 2010.  In the same 20 years time period the top 1% saw an increase of $264,210!!!

The study also showed the Middle Class continues to lose ground to the elites.

Steve Murdock, a former state of Texas demographer and former director of the U.S. Census Bureau and current director of the Hobby Center for the Study of Texas at Rice University, has published a book called Changing Texas: Implications of Addressing or Ignoring the Texas Challenge.

Murdock warns of a growing income gap between those who got a good education and those who did not.  He predicts by 2050 the poverty rate in Texas will be at 17.7%.  As of 2010 it was 14.4%.

Once again the academic and socio-politcal elites harp on lack of education.  That’s bullcrap after decades of ever increasing spending at the expense of taxpayers, resulting in a decrepit educational system!

It’s been proven that since the 1980s most tax money has gone to the administrative side of public education, and then to bogus school security programs.  But I know (after helping my three kids to navigate the joke of an education system) that the actual quality of education went down since I graduated in 1982!  And I thought it was bad when I was in grade school, having to actually correct some of my High School teachers and realizing at least half of them knew nothing about the subjects they were supposed to be teaching!

By the way, I attended both public tax funded schools, and private parent funded Christian schools, and I found the quality of education lacking in both!  Most of my grade school education was done at the local library in Hesperia, California, and every now and then at the library in Victorville when my mom took us there.

My parents actually had two sets of encyclopedias (remember, this before the invention of personal computers and the internet), Britannica and World Book.   They probably don’t know it but I actually read those books, and when I wasn’t satisfied with those expensive investments my parents made, I rode my bike the few miles to the library. Self taught I was!  That’s how I knew, by the time I hit High School, that most of the teachers were BS artists! And that’s how I knew that my most of my children’s teachers were BS artists! And now I’m even college edumacated with a BA in International Studies from Idaho State University.

Here’s another story: In the late 1990s I knew a Junior High school coach and math teacher who taught at a now closed down Junior High school in Pocatello, Idaho.  He admitted to me that he knew nothing about Algebra.  He said he was forced to become a math teacher or lose his coaching job when the Administration decided all teachers had to teacher two different subjects.  The only position open at that particular Junior High was Algebra.  He admitted he winged it for years before actually learning Algebra from the students.  He did it like this; he would pose questions to the class to find out which student seemed to know the subject.  Then he would have that student demonstrate solving Algebra problems (meaning the smart student actually taught the class).

Unfortunately for me I never had a smart student in my grade school math classes, let alone a smart teacher. I remember having many problems with the math books because the answers in the back of the book didn’t jive with the formulations in the main part of the book, and when I asked my teachers about it they always responded “read the book” (that’s clue number one that your teacher is a dipschtick).  I latter found out from a competent math teacher at ISU that most math books are wrong, and he was right as I discovered while helping one of my daughters with her math class at Highland High school. I used his tips to see if the book was wrong and it was.  It left important steps out of the Algebraic formulas.  When I pointed it out to her math teacher he was stupefied.  Her mother and I immediately transferred her to Pocatello High school where, at the time, they had a very competent math teacher.  By the way, that math teacher at ISU was the best math teacher I ever had, and he got fired that same semester!  The dean of the math department said his teaching style went against her philosophy regarding math.    Her philosophy is “If you don’t understand math, it’s because you don’t love it!” 

Until the quality of education is addressed, which means getting rid of massive tax sucking administrative bodies, getting rid of tax sucking Orwellian police state school security systems, and make the teachers prove they know what they are teaching and can teach it, it’s only going to get worse!

But those changes aren’t going to happen because the administrative bodies have become too powerful, the incompetent teachers protect themselves with corrupt and powerful unions, they also find political support in the politicians who spout the need for education improvement, and as long as the general public is kept in a paranoid schizophrenic state the police state school prisons are here to stay.

It’s almost like a conspiracy to dumb down the average worker of the United States so the 1% elites can get richer by creating a slave wage labor state?

“Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security……..That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.”-Barack Obama, 10 September 2013

PS: When I was a student at ISU, in one of the many history classes I took there was gaggle of education students.  One of them was going on about how she failed her Teacher Certification test, for the third time!  She said ‘no worries because I’ll just get my husband to pay for another one. I’ll eventually pass’.  Yeah, there’s no hope for our education system when education students have that attitude!

Incomplete list of announced closings and layoffs:

Reports that AT&T eliminating jobs in its AdWorks operations.

German mega-company Siemens announced 15-thousand global job cuts, including hundreds in the United States!  Company officials are hoping most of the job cuts will come from attrition and employees ‘voluntarily’ quitting! The engineering/tech company is trying to cut $8-billion USD in operating costs.

German owned Sylvania Lighting Services laying off 900 employees in the United States!  It’s not clear if this is on top of the 8-thousand job cuts announced back in July 2013!  The company is “streamlining” ops in the U.S. and Canada.

California: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market grocery store chain now bankrupt. Company officials said the bankruptcy was necessary for its sale to Tesco.  In San Rafael, Autodesk warned of an undisclosed amount of layoffs.  Semi-truck servicer, Cummins West, shutdown all across the Golden State, at least 304 jobs lost!  In Tracy, Comcast cable laid off 87 people.  In Sunnyvale, tax sucker Lockheed Martin laid off 163 people!  In San Jose, Philips Electronics laid off 72 employees. In San Francisco, Grass Valley shut down, 27 jobs lost.  Berkley Heartlab laid off seven employees across the state.  Tax sucker Dell Service NASA Ames Research laid off 118 people! In Emeryville, addiction treatment center Ernest Gallo laid off another three employees.  Evil British empire private prison operator, G4S, laid off at least 74 employees across the state.  In Fresno, GAF laid off two employees.  In Burlingame, Mills Peninsula Division laid off three people. In Garden Grove, Money Mailer laid off six workers.

Illinois: In Champaign, Better Image Film Labs shut down.  The owners now hate digital cameras.

Indiana: Software maker Ontario Systems laid off 20 employees.  They blame Obama Care.  The company makes billing programs for health care providers, and the Affordable Heath Care law is resulting in reduced demand for their software!  In Huntington, Unilever Ice Cream shutdown, 157 jobs lost!

Kansas: In Hays, after only five months in business Sweet Tooth Candy Store shutdown!  Employees told local news sources that business was good for a couple of months, then it just dried up.

Kentucky: In Lexington, Shorty’s grocery store shutdown.  The manager blamed the bad economy: “We did have a lot of repeat business, a lot of customers that come and see us daily that depend on us. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t enough.”-Jonathan Henderson

Maine: In Bath, tax sucker Bath Iron Works laid off 42 employees. The company laid off people in August 2013. It’s blamed on U.S. Navy contract ‘modifications’.

Massachusetts: In Northampton, after 39 years the Skera Gallery shutdown.  The owner turning to taxi driving, and writing fiction about taxi driving.

Michigan: What automotive industry recovery? French owned Inergy Automotive laid off 104 UAW employees! I could find no explanation why.

New Hampshire: Non-profit SeaCare Health Services announced they are shutting down. They blamed “…the current financial climate for non-profits.”, meaning the bad economy and Obama Care.  In Hooksett, after 126 years iconic Robie’s Country Store shutdown.  The owner burned out and put it up for sale.  In Portsmouth, Hoyt’s Office Products shutdown after 45 years of business.  The family owners blame health problems.

New York: In Warwick, Toy Chest shutdown.  The owner says she doesn’t want to play by manufactures’ rules anymore, saying manufacturers don’t give retailers a choice, and they push bulk purchases in which retailers don’t know what they’re getting.  So much for consumer demand driving industry! In DeWitt, Aspen Athletic Club shutdown.  In Batavia, Present Tense bookstore shutdown. In Buffalo, tax sucker DRS Integrated Defense Systems shutdown, 36 jobs lost.   In New York City, Too Big to Jail DEPFA BANK laid off 32 people.

North Carolina: Video game maker, EA, shutdown its studio in the Old North State.  In Wilmington, after 86 years G. Stein Furniture shutdown.  The family owners blamed competition from “big box” stores, specifically the ability of the big boxes to give customers huge lines of credit.

Pennsylvania: In Bethlehem, Walgreens shutdown their distribution center. 400 jobs lost!  In York, Jim & Nena’s Pizzeria shutdown.  In Pittsburgh, Too Big to Jail Bank of America shutdown an office, 209 jobs lost!

South Carolina: In Charleston, Andolini’s Pizza shutdown after more than 20 years in business.  The landlord refused to renew the lease.

Tennessee: In Chattanooga, Alstom Power Turbomachines laid off 88 employees.

Texas: Across the Lone Star State, Too Big to Jail Bank of America laid off at least 524 people!

Wisconsin: Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar laying off more workers.  This time 115 people rendered unemployed in Milwaukee! This is on top of the 260 people laid off during the summer! Company officials have been complaining about their crashing international sales.