Tag Archives: u.s.

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? U.S. Congress wants to shut down U.S. Postal Service, why else are they restricting USPS access to their hard earned money? 9 million jobs lost?

September 6, PBS Newshour’s Gwen Ifill interviewed U.S. postmaster general, Patrick Donahoe, and Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers.  They both pointed out that the U.S. Congress is holding back on money earned by the USPS, and that was a primary reason the Postal Service is in trouble.

FREDRIC ROLANDO: “I’m here to tell you that the Postal Service is not broke. The Postal Service just needs access to its own money. And Congress needs to get busy and give them that access.”

“The $20 billion-plus dollars that you read about in losses is nothing more than a congressional mandate that requires the Postal Service, required the Postal Service to take all of their cash and put it into a pre-funding account.”

“The Postal Service actually has somewhere between $50 billion and $125 billion in their other funds that is not taxpayer money. They haven’t used a dime of taxpayer money in over 30 years! And the Congress just needs to act responsibly and quickly to give them access to that — those funds.”

PATRICK DONAHOE: “Fred is exactly right around the issues that we have faced in the last few years.”

“In that same time, we have been required [by Congress] to prepay employee retirement funding.”

GWEN IFILL: “What does Congress have to do with that? When you say that Congress needs to make changes to get you access to this cash, what can Congress do?”

PATRICK DONAHOE: “There are two proposals on the table, the one Fred referred to, where we would get money back. The other proposal is the Postal Service taking over our own retirement system, operate it just like a private business. And we would no longer need that pre-funding.”

“…we have overpaid [forced by Congress] into our other retirement fund $6.9 billion. We want all that money back right now.”

FREDRIC ROLANDO: “What Congress needs to do is give the Postal Service access to, like I said, between $50 billion and $125 billion…”

“There’s $50 billion to $75 billion in surplus pension funds. There’s about $42 billion in the future retiree health benefit funds, again, all postal funds, no taxpayer money involved.”

“…this is just cash money that the Postal Service needs access to. We’re not looking to in any way diminish what needs to be done for future pensions or future retirees.  It’s just that you don’t have to do 75 years worth of pre-funding in a 10-year period. You could re-amortize what needs to be done.”

“…because any business wouldn’t put $20 billion of cash into future pre-funding, nor would they leave $50 billion to $75 billion of pension surplus in that account, when they’re going through the transition that the Postal Service is going through right now.”

“If Congress doesn’t act, the postal industry, about nine million jobs are in danger…”

PATRICK DONAHOE: “We will be out of cash next August. That’s the issue.”

 

The United States Postal Service does not make money off taxpayers, they are solely funded by the postage they charge (prices are controlled by Congress, not the USPS), and other products they sell.  The cuts being made to the USPS will have no affect on U.S. government debt.

Business/Economics, U.S.

United Police States of Corporate America: People with mental problems thrown in prison, unwritten crime of being mentally ill, big money maker for Corporate Prisons

“When I became a judge I had no idea that I was becoming a gatekeeper to the largest psychiatric facility in the state of Florida – the Miami-Dade Jail.”–Steve Leifman, Miami-Dade County judge

Not only does the United States have the most people in prison, in the whole world, but it also has the most people with mental problems in prison.

A National Public Radio report says that the University of South Florida looked at who was the most frequently jailed people in the Miami-Dade County prison system.  It turns out that people with mental problems are the most frequently jailed people: “Over a five-year period, these 97 individuals were arrested almost 2,200 times and spent 27,000 days in the Miami-Dade Jail. It cost the taxpayers $13 million.”-Steve Leifman, Miami-Dade County judge

Most states don’t use mental health facilities, no thanks to former President Ronald Reagan’s decision to cut funding in the 1980s, so most people who commit crimes because of their mental problems end up abused in prisons.

“It seems to me that we have criminalized being mentally ill.”-Greg Hamilton, Travis County Sheriff, Texas

Sheriff Hamilton says because there is little funding for hospitals to care for mental patients, the prison system becomes the default ‘treatment’ center.

The amount of time a person with mental problems stays in a Travis county jail is between 50 and 258 days.

According to a 2009 Corrections Today interview with Judge Leifman, 90% of U.S. hospital beds for mental health patients have been closed, and there’s been a 400% increase in the mentally ill offenders entering prison!

According to a May 2011 Daily Kos posting: “There are three times as many men and women with mental illness in U.S. prisons as in mental health hospitals.”

“The costs of keeping a mentally ill individual in a penitentiary are three to six time what it costs to treat them at an outpatient mental health center.”

“The U.S. prison system had become the largest mental health provider in the country – with nearly 50% of inmates reporting mental health problems.”

“According to the most recent survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 81% of mentally ill inmates currently in state prison, 76% of mentally ill inmates in federal prison, and 79% of mentally ill inmates in local jails have prior convictions.”

“Mentally ill prisoners are more likely than others to end up housed in especially harsh conditions, such as isolation, that can push them over the edge into acute psychosis.”

“…there are powerful economic drivers to keep locking more and more of them up. In fact incarceration and detention has turned into a multibillion dollar growth industry.”

“…the [privately run Corporate] prison industrial complex is primarily motivated by economics, such that a formidable amount of prison industry capital is devoted to creating prisoners…”

In other words the exploding growth of Corporate run prisons demands more prisoners, so that the Corporate run prisons can make the money to pay back investors.  Mentally ill people are easy targets.

 

 

 

U.S.

Humans are going Insane: CDC says 2.2 million U.S. citizens planned to kill themselves in 2010!

“Southeastern states generally have the highest prevalence of depression, serious psychological distress, and mean number of mentally unhealthy days.”-CDC, Mental Illness Surveillance Among Adults in the United States.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention released the results of their mental health study.  Ileana Arias, principal deputy director of the CDC, concludes that there are “…unacceptably high levels of mental illness in the United States.”

Here are some more interesting facts from the study:

About 11 million U.S. citizens experienced serious mental health illness in 2010!

About 84 million of the U.S. population reported having suicidal thoughts; 2.2 million made plans to kill themselves in 2010, and about one million actually attempted suicide last year!

“In 2004, an estimated 25% of adults in the United States reported having a mental illness in the previous year. The economic cost of mental illness in the United States is substantial, approximately $300 billion in 2002.”

“The prevalence of current depression varies substantially by state (from 4.3% in North Dakota to 13.7% in Mississippi and West Virginia), as does the prevalence of serious psychological distress (from 1.9% in Utah to 9.4% in Tennessee).”


 

 

International, U.S.

World War 3: Iran captures Al Qaeda members trying to lauch attack inside Iran, links to the United States, Obama lies

“These individuals intended to move large caches of arms, ammunition and explosives into the country.”-Hossein Chenarian, Police Chief Kerman Province, Iran

In the past two weeks, local Iranian police captured five al Qaeda members sneaking into southeastern Iran. This is a regular occurrence, and many of the al Qaeda members captured in Iran have stated that they’re getting help from the United States.

The latest capture included documents that revealed al Qaeda’s plans to sabotage Iranian industries.

The Obama administration has accused Iran of helping al Qaeda, which is ludicrous for several reasons, the number one reason is that al Qaeda is constantly trying to launch attacks against Iran!  The second reason is that al Qaeda declared war on Shia Muslims (along with other liberal Muslims like Sufis). Iran is majority Shia Muslim, while al Qaeda is Wahhabi Muslim.

Al Qaeda also hates Iraqis, Lebanese, Syrians, Libyans, any place where the majority of Muslims are not Wahhabi.  Also notice that those countries are countries that the U.S. has invaded, attacked or is sanctioning.  The biggest Wahhabi country is Saudi Arabia, one of the big allies of the United States.  More proof of the U.S./al Qaeda connection?

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? U.S. Postal Service problems having domino effect on Corporate America

Some people don’t think much of the USPS (United States Postal Service), many people, including main stream journalists, don’t know that the USPS does not get any taxpayer money!  How about the fact that dozens of U.S. and European corporations rely on the USPS for business?

I’m not talking about shipping their products.  Corporations actually have major contracts to provide the USPS with products or services.  Now they’re feeling the pinch of the collapsing USPS budget.

Here’s a list of major companies being directly affected by the problems at the USPS: Fed Ex, Siemens, Northrop Grumman, Pat Salmon & Sons and Campbell-Ewald, to name a few.

Fed Ex is the biggest contractor with the USPS, in 2010 they were paid $1.4 billion for their service to the USPS (that’s only 3.5% of Fed Ex’s total revenue): “FedEx values its alliance relationship with USPS, both as a supplier and a customer.”-Maury Donahue, FedEx spokeswoman

Northrop Grumman made $495 million off their USPS contract.

The German company Siemens made $135 million in 2010: “We’re affected by their budget and their spending, It causes us to react and adjust.”-Daryl Dulaney, CEO of the Siemens Industry division New York

Siemens was involved with mail processing equipment, until this recent announcement by the USPS: “…will not be buying mail processing equipment, period.”-Sue Brennan, USPS spokeswoman

Privately held Pat Salmon & Sons trucking made $143 million in 2010.

Shipping contractors, like Fed Ex and Pat Salmon, have been hit hardest by the USPS budget crisis.  According to David Hendel, with postal contracting specialist Husch Blackwell LLP, the USPS is asking truckers to essentially work for half pay: “If the contractor will not agree to this, the Postal Service is threatening to terminate their contract.”

The only company that seems to be making more money off the USPS budget crisis, is advertiser Campbell-Ewald. The USPS has poured money into an advertising campaign trying to promote their service.

Basically the U.S. Postal Service wants to end Saturday mail delivery, cut 220,000 jobs by 2015 and close at least 3,700 post offices.  As you can see the cuts will affect far more than just Postal employees and customers.

The United States Postal Service does not make money off taxpayers, they are solely funded by the postage they charge (prices are controlled by Congress, not the USPS), and other products they sell.  The cuts being made to the USPS will have no affect on U.S. government debt.

 

International, U.S.

World War 3: Kurdish rebels in Iran admit they are being armed by the United States

In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Iranian channel, BBC Persian, Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi admitted they are conducting military action against Iran with the help of the United States.

Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi is the boss of the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) terrorist group.

He said the PJAK had built tunnels into Iran from Iraq.  They also received new weapons and equipment, including 120mm mortars, from the U.S. consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil.

Currently Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) is in battle with the PJAK.  This follows attempts by Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to mediate between the Iranian Kurdish rebels (PJAK) and Iranian government.  The mediation failed after PJAK forces killed two Kurds: “But the PJAK terrorist group paid no heed to the KRG’s appeals and mediation (and) martyred two local Kurdish forces… and this proved to the KRG that the terrorists had ignored its requests.”-Hamid Ahmadi, IRGC Colonel

 

International, U.S.

Proof the U.S. backed democratic rebellion in Libya is a Lie: Human Rights Watch finds document after document showing U.S. support of Gaddafi right to the end, proof that rebels are connected to Al Qaeda! Proof that the U.S. is in bed with Al Qaeda?

Human Rights Watch has come across nearly 300 pages of documents, found in the offices of Libya’s external security services, along with ten of thousand of documents found in the abandoned British Embassy in Tripoli.  The documents show how the United States and the United kingdom supported Gaddafi right up until sanctions were imposed.

Those documents also show that Gaddafi tortured terror suspects sent to him by the U.S. and U.K.  One of those tortured on the request of the U.S. and Britain is now a rebel leader!

Abdel Hakim Belhadj (also known as Abdullah al-Sadiq), the military commander who led the revolutionary forces into the Libyan capital Tripoli, is now demanding an apology from the U.S. and British governments over that torture.

In 2004, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) detained Abdel Hakim Belhadj in Malaysia, over suspicions of having links to Al-Qaeda.  He applied for asylum to the British government, but instead the British renditioned him to Libya, where he was tortured in the name of the U.S. led War on Terror.

Now Abdel Hakim Belhadj is a major rebel leader in Libya, do you really think he and his followers are going to do what the U.S. wants?  This is potentially a case of “blowback” in the making.

The documents also show that French and U.K. intelligence agents, and even Scotland Yard, worked to protect Gaddafi’s sons from assassination.  Here’s an interesting coincidence; the assassin was from Qatar. Qatar is now the biggest Arab supporter of the current rebel TNC!

One should wonder why NATO allies worked hard to protect Gaddafi’s son Saif from assassination, as recently as 2004, and now they’re trying to blow him up!  Is this action against the Gaddafi family really some kind of effort to cover up war crimes committed by Gaddafi, at the behest of the U.S., and allies, in the War on Terror?

Other documents show that Gaddafi is probably hiding by using military technology he recently got from the British!  In 2007 Britain supplied Libya with the most up-to-date command and control systems made by General Dynamics UK, which is similar to Bowman Systems used by the British Army.  One of the features is that it allows you to communicate electronically without being tracked.

Other documents show Libyan militant groups are connected to Al-Qaeda.  One group known as LIFG (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group), was directly linked to Al-Qaeda. The former LIFG leader, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, is now current leader of the rebel Tripoli Military Council!  Is this proof that the U.S. and U.K. are in bed with Al-Qeada?

With thousands more documents still to be analyzed, the true extent of the relationship between the United States, Britain, Al-Qaeda and Libya has yet to be revealed!

 

 

 

 

 

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: TEPCo to build giant 2,625 feet long Iron Wall around Fukushima Daiichi?

05 September 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company says it is growing concerned (finally) about the amount of radioactive water still building up in the basements of the reactor buildings.

TEPCo officials say even if they keep it from running off into the Pacific Ocean, it will eventually soak into the groundwater, which eventually runs into the Pacific Ocean.

To try and stop anymore contamination from hitting the ocean, TEPCo proposes to build a 800 meter (2,625 feet) long wall!  The wall will be made of huge iron pipes.

Each pipe, 22-meters (72 feet) long and 10 centimeters (4 inches) wide, will be installed deep below the sea bed to stop the flow of groundwater.

TEPCo says they will also attempt to use pumps to pump out contaminated water.  They hope to start building the wall by the end of the year, and think it will take two years to complete.

Technology, U.S.

Government & Corporate Incompetence: NRC says U.S. Nuclear plants are not earthquake safe

According to the Associated press,  a preliminary Nuclear Regulatory Commission review says that most U.S. nuclear reactors are not as earthquake safe as first thought.

The NRC review was actually started before the recent east coast quake, and the March 11 quake in Japan.

Earthquake safety standards for nuclear reactors were set more than 20 years ago.  Since then much more has been learned about earthquakes.

The review showed that some reactors are actually 24 times more likely to suffer a severe accident, than originally thought.  That’s because 20 years ago most planners didn’t think there could be such big earthquakes as the one in Japan on March 11.

At least 27 reactors are being recommended for earthquake safety upgrades.