Tag Archives: Serfdom

Darden Restaurants to Slash Worker Hours Due to ObamaCare

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Darden Restaurants is a huge company.  It owns Olive Garden and Red Lobster amongst many others, so when this company decides it will start cutting hours due to the imminent implementation of ObamaCare, you had better listen.  From the Orlando Sentinel:

Darden, the world’s largest casual-dining company and one of the nation’s 30 largest employers, said it offers health insurance to all its approximately 185,000 employees. Many are offered a limited-benefit plan. That type of coverage is being phased out under health-care changes, which will ban annual limits for most plans.

In an experiment apparently aimed at keeping down the cost of health-care reform, Orlando-based Darden Restaurants has stopped offering full-time schedules to many hourly workers in at least a few Olive Gardens, Red Lobsters and LongHorn Steakhouses.

Analysts say many other companies, including the White Castle hamburger chain, are considering employing fewer full-timers because of key features of the Affordable Care Act scheduled to go into effect in 2014. Under that law, large companies must provide affordable health insurance to employees working an average of at least 30 hours per week.

This is just more evidence of America’s decline into neo-feudalistic serfdom.  Everyone is going to be working part-time, living with their parents and buying food with EBT cards.  I’m sure this is great for the housing market!  All these investors buying will have no one to rent to.  On the positive front, the unemployment rate might go down as more people work less hours and everyone loses!

Full article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

Where Food Stamps Go to Die

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Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

Common sense is not so common.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it.

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice.

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

- All Quotes by Voltaire

Where Food Stamps Go to Die
We all know the economy sucks.  We all know we are headed in the wrong direction.  We all know our leaders are corrupt, immoral, greedy and violent.  You don’t need me to tell you that.  One thing that I have noticed recently while watching the financial markets is that despite the fact most stocks charts I pull up look awful, the major indices continue to hang in or grind higher.  While it is not new news that a few large cap stocks are holding the major averages up, I want to focus on one in particular.  Wal-Mart.  Yes we all know Wal-Mart.  Everyone has an opinion; whether you love it or hate it.  In this instance, I’m not so much interested in the company itself, the stores or disturbing images of some of the people seen shopping there.  No, in this case I want to take a look at the stock and ponder what it tells us about the state of affairs in both the U.S. and the global economy as a whole.

Wal-Mart’s stock is up 14% YTD, which is triple the return of the S&P 500.  The stock also packs a dividend yield of 2.3%, so the total return is even better.  In the last month or so the stock has become a real powerhouse as you can see in the chart below.  Crushing any and all shorts under the weight of its rapid appreciation.

Wal-Mart Three Year Chart

I think the above chart, in particular the move in the past month or so, speaks volumes to what is happening on a macro level.  First, from a purely flow of capital perspective, the U.S. economy was the last one to hit recession (most money managers still have no idea).  With Europe in a situation where monetary and political chaos appears likely here and now (and inevitable ultimately) and the BRICs in total free-fall, we have seen a rush into perceived safe havens.  We all know about treasuries and bunds, but at some point people don’t want to continue to funnel money to instruments yielding negative real returns.  So what has apparently happened is global money managers have been allocating more dollars to very large cap U.S. shares as an alternative to treasuries and bunds.

There’s more to it of course.  Nothing exemplifies the ghetto status of the U.S. economy more than the success of Wal-Mart in the face of the ongoing destruction of what was once a vibrant and strong middle class.  In case you missed it, Marion Nestle, Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at NYU, came out with some interesting tidbits regarding the food stamp program.  One of them is extraordinarily disturbing.  She shows that Wal-Mart’s gets as much as 25% to 40% of revenue at some stores from food stamp dollars.  This says it all folks.  Food stamps are or course the perfect business for Wal-Mart and JP Morgan, which as I pointed out previously makes a lot of money running the program and keeping the populace in perpetual serfdom.  Meanwhile, guess what another of the best performing stocks this year is?  Corrections Corp of America, ticker CXW, up 41% YTD!  Guess what they do?  Yep, you guess it.  They lock up the serfs that get out of line.  This is the Bloomberg description of CXW.

Corrections Corporation of America provides detention and corrections services to governmental agencies.  The Company owns correctional and detention facilities in the United States and the United Kingdom. Services include design, construction, ownership, renovation, and management of new or existing jails  and prisons, as well as long distance inmate transportation services.

There you have it folks.  What sectors are leading the American economy in the “recovery”: Food stamps and Prisons.  They are actually perfectly complimentary.  If the food stamps don’t work the prisons will.

Meanwhile, in the real economy we have the latest earnings blowup.  Ryder System, a company involved in the leasing, rental and logistical business of trucking lowered its forecast and the shares were smashed.  Too bad you can’t lease a truck with an EBT card, although who knows, that might be in the next stimulus package.

Ryder Three Year Chart.  Thanks for Playing!

The global economy is currently staring into a cyclical recession in the midst of the biggest structural debt and derivatives ponzi scheme that mankind has ever witnessed.  The desperation to keep things looking decent into the election continues at a frantic pace and now there are only four more months left.  As I have said before, if they do not allow pressure to be released until after the elections the comeuppance is going to be way more awful than I care to think about.  Prepare accordingly.

Peace and wisdom,

Mike

Martin Feldstein Suggests Spain Should Force Citizens and Companies to Buy Government Debt

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My Take:  Martin Feldstein’s article in the FT from a couple of days ago is so frightening I feel compelled to turn everyone’s attention to it if they have not read it yet.  The focus of the piece is Spain and he spends much of it talking about how “confidence” is the key (one of the 10 Commandments of the Keynesian religion).  While that is to be expected, he then goes on to state that the Spanish government should consider forcing its citizens and corporations to buy sovereign debt.  Here are the key paragraphs:

An alternative emergency approach would be to mandate, on a temporary basis, bond purchases by Spanish households and businesses. Here is how such a plan might work.


The Spanish government could use the income tax system to levy a temporary “lending surcharge” on individual incomes. In exchange for those surcharge payments, the households would receive an interest-bearing government bond with a maturity of five to 10 years. A similar surcharge could be levied on businesses based on corporate profits or the businesses’ value added.

If that doesn’t scare you I don’t know what will.  So let me get this straight.  Banks and governments took on massive debt and leverage.  Then they blow up the entire global financial system. Then the Central Banks bail them both out.  Washington D.C. is now the wealthiest area in America yet they produce nothing and take everything.  Now what is this genius’ solution to it all?  Force the citizenry and companies “based on corporate profits” to fund the government, which of course is just another backdoor bankster bailout.  This is plain and simple financial serfdom, brought to you by a Professor of Economics at Harvard (supposedly one of the best educations in America) and an adviser to Reagan (sounds more like he advised Stalin).  Just remember your money is not your money according to these guys…

The full article is here although you may not be able to read it without a subscription.  It’s titled “Time for householders to buy bonds and save Spain” from April 30, 2012 if you want to try to find it another way.

This is What Student Debt Slavery Looks Like

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My Two Cents:  This very short article from Bloomberg is self-explanatory.  Since 2001 tuition has grown 57% on an inflation-adjusted basis while the average wage for for an American between the ages of 25-34 has DECLINED 7% according to Brockhouse & Cooper.  Let’s also not forget that you cannot declare bankruptcy on student debt.  It follows you around for the rest of your life.  Serfs up!

Explosion in Student Debt’ Drags Down Housing: Chart of the Day

The cost of attending college in the U.S. has risen about three times as fast as wages since 2001. Soaring education-related debt will become “a significant drag on the housing market” as former students struggle to obtain mortgages at an affordable rate, according to Pierre Lapointe, a strategist at Brockhouse & Cooper.

As the cost of attending U.S. colleges and universities surges, student-loan debt is turning into “a significant drag on the housing market,” according toPierre Lapointe, a Brockhouse & Cooper Inc. strategist.

Read more here