Month: August 2013

Welcome to Third World America: Camden, New Jersey’s Tent City

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Those of you who didn’t sleep completely through American history class probably recall the phenomenon of Hoovervilles throughout the U.S. in the early years of the Great Depression. These were shantytowns that sprung up all across the nation and were named after Herbert Hoover, who was President at the onset of the Depression and blamed for … Read more

Battle Royale on Piers Morgan: Glenn Greenwald, James Risen and Jeffrey Toobin

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That’s the thing I don’t understand about the climate in Washington these days. People want to have debates on television and elsewhere, but then you want to throw the people that start the debates in jail. – James Risen, New York Times Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist (he now faces jail time) The above quote occurred … Read more

Beef Supply at 21-Year Low: Get Ready to Pay Up

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I don’t follow the commodity markets as closely as I used to, but the following article related to beef prices really caught my eye. Last year’s drought and consequent spike in grain prices led to negative margins for cattle producers, who subsequently culled their herds. As expected, this has resulted in tighter supply today. We see this evidenced in the fact that retail ground beef prices were up 13% year-over-year in June, and the CEO of Ruth’s Chris mentioned during a recent presentation that they were forced to raise prices in February. While grain prices are much lower today, which should encourage expansion in cattle supply, this process will actually cause even more tightness in the near-term as more animals are set aside for breeding rather than slaughtered.

Don’t worry, you can always just eat the S&P 500.  From Bloomberg:

U.S. beef production is plunging to a 21-year low after surging feed costs spurred ranchers to cut herds, signaling record prices for consumers and higher costs for buyers from McDonald’s Corp. to Ruth’s Chris Steak House.

Production in the U.S. will decline 4.9 percent to 10.93 million metric tons in 2014, retreating for a fourth year, the government says. The herd on July 1 was the smallest for that date since at least 1973, according to the average of four analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Retail ground-beef prices in June were up 13 percent from a year earlier and near a record set in January.

Beef costs for Ruth’s Hospitality Group Inc., the Heathrow, Florida-based steakhouse owner, climbed 17 percent over two years, Chief Financial Officer Arne Haak said during a presentation on June 25. The restaurant raised its prices in February. Next year and 2015 will still be tough because of the lack of supply, Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Donnell said in a presentation June 18.

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Editor of Tennessee Paper Fired for Headline Critical of Obama

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Does running this headline seem like a fireable offense to you? “Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough.” Apparently, the powers that be at the Chattanooga Times Free Press thought so. They may want to drop the “free press” part of the paper’s name going forward. The editor, … Read more

Pakistan Bans Gold Imports for 30 Days

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The latest buzz circulating around the gold market relates to news that Pakistan’s Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet (ECC) has decided to ban duty free gold imports for thirty days. Why you ask? Because those pesky Indians are using Pakistan as a conduit to get around the country’s recent 8% duty imposed on gold imports.

All of this of course begs the question: With the price of gold “plunging” over the past several months, why did Pakistan and India both feel the need to take such draconian measures against a barbarous relic that everyone is supposedly panic selling? If there is so much gold to be had and no one wants it, what’s the problem? Strange indeed. From the The Express Tribune:

The Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet, headed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, took the decision to ban the import of the yellow metal for one month with immediate effect.

During a meeting with Dar in Karachi last week, the Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan (ECAP) had claimed that smuggling of gold to India was causing rupee devaluation, as the importers were mopping up dollars from the market to meet the needs of the Indian buyers.

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Decoding the NSA: How the Agency Manipulates Language to Mislead the Public

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When we as a species use language to communicate and engage with one another, we have a certain understanding that certain words mean certain things. That is the entire purpose of language, effective communication between human beings that can be easily understood. As a result, we should be able to assume that when government bureaucrats utilize words that are commonplace within society, that these words represent specific commonly understood meanings. That would be a huge mistake.

Jameel Jaffer and Brett Max Kaufman of the ACLU have compiled an excellent list of some commonplace words used by the NSA to mislead us into thinking they aren’t doing the bad things that they are actually doing. Words such as “surveillance,” “collect,” and “relevant.” From Slate:

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, has been harshly criticized for having misled Congress earlier this year about the scope of the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities. The criticism is entirely justified. An equally insidious threat to the integrity of our national debate, however, comes not from officials’ outright lies but from the language they use to tell the truth. When it comes to discussing government surveillance, U.S. intelligence officials have been using a vocabulary of misdirection—a language that allows them to say one thing while meaning quite another.

Surveillance. Every time we pick up the phone, the NSA makes a note of whom we spoke to, when we spoke to him, and for how long—and it’s been doing this for seven years. After the call-tracking program was exposed, few people thought twice about attaching the label “surveillance” to it. Government officials, though, have rejected the term, pointing out that this particular program doesn’t involve the NSA actually listening to phone calls—just keeping track of them. Their crabbed definition of “surveillance” allows them to claim that the NSA isn’t engaged in surveillance even when it quite plainly is.

Collect. If an intelligence official says that the NSA isn’t “collecting” a certain kind of information, what has he actually said? Not very much, it turns out. One of the NSA’s foundational documents states that “collection” occurs not when the government acquires information but when the government “selects” or “tasks” that information for “subsequent processing.” Thus it becomes possible for the government to acquire great reams of information while denying that it is “collecting” anything at all.

That definition of “collect” is completely and totally insane.

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Student Forgotten in California Jail Cell by the DEA for 5 Days Without Food or Water

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Crazy story here from late April that I hadn’t heard about before. Daniel Chong will receive a $4.1 million settlement as compensation for being forgotten about in a holding cell for 5 days without food or water. In fact, his situation became so desperate that he was forced to drink his own urine in order to survive.

While a cash payout should be part of any sort of justice for Daniel, I wonder if any of the individuals responsible for this will be held accountable? That to me is the key point. Just as bankers simply pay a fine for egregious crimes that represent only a small part of their profit from the activity (but almost never face criminal charges), so too it seems the police and government bureaucrats almost never face serious repercussions for any their actions, no matter how heinous or unconstitutional. From the Daily Mail:

The college student forgotten in a holding cell for five days without food or water, took a $4.1 million settlement from the Justice Department his lawyer announced Tuesday.

24-year-old University of California, San Diego student Daniel Chong was arrested on April 21, 2012 as part of a major drug bust.

He was taken to county jail and subsequently forgotten in a cell for five days – starving and hallucinating.

Mr Chong’s attorney Eugene Iredale said that the Justice Department is still trying to figure out how Mr Chong slipped from their notice, but the inspector general still has no answers.

You don’t say…

The DEA did not have a system in place at the time on how to treat detainees, but has since installed camera in each of the cells and holds daily inspections.

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