Month: November 2015

U.S. Government Takes 10 Years and Spends $1 Billion to Digitize a Single Form

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Heaving under mountains of paperwork, the government has spent more than $1 billion trying to replace its antiquated approach to managing immigration with a system of digitized records, online applications and a full suite of nearly 100 electronic forms.

A decade in, all that officials have to show for the effort is a single form that’s now available for online applications and a single type of fee that immigrants pay electronically. The 94 other forms can be filed only with paper. 

From the start, the initiative was mismanaged, the records and interviews show. Agency officials did not complete the basic plans for the computer system until nearly three years after the initial $500 million contract had been awarded to IBM, and the approach to adopting the technology was outdated before work on it began.

By 2012, officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which includes USCIS, were aware that the project was riddled with hundreds of critical software and other defects. But the agency nonetheless began to roll it out, in part because of pressure from Obama administration officials who considered it vital for their plans to overhaul the nation’s immigration policies, according to the internal documents and interviews.

– From the Washington Post article: A Decade Into a Project to Digitize U.S. Immigration Forms, Just 1 is Online  

Another day, another example of almost incomprehensible government incompetence and waste.

Just yesterday, I highlighted how the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) paid out $142 million in cash bonuses to employees immediately after the scandal that led to the death of at least 23 veterans waiting for care. It was just the latest example of how government bureaucrats are not only above the law, but are often actually rewarded for criminal incompetence.

Today’s article actually makes yesterday’s piece look minor in comparison. You can’t make this stuff up.

From the Washington Post:

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Luxury London Real Estate Prices Plunge 11.5% Year-Over-Year

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Two months ago I published a piece titled, Luxury London Home Sales Plunge 26% – Has this Mega Real Estate Bubble Finally Burst?. I wrote:

It appears the music may have finally stopped for one of the world’s largest luxury real estate bubbles: London.

It’s well known that foreign oligarchs love London real estate as a means to launder funds, typically “earned” by soaking their host countries dry via corruption and fraud. This has caused absurd and irrational spikes in high-end residential real estate in the English capital, as well as a flood of new construction.

With emerging markets now completely collapsing, the seemingly endless flood of foreign money is drying up, and with it, London real estate.

So has the London real estate bubble popped? Probably.

Now we see the following from Bloomberg:

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New York City Councilmembers Ask for 71% Pay Raise to $192,500 While Median NYC Wage is $52,000

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New York City’s method of assessing property values is so out of whack that the buyer of the most expensive apartment ever sold — a $100 million duplex overlooking Central Park — pays taxes as if the place were worth just $6.5 million.

With controversial tax breaks granted to the One57 condo tower, the total property tax bill for the spectacular penthouse is just $17,268, an effective rate of 0.017 percent of its sale price.

By contrast, the owner of a nearby condo at 224 E. 52nd St. that recently sold for $1.02 million is paying an effective rate of 2.38 percent, or $24,279, according to data compiled for The Post by the Revaluate.com real-estate information website.

– From the post: Tax Breaks for Oligarchs – The $100 Million Manhattan Apartment with a Property Tax Rate of 0.017%

If anyone deserves a steep pay raise it’s New York City Councilmembers. Never mind the fact that average wages for regular citizens haven’t budged in years, leading to some fully employed individuals living in homeless shelters. After all, ensuring billionaires get favorable tax breaks is hard work.

From Gothamist:

In New York City, the median household income is $52,259, a number that has barely risen since the economic crisis began in 2008. The average New Yorker currently makes just $32,000. A New York cop makes $76,600 after five years on the job, while a New York public school teacher makes somewhere between $50,812 and $63,534. Meanwhile, New York City’s $110 billion debt burden is on track to increase by $30 billion thanks to Mayor de Blasio’s capital plan. So you could understand why members of New York’s City Council would want to keep their plan to raise their own salary to $192,500 secret.

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Veterans Affairs Paid Out $142 Million in Cash Bonuses Immediately Following Deadly Scandal

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The Department of Veterans Affairs doled out more than $142 million in bonuses to executives and employees for performance in 2014 even as scandals over veterans’ health care and other issues racked the agency.

The agency paid more than $380,000 in 2013 performance bonuses to top officials at hospitals where veterans faced long delays in receiving treatment, including those under investigation for wait-time manipulation.

In Tomah, Wis., the former chief of staff of the VA medical center there, Dr. David Houlihan — whom veterans nicknamed the “Candy Man” because of his prolific prescribing of narcotics — received a $4,000 bonus in December. That was nine months after an inspector general investigation report concluded he was prescribing alarmingly high amounts of opiates. And it was four months after Marine Corps veteran Jason Simcakoski, 35, died of “mixed-drug toxicity” as an inpatient at Tomah after he was prescribed a fatal cocktail of medications, including opiates. The inpatient pharmacist supervisor also received a $1,050 bonus in December. A spokesman for the Tomah VA declined to comment. The VA moved last month to fire Houlihan. A lawyer who represented him did not respond to a message Tuesday seeking comment.

In Augusta, Ga., VA financial manager Jed Fillingim was awarded a $900 performance bonus. He drew scrutiny from Congress last year after news reports revealed he admitted drinking and driving a government truck to a VA meeting in 2010 and a co-worker fell from the truck and was killed. 

– From the excellent USA Today article: Veterans Affairs Pays $142 Million in Bonuses Amid Scandals 

For several months in 2014, one of the biggest stories in America revolved around revelations of incompetence and death at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Specifically, an internal VA investigation admitted at least 23 veterans died while waiting for care, and that 120,000 were being affected by delinquent care. The FBI subsequently launched a criminal probe into the VA, and here’s what the White House had to say about the entire affair:

A summary of the review by deputy White House chief of staff Rob Nabors says the Veterans Health Administration must be restructured and that a “corrosive culture” has hurt morale and affected the timeliness of health care. The review also found that a 14-day standard for scheduling veterans’ medical appointments is unrealistic and that some employees manipulated the wait times so they would appear to be shorter.

So how did the VA respond to its shocking and deadly mismanagement of U.S. veterans’ affairs? By spending $142 million in cash bonuses to its employees, some of whom should have clearly been fired, if not jailed. Thank you U.S. taxpayer.

From USA Today:

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“The Populist Upsurge is Real” – A Liberal College Professor Finds Common Ground with the Tea Party

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People are going to be pissed off no matter who wins this election and that is a very important social dynamic I believe is vastly under appreciated by the majority of mainstream pundits and analysts out there.  This is also very distinct from the environment that prevailed in 2008.  Four years ago, the financial markets were crashing and the economic future of America was circling the toilet bowl, yet a majority of Americans embraced the potential of a young, inexperienced biracial politician from Illinois who was saying all of the right things.  Despite the gigantic disappointment he has proven to be as President, there is no denying that he had all of the Democrats and most Independents under his spell on this day four years ago.

Fast forward to 2012 and the county isn’t “divided” as mainstream media talking heads like to say.  The country is pissed off.  Genuine and legitimate frustration permeates the land from sea to shining sea and rightly so.

– From my 2012 pre-election article: The Seventy Percent

Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. I know of the man mainly from his frequent appearances on CNBC when I used to watch the channel (I’m proud to say I haven’t tuned in, even for five minutes, for several years now). He was always held up as the token “liberal,” who was more than eager to spar with CNBC’s endless parade of crony capitalist heroes and “socialism for the rich” supporting statists. During my post Wall Street years, I have from time to time come across his musings, but none have struck me like the insightful post he published three days ago.

The post is titled, What I Learned on My Red State Book Tour, and it’s an extremely important that all Americans read it. Here are a few excepts:

I’ve just returned from three weeks in “red” America.

It was ostensibly a book tour but I wanted to talk with conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers.

I intended to put into practice what I tell my students – that the best way to learn is to talk with people who disagree you. I wanted to learn from red America, and hoped they’d also learn a bit from me (and perhaps also buy my book).

But something odd happened. It turned out that many of the conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers I met agreed with much of what I had to say, and I agreed with them.

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How Mega Corporations Rigged the H-1B Visa Program at the Expense of Small Business

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“The H-1B program is critical as a way for employers to fill skill gaps and for really talented people to come to the United States,” said Ronil Hira, a professor at Howard University who studies visa programs. “But the outsourcing companies are squeezing out legitimate users of the program,” he said. “The H-1Bs are actually pushing jobs offshore.”

Those firms have used the visas to bring their employees, mostly from India, for large contracts to take over work at American businesses. And as the share of H-1B visas obtained by outsourcing firms has grown, more Americans say they are being put out of work, or are seeing their jobs moved overseas.

The top companies receiving H-1B visas in recent years, Professor Hira found, include Tata Consultancy Services, known as TCS, Infosys and Wipro, all outsourcing giants based in India; Cognizant, with headquarters in New Jersey; and Accenture, a global operation incorporated in Ireland.

– From the New York Times article: Large Companies Game H-1B Visa Program, and Jobs Leave the U.S.

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Video of the Day – Professor of Mass Media at University of Missouri Physically Threatens Student Reporter

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Meet Melissa Click. Assistant Professor of Mass Media at the University of Missouri, and woman who was caught on video asking for “muscle” in order to physically remove a reporter from reporting on a story in a public place. Yes ladies and gentleman, welcome to America’s college campuses.

If you haven’t seen this video, you must watch it immediately, and trust me, you need to watch it from beginning to end to truly understanding how dangerous Melissa’s Click’s request is. She is essentially advocating a mob of student inflict violence upon another student merely for taking pictures in public.

Thanks to this, what began as protests against systemic racism at the school has morphed into another prime example of how college campuses have devolved into ignorant, pro-censorship intellectual wastelands.

Now that you’ve watched the video, here’s some background on the incident and the key players involved from the New York Times:

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How Freddie Mac is Subsidizing the Real Estate Transactions of Billionaires

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Once the American oligarchs saw the ease with which they were able to loot the U.S. taxpayer via the banker bailouts and get away with it, they knew it was the perfect opportunity to declare open season on the general public. As such, the last several years has been little more than an ongoing crime scene in which the rich and powerful have relentlessly preyed on the poor, weak and ignorant with no remorse whatsoever.

Today’s piece is just the latest in an almost endless series of incidents demonstrating how the entire economy is systematically rigged to benefit very small group of people at the expense of everyone.

Bloomberg reports:

Who do billionaires turn to when they want to buy apartment complexes? The U.S. taxpayer.

Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital Group and Stephen Schwarzman’s Blackstone Group LP are in talks with Freddie Mac to finance two transactions totaling more than $10 billion, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations. Those discussions come after the government-owned mortgage giant already agreed to back Lone Star Funds’ $7.6 billion deal to buyHome Properties Inc. and Brookfield Asset Management Inc.’s $2.5 billion takeover of Associated Estates Realty Corp.

“They wield a very big stick,” said John Levy, a principal at a real estate investment banking firm in Richmond, Virginia, that bears his name. “It takes more time and it’s going to be more expensive” to get transactions done without the two companies, which can lend at rock-bottom rates because their deals have implicit government backing.

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Two Trains Derail in Wisconsin Shortly After Warren Buffett’s BNSF Beats Back Railroad Regulations

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Last week, under pressure from companies including Buffett’s BNSF Railway Co, which has spent more money lobbying Congress this year than any other railroad, U.S. legislators passed, and President Obama signed, a law that delays the so-called positive train control mandate for at least three years, with the possibility of an additional two-year delay.

That means railroad operators can put off having to buy and install equipment that safety advocates say would have prevented accidents that have claimed more than 245 lives and caused over 4,200 injuries since the National Transportation Safety Board began calling for the technology in 1969. 

– From the Reuters article: Buffett’s BNSF Helped Lead Fight to Delay Train Safety Technology

A freight train derailed near Alma in western Wisconsin, spilling thousands of gallons of ethanol. BNSF Railway said crews continued Sunday to transfer ethanol from the derailed cars and get the cars back on the tracks.

The BNSF train derailed at 8:45 a.m. Saturday about two miles north of Alma, a town along the Mississippi River. Some of the 25 derailed cars were empty auto racks and tanker cars.

BNSF said railroad crews stopped the leaks from five tanker cars and placed containment booms along the shoreline. One tanker released an estimated 18,000 gallons of ethanol, and the other four released an estimated 5 to 500 gallons each.

– From ABC News: 2nd Train Derails in Wisconsin in 2 Days, Spills Crude Oil

Last week, a friend of mine sent me an Reuters article titled: Buffett’s BNSF Helped Lead Fight to Delay Train Safety Technology. It immediately caught my attention, because I am of the unconventional belief that Warren Buffett’s entire public persona of a gentle, kind and caring grandfatherly-type investing guru is a complete and total act.

Granted, I think Warren Buffett is a brilliant man, I just don’t think he’s a good guy. In fact, when you look in particular at his behavior through the banker bailout period, it becomes clear that the man is only concerned about his own bottom line, and merely feigns a bleeding heart for the long-term welfare of the nation.

All you have to do is see how the man morphed into a Obamanomics cheerleader in exchange for following a bailout of his financial investments, and continues to support economic policies that have done little other than transform this nation into a total Banana Republic oligarchy in less than a decade.

But I digress. Let’s get into the heart of this post by showing how his railroad company, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, successfully lobbied to delay certain regulations.

From Reuters:

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From Protesting Vietnam to Demanding “Safe Spaces” – What Happened to America’s College Kids?

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I grew up hearing stories of protest. About those years, a decade or so before I was born, during which America’s youth rebelled against the prevailing establishment, and forever changed the nation’s course in some meaningful ways.

Of course, many of you will accurately state that not much about the imperial state has actually changed since those days of protest, and that in fact, the out of control abuse of power both abroad and at home has gotten far worse in the subsequent decades. I will concede this point, but want to add a caveat. Certain things really did change, particularly with regard to racial discrimination in these United States. Not to say things are perfect, but to discount the significant gains achieved in this regard would be unfair.

Nevertheless, as far as the “shadow government” is concerned, not much has changed. Other than the fact that the status quo learned important lessons from those years of rebellion, and was forced to operate even more secretly than it did before. As an example, the military-industrial complex learned that it couldn’t have genuine journalists running around war zones after images taken in Vietnam shocked the nation and helped turn popular sentiment against it. As such, reporters in war zones these days are nothing more than propagandists and imperial shills. Indeed, increasingly effective propaganda and a captured corporate media has probably been the single most important tool used by the shadow government to maintain and consolidate control over all these years. In a nutshell, people have been dumbed down, as well as mentally and emotionally castrated, to the point of being almost unable to rebel against anything of real importance.

Which brings me to the point of this post. The reason I brought up the civil disobedience and activism of the 1960’s, is because it did at least represent a true conflict with that generation’s status quo, and it did in fact attempt to tackle some of the pressing issues of power, justice and freedom that existed at the time. This is in stark contrast to what passes as “activism” on college campuses today, which essentially amounts to “pro-censorship” students vigilantly defending an entirely invented and unconstitutional right to “not be offended.” Whereas the 60’s movements, for all their failings, were at least ostensibly about freedom (of the mind and body), today’s college movements are strikingly focused on shackling the mind, and turning campuses in unintellectual, zombie-filled wastelands.

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