Post from: Muckmakers.com

America’s Income Gap Makes the Third World Look Promising

I hate to break up all that wonderful 4th of July patriotism with this one, but this is something your bank account has been telling you for decades…

The gap between America’s rich and poor is so extreme levels of inequality are worse in the land of the free than they are in many developing countries.

The U.S. ranks way behind the European Union and the United Kingdom in terms of inequality of pay, figures show. In fact, the situation is so extreme the land of the free falls behind countries such as Cameroon, the Ivory Coast and revolutionary Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen – and only just in front of Uganda and Jamaica.

According to the CIA’s World Fact Book, which ranks countries in terms of how ‘equally’ wealth is distributed, the U.S. is the 42nd most unequal country in the world.

Wages are so bad nowadays that you can’t even pay the CIA to lie to you anymore! This isn’t the America I know…oh wait, it is because I’m not paying an immigrant servant to type this for me while I dictate from an in-ground pool full of naked women.

Income disparity in the U.S. has been growing for decades but the latest figures show it has now reached levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Ten percent of the total personal income in America was taken home by the top 0.1 per cent of earners in 2008 – the latest year for which figures are available.

The top one percent took home more than a fifth of all personal income in the U.S. Research suggests the reason for this extraordinary disparity is a huge rise in pay for company executives, the Washington Post reported.

The important thing to take away from this is not that you’re taking in nowhere near what the top 0.1 per cent of earners are, it’s that you never will be. No, really. You could win the lottery on the same day that you find out that Brad Pitt is your long-lost brother who is leaving his life savings to you when he dies of a cancerous tumor he just discovered last week and you still won’t be bringing in what these fuckers are. You can teabag Reagan’s corpse while you bathe in a golden shower of trickle-down economics – it’s not fucking happening. And it’s happening because people keep ignoring this data and believing in that same American dream your ancestors did…you know, the same people who suffered through that Great Depression thing we were just talking about. Don’t you think that if you’re living in the same statistical poverty that they were that you’d finally start to stir from your slumber? Nah, that new job and fat paycheck are coming any day now…Yep, any day now…

There is a difference between us and those third-world countries, however – they start a revolution when they get sick and tired of getting fucked. But unlike most articles you’ll find about this topic, I’m not encouraging a revolution because I know you just won’t do it. Not only will you not do it, you’ll defend this massive gap by screaming into it loudly, “If you want more money, then you have to earn it!” It may echo real loud in that deep, dark hole, but that doesn’t make those words any less small or hollow. Do you really believe that slime like the Koch brothers and the Walton family got to where they are today because of honest hard work and sound investment plans? The truth is that for every came-from-nothing shining example you can throw at me, I can name 100 pieces of shit who lied, cheated, and stole their way to the top and continue to do so to maintain their god-like status over the rest of us. They did this by slowly stripping away every last bit of pride and common sense from desperate working people and by painting their scraps to look like gold. It’s not “communism” to demand basic rights, fair pay, or equal taxes – it’s “a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.” If you don’t know what that means, I suggest looking it up.

So instead of getting mad at me for saying all this, why don’t you just go start your little revolution? Dust off those rifles, hum your little patriotic hymns, and march right to the capital waving your flags made in China…

…I’m waiting…

Yeah, that’s what I thought. Don’t let that loose spring in your couch cushion give you too much trouble, now.

Post from: Muckmakers.com

Are Oil-Covered Birds from the Gulf Spill Better Off Dead?

The answer to the above question? Yes, and from the way BP has been bumbling this whole thing, I’m sure a few executives wouldn’t mind joining them right now.

For all you animal lovers out there, I’ll preface this post by saying that I, too, love animals (a lot more than humans sometimes, but not in that obsessive PETA kinda way), and I’m not trying to say that they’re not worth saving – I’m saying that most of them can’t be saved. Despite the inspirational pictures and videos you’ve seen of birds being washed and cleansed of our environmental disaster, a German biologist has found that…

“According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent,” Gaus says. “We, therefore, oppose cleaning birds.”

Those Germans…always talking about genocide as the final solution. But in this case, they may be right – these animals suffer greatly even after they’ve been cleaned. Animal-rescue workers have been forcing birds to ingest coal solutions or Pepto Bismol to cough up the poisonous oil, but the stress on their bodies is too much and they eventually die from kidney and liver damage anyway. Here’s more from this Debbie Downer…

Once covered in oil, a bird will use its bill and tongue to remove the toxic substance from their feathers. Despite oil’s terrible taste and smell, a bird will still try and clean itself because it can’t live without fluffy feathers that repel water and regulate its body temperature. “Their instinct to clean is greater than their instinct to hunt, and as long as their feathers are dirty with oil, they won’t eat,” Gaus says.

I’ve seen people cite research that puts the survival rate at 10%, not 1%, but those odds are still pretty shitty either way. In the 2002 Prestige oil spill, off the coast of Spain, 250,000 birds were killed. Thousands were cleaned, but only 600 lived long enough to be released, and their average lifespan after that was about a week. Even the WWF (no, not the wrestling federation) had this to say at the time…

A spokesman from the organization said: “Birds, those that have been covered in oil and can still be caught, can no longer be helped…Therefore, the World Wildlife Fund is very reluctant to recommend cleaning.”

When even the bleeding-heart animal rights groups are saying they’re a lost cause, you know it’s bad. So why are we still cleaning these animals, wasting valuable money and manpower that could be used in cleaning up the mess to begin with? “Ethical reasons” is usually the answer, but I think it may be more out of ignorance than anything else.

I’m not saying animal rights activists are all uneducated, but just look at PETA. They have no qualms about roping in any typical, impressionable vegan college student with shocking images of animal abuse and man’s inhumanity and using them to stage their outrageous propaganda campaigns that not only solve nothing, but conveniently leave out the fact that their organization is just as bad, if not worse. Their supporters will spend countless hours reading cruelty-free product guides, crying during anti-circus documentaries, or pouring fake blood all over themselves at useless protests, but they won’t take five minutes to Google the countless websites that expose PETA for the hypocritical charlatans that they are. They kill more animals than they save, but ask your average PETA supporter about it and they’ll give you a look like you told them that you just hit their puppy with your car. They may think they’re doing something to change the world, but the only thing they really affect is Ingrid Newkirk’s bank account.

Speaking of bank accounts, this leads me to another point I must make – if this has been known amongst wildlife groups for several years now, why are companies like Proctor & Gamble running commercials that often claim the contrary, or just neglecting to mention the oily truth? P&G are the makers of Dawn, the best-selling brand of dishwashing liquid in the United States, and if you’ve watched TV any time in the last two years, you’ve probably seen this commercial, which started running in the summer of 2009 and has been running again frequently since the Gulf disaster…

Yeah, we all like to be cheered up in times like these, but c’mon – this is just outright manipulation. They’ve sent 7,000 bottles to the Gulf already, and for each bottle of Dawn you buy, they donate $1 to the Marine Mammal Center and the International Bird Rescue Research Center. But aren’t both of those organizations well aware that their efforts are for naught? Considering the Marine Mammal Center has a science section on their website and the International Bird Rescue Research Center’s site has a page dedicated to properly cleaning oiled birds, I’d say so, but since they probably get a lot of money from P&G to keep their doors open, it’s probably best to keep the cute seal pictures coming and the truth carefully hidden. So what does P&G get out of this? I think you’re smart enough to put two and two together here, but maybe this excerpt from their Wikipedia entry will help you put things in perspective…

As of mid 2010, P&G is the 6th most profitable corporation in the world, and the 5th largest corporation in the United States by market capitalization, surpassed only by Apple, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, and Walmart. It is 6th in Fortune’s Most Admired Companies 2010 list. P&G is credited with many business innovations including brand management and the soap opera.

Besides the key word there, “profitable,” there’s another important term in that paragraph worth highlighting – “brand management.” This involves the way people view a particular company and/or product, which usually relates to why and how often they’ll throw money at said company and/or product. In fact, Proctor & Gamble are widely credited with creating the idea of brand management, so it’s no surprise how shrewd they’re acting in this particular case. They get to be a big corporation and please the hippy, tree-hugging yahoos! It’s a win-win! And even if you don’t have solar panels in your home or spell like patchouli, are you going to buy the cheap knock-off soap or the reliable, well-advertised dishwashing liquid that “saves” animals sitting on the shelf right next to Brand X? Using these good-as-dead creatures to sell soap is an all-time low that even Tyler Durdan wouldn’t stoop to. That and they created the soap opera, so if that doesn’t prove they’re pure evil, I don’t know what does.

I’m a caring person, but I’m also a logical one, and I support euthanasia for a reason. In the same way that many invalids can’t tell you to just pull the plug, these birds can’t tell you how fucked their insides are. I understand that people feel like we owe it to them anyway, but let me put it this way – when your own pet is suffering, do you let it suffer or do you take it for one last ride to the vet? There are bigger and better things these activists can be doing to help the increasingly screwed Gulf environment, and the fact that companies are actually profiting from this mess should be even more motivation to keep them out of it. The bottom line is it’s not wrong to try and save these birds, but it’s wrong to manipulate people into thinking they can for $2.99.

Post from: Muckmakers.com

Two Very Different Takes on Credit Card Reform

The more you try to reform the broken system, the more you realize that even the process the government uses to reform the system is broken as well. President Obama signed legislation back in May of last year that forces credit card companies to not only be much more transparent about how much they’re screwing their customers, but also place caps on interest rates, ban excessive fees, and other long-overdue measures. The problem? It just went into effect last week. In the meantime, credit card companies have closed millions of accounts, cut credit lines, created new fees untouched by the new law, and jacked up interest rates right before it could take effect. So in many ways it’s actually harder now for many consumers to get credit, although now that companies must be more transparent about what you really owe, maybe that will prevent a few people from getting in over their heads. Here’s the White House’s breakdown of the law’s reform in Q&A format…

And here’s the Daily Show’s version, which is a bit more to the point…

I happen to like Stewart’s version a bit better. I appreciate what the White House is trying to do here, but they just can’t admit that they got duped almost as badly as Average Joe American did by all that fine print. Consumers don’t get a warning when their interest rates jump higher or when they get entangled in hidden fees, so why did these assholes get nine months to prepare for this? Change is clearly happening, but at a pace that’s more maddening than those fluctuating monthly bills.

Post from: Muckmakers.com

Muckmakers Proudly Presents the 2010 Muckmaker Awards!

It’s the awards show you’ve all been waiting for…no, not the Oscars. That’s next month. No, not the MTV Movie Awards. Let’s be honest – even the Golden Globes are more watchable than that crap. It’s the 2010 Muckmaker Awards, where we dishonor the worst people, organizations, businesses, and ideologies of 2009 by awarding them the beautiful golden toilet trophy you see above for flushing our world down the shitter. The Muckmaker Award is given to one candidate (or a group, when applicable) in each of the following 10 categories:

Worst Newcomer
Worst Pundit
Worst Blog
Worst News Source
Worst Corporation
Worst Religious Leader
Worst Religion
Worst Politician
Worst Businessman
Worst Muckmaker

Start reading about the “winners” right here!

And as a special bonus this year, we’ve included a podcast version of the Awards for those of you too lazy to read the whole damn thing, or if you just want to know more details about these particular muckmakers and our selection process. (You can download it right here.) Plus, we curse and rant a lot more, if that’s your thing. Either way you choose, we hope that you enjoy our picks from 2009 and hope to see your feedback. Agree with us? Disagree? Let us know in the comments!

Post from: Muckmakers.com

Operation Main Street

Via: Chicago Tribune

In the continued flailings of the Starbucks chain, here’s a new one: the stealth Starbucks store.

A Seattle outlet of the 16,000-store coffee behemoth is being rebranded without visible Starbucks identifiers, as 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea.

Two other stores in Starbucks’ native Seattle will follow suit, each getting its own name to make it sound more like a neighborhood hangout, less like Big Coffee, a Starbucks official told The Seattle Times on Thursday.

As a business ploy, it isn’t a bad idea. The big beef some people have with the chain is that they’re (a) the Wal-Mart of coffee, and (b) you can’t walk down a block without seeing three of them. This “stealth” approach aims to solve both issues.

My concern, their coffee tasting like shit, has yet to be addressed.

However, despite the aims of what I like to call “Operation Main Street”, it has one simple flaw: it hinges on consumer ignorance. Now, granted – lots of business plans do. From diet pills to fast food, big money is made by either omitting facts like calorie counts, or by making fairly radical false claims. The claim Starbucks is trying to make, that these stores are just like a mom and pop shop, is just as radical and false as the claim Acai Berries will help you lose weight.

As a side note to Starbucks – when consumers find out you’re actively trying to trick them into believing something that isn’t true, they tend to get really pissed about it.

Post from: Muckmakers.com

Follow-Up: Government Grant Scams Are Still Alive and Well

Back in February, we warned our readers about the “Obama stimulus grant” scam, which was basically a bunch of poorly constructed websites promising people free money that didn’t exist. The money from the last bailout went to companies, not citizens, but these pages claimed that if you applied for certain government grants, you’d be sent your own cut of the cash, and huge ad networks like Google AdSense were carrying these ads despite their obvious fraudulence. The first time I saw one was above my Gmail inbox. While I was researching my article, I even saw these ads next to articles telling people that they were a scam! So I pointed out the obvious flaws in these websites and explained that this was just a new form of an old scam that’s been on the internet for years, offering you a free booklet or CD that would tell you how to receive grants from the government by just filling out a few simple forms. Once they got someone’s credit card number, they’d charge victims way more for the product than promised, never actually send out this supposed grant information, and even charge some people every month thereafter for random amounts of money. Since these ads were popping up under a new name just about everywhere after the bailout, I figured it was worth mentioning.

As it turns out, quite a few people were researching these “stimulus grants” to see if they were legit and stumbled across the article. We were one of the only websites talking about it at the time, so Google was sending us a ton of traffic from the same keywords that the scammers were ranking for. Within days of posting my article, many other (re: much bigger) websites picked up on the story and posted their own debunking stories, so ours was soon forgotten, but I was glad to be one of the first blogs to break the story anyway. I picked on one site in particular, mainly because it was the first one I had seen, but also because it was just so damn shoddy. (You have to read my description for yourself to understand just how shoddy I mean here.) I didn’t understand how anyone could fall for something so obviously fake, but it apparently worked at some point.

After linking to his site and sending him several personal comments, I noticed that his page started to change. Down came all the pictures I had poked fun at and his “true life story” suddenly disappeared. But instead of editing his site behind the scenes, he started making amendments and immediately posting them. His “real name” on the menu suddenly changed and didn’t match the name he was using in his content. Then he posted two different stories about his economic woes, one right after the other; neither of which matched up. A few days later, I went to take a screenshot of the site just for kicks and (Surprise!) it was gone. The entire thing was deleted. I’d like to think that my article and constant harassment had something to do with it, but it was probably due to the fact that the entire internet was now ripping apart these scams and the jig was up at this point (or someone reported his ass and his site was shut down by his host). Despite these much more likely scenarios, fuck ‘em…I’ll take credit anyway.

The “stimulus grant” scam is now pretty much over and done with, but beware – the grant scams still exist in their original form. I won’t link any here because they don’t deserve any more backlinks than they already have, but a quick Google search for “government grants” will take you to many different presentations of this same old scheme. It’s going to take a lot more than some humorous blog posts to take these douchebags down, and since anyone can set up a site offering essentially nothing, more and more can pop up every day. If you stumble across one, get off the page as soon as possible in case the site has malware and report them to their hosts when possible. But most of all, DON’T FUCKING FALL FOR THEM. If anyone offers you easy money, especially on the internet, it’s a scam. Not 50% of the time. Not 98% of the time. It is always a goddamn scam. That much doesn’t require research, people – just the head on your shoulders.

Post from: Muckmakers.com

20% of Genes are Patented

This had me a bit confused this morning, though certainly not surprised. Apparently, one can patent a human gene. A gene… the basic unit of heredity in a living organism. Patented, and “owned” by someone. The mind boggles.

After I heard this, my initial thought was, “What good is that?”

Oh, ho – it’s plenty good.

As it turns out, patenting a gene means no one else can do testing or studying of “your” gene. So then the company who owns the patent has a total monopoly on testing said gene, so they can in turn charge whatever they want for said test.

Ah, the free market.

As a result of the PTO granting patents on the BRCA genes to Myriad Genetics, Myriad’s lab is the only place in the country where diagnostic testing can be performed. Because only Myriad can test for the BRCA gene mutations, others are prevented from testing these genes or developing alternative tests. Myriad’s monopoly on the BRCA genes makes it impossible for women to access other tests or get a second opinion about their results, and allows Myriad to charge a high rate for their tests – over $3,000, which is too expensive for some women to afford.
Via: ACLU

The ACLU has launched a lawsuit specifically aimed at the patenting of breast cancer genes. In case you were wondering, the scum-fucks who patented the genes were Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation. Feel free to contact them and ask why they feel they should have exclusive rights to testing on genes linked heavily to breast cancer. Here’s their info…

Myriad Genetics, Inc.
320 Wakara Way
Salt Lake City, UT 84108
Tel: (801) 584-3600
Fax: (801) 584-3640
Customer Service: 800-469-7423
Online Comment Form

Post from: Muckmakers.com

Follow-Up: Wal-Mart Settles Trampling Case, Avoids Criminal Charges

Back in November, we did a little write-up about the Wal-Mart employee who was trampled to death as the doors to the store opened on Black Friday. The case was finally settled in court last week…

Wal-Mart agreed Wednesday to pay nearly $2 million and improve safety at its 92 New York stores as part of a deal with prosecutors that avoids criminal charges in the trampling death of a temporary worker last year. Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said that if she had brought criminal charges against the retailer in the worker’s death, the company would have been subject to only a $10,000 fine if convicted. Rice declined to say what charges were considered against Wal-Mart, citing the secrecy of grand jury proceedings.

Instead, she said, the company has agreed to implement an improved crowd-management plan for post-Thanksgiving Day sales, set up a $400,000 victims’ compensation and remuneration fund, and give $1.5 million to Nassau County social services programs and nonprofit groups. The agreement included no admission of guilt by Wal-Mart.

Wait, a retailer only gets fined for killing their employees?! And what about the crowd? They’ve got to have security cameras pointed on the front entrance – shouldn’t those who actually stomped him into the ground for some cheap DVDs at least have to face Jdimypai Damour’s family? This is what their lawyer had to say…

Edward H. Gersowitz, an attorney representing Damour’s family in a civil lawsuit, blasted the settlement and said the family was never consulted before the deal was announced, a charge the prosecutor’s office denies. Gersowitz also called for a special prosecutor.

“The ability of Wal-Mart to, in effect, buy off this criminal investigation demonstrates the epitome of corporate arrogance that has become all too familiar in this day and age, and shows how Wal-Mart has nothing but contempt for the victims of such corporate malfeasance,” he said in a statement.

Any victims who accept payment from the Wal-Mart compensation fund will be required to waive their right to a separate civil suit against Wal-Mart, Rice said. Also, she said, Wal-Mart has agreed to advertise the compensation fund in the daily and weekly newspapers that cover Valley Stream and its surrounding neighborhoods.

I didn’t expect Wal-Mart to admit guilt, as that would be like Dick Cheney admitting that Iraq was a clusterfuck (for everyone but his business interests, of course), but I did expect:
1. Criminals to be treated and prosecuted as criminals.
2. The family to be rolling in so much cash that Wal-Mart’s stock would actually take a noticeable hit that day. ($400,000 is like, what, one day’s profit for these people?)

But I guess that’s just me, living on Fantasy Island again. That $1.5 million to non-profit groups is more like a tax write-off than a goddamn punishment – they probably spent more money on those feel-good commercials about their stores than they did on this settlement. I’d say that this is a real spit in the face to Wal-Mart employees, but I think their faces have been soaked with spittle for a very long time.

Post from: Muckmakers.com

You and Your Debit Card

Via: MSNBC

Would you pay $38 for a cup of coffee? Clifford Phillips of Spokane, Wash., did. He used his debit card to pay for a latte, not knowing there wasn’t enough money in his checking account to cover it. The bank could have declined the transaction for insufficient funds. Instead it approved the electronic payment and dinged his account with a $34 overdraft fee.

Another instance where I find myself on the fence.

On one hand, you *should* know how much is in your checking account. It’s a part of being a responsible adult, and learning how to budget your available money.

However, being auto-enrolled in a “protection” system that has a $34 overage fee is kind of the opposite of protection in this case.

Then again, if it had been something more important than a cup of coffee… say, the heating or electric bill, I assume he would rather the $34 fee than missing a utility payment. Also, depending on the amount “loaned”, $34 is an obscenely high interest rate.

Thinking about it, I’m all for the program being in place for emergencies as an opt-in program, with a regulated fee as a fair percentage of the over-draft.

Thoughts?

Post from: Muckmakers.com

Madoff Claims Wife’s Money Not Fraudulent, Causes More Heads To Explode than Jihad

It appears that Bernie Madoff, who was our pick for Worst Businessman in the 2009 Muckmaker Awards, is vying for a spot on our 2010 list. While kids caught with a bag of weed serve sentences that are stiffer than their cellmates’ cocks in their asses, the guy who stole $50 billion and dealt a serious blow to our economy is still sleeping in his own bed, albeit with an ankle bracelet. (Aww, poor baby…that must be cold at night.) Now he thinks that his wife should be able to keep $70 million of that money, including the luxury apartment that he’s “confined” to at the moment…

Madoff argues that his wife should be able to keep the property as it is unrelated to the broader fraud, a fraud she knew nothing about.
In addition to the $7 million penthouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Ruth Madoff holds some $45 million in municipal bonds at Cohmad Securities Corp., a brokerage firm partially owned by Bernard L. Madoff, according to the filing. She also holds $17 million at Wachovia Bank, according to the filing. She withdrew $15.5 million from Cohmad shortly before Mr. Madoff was arrested, on Dec. 11.

This guy pulled off the biggest financial fraud in United States history and he thinks that we should take him at his word that his wife didn’t know a thing? Most guys can’t sneak out to have a beer with the guys after work without their wives knowing and this guy claims that his had no idea where the money was coming from?! (That last-minute withdrawal was for groceries, right?) Even if that were true, which it isn’t, is he actually asserting that it’s her money?! Does he seriously have the balls to state that his wife earned this money on her own? How else could it be “unrelated” to the fraud? Shit, if I had known that you could earn $70 million by tanning on the beach or playing golf on private courses, I would have jumped on that “Spoiled Bitch” position down at the plant years ago. Oh well – hindsight is 20/20…the vision I would have if I had $2,000 for corrective eye surgery. Ruth just douched this morning with a wad of twenty dollar bills worth $2,000.

Here’s an idea – no sentence. No jury. No long, drawn-out court case. Just take every penny of money away from every member of the Madoff family and put them out on the street. That’s it. If they don’t eat each other alive for sustenance, they’ll kill themselves rather than live like the rest of us do, starting out with nothing in our bank account every month and struggling to make it work until the next. I couldn’t type enough italic tags and exclamation points to express the level of my frustration right now. Maybe I can calm down on my 15 minute break at my third job that I need just to pay the bills by walking down to the adjacent convenient store and buying a pack of cigarettes. I don’t smoke…I just want to light them and put each and every one out on my face because I think that would be less infuriating than thinking about the Madoffs sleeping tonight on a mattress that cost more than my car…you know, after I’ve paid it off in another two years.