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Showing posts from May, 2018

Income inequality ever widening

This is where the mass pop is most blind mostly because they choose to not beleave it.  The income spread is literally the top 20% take home 70% of the GPD, the upper 20% take home 15%, the middle 20% take home 8%, the lower 20% take home 5%, the bottom 20% take home 2%.  The spread does not show the effect of taxing and cost of living at each level. The cost of living is roughly 7% of the GDP resulting in the lowest full time earner is 100% spent and still owes.  Even the next highest full time earner if gets unlucky that year with surprise bills is in the same boat as the lowest.  With out government aid, those at the bottom 60% of the earners would be worse off.  These groups even at bottom still can't take advantage of all the aid out there, pay 60% income in taxing with almost no hope of deductions. But the upper 20% can get more of an advantage but that's still not everything.  The top 20%, the group you would think would have the least if no aid at all.  The top 20%

Packaging bloatware

Here we have different aspects coming into each other:  Marketing, Shipping, Security, Storage, Manufacturing. Space and size directly effect shipping costs, storage costs and manufacture costs. The actual package it's self, some ideas are good and others are bad. Larger the package is the less documentation that needs to printed and shipped. Packages with air are crush able and take up extra space. Packages with extra padding are much larger but are questionable safer. Package shape effects total storage space: boxes are fixed in which are unforgiving, bags are cram able, blisters can be flipped to stack into each other and take less space. Package layering, I'm not talking the combing of different items into a single package but a single item in multiple layers of equal worth packaging.  Now an excusable event of this is an outside layer being unlabeled to prevent product theft or undue dmg. Large package save on documents, problem comes when they get much larger

Shipping costs stumbling

No, not talking about the parcel service's like USPS or UPS.  I'm talking freight. Now here, the cheap route has been and still is trains.  Cheapest per ton per mile.  How ever the delay out loading and unloading a truck by forklift.  So you get the ' Time is money '  If using a TEU ' T wenty-foot  Equivalent Unit '  will things up by just moving the container from hauler to hauler which is just as fast as a semi changing trailers.  But again back to ' Time is money ' the number of trucks on the roads builds up traffic congestion and slow travel times down. Here's the problem and for once it's not the corporations at fault.  Extortion from the unions working with the truck drivers actively block corporations from moving away from using trucks.  Unions are doing their job of protecting worker job security.  How ever this ethical act is not looking at the ' Needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few ' resulting in increased costs

Academia

Schools are sadly a high point on the effects of economy being one of the leading sources to most of the populace's debt. Public and private schools receive funding differently.  Public is nearly all from government funding being mostly through taxing.  Private is nearly all through tuition.  Both have grants for students.  Both receive donations from donors.  Here is where things differ far more.  Private schools have a smaller pool of students and even less needing assistance from grants then public and thus effects the per student spending from incomes.  The kicker here is private schools receive far greater amount of donations and a higher total amount from donations resulting in a far greater spending per student. There have been proposals to address this off-set balance of donation income which would help lower populace student education debt. Both suffer from an increased cost of material that both students and staff purchase. But both suffer from the same issue that

Corporate employee handling

Since the 80's the focus has shifted from doing what is better to support community growth which comes back around as higher and more frequent customer spending returning that investment to the corporation.  The shift has been turned on it's head to something that only care's about shareholder pay increase's every quarter. This shift cause's corporations to do the worst acts and unthinkable acts.  Unthinkable because any sane person would not think of it and would reject the thought if anyone brought it up.  To pull off this shift of money to as few of people as it can go while reducing spending ends up resorting to every unethical, immoral and illegal act you can get away with. Cut employee count. Reduce employee pay. Reduce employee benefits. Deregulate Increase product/service costs to customers. Reduce product/service quality control. Reduce product/service quality. Reduce customer support. Automate tasks Reduce competition Demand additional payme

Economic growth blockers

Usually nothing legal or unethical here, mostly just misunderstood or misguided. Religion is often to blaim here citing the source of the new income for the area would be either too immoral or against their beliefs.  Yes they have a right to state that, but there comes the other point of ' The good of the many out weigh the good of the few ' .  This is where a third party that is not in favor of either argument to measure benefits and costs of the new source. Ignorance or intolerance are the next two in the list.  Now intolerance can have it's point in both ethical and moral standing around which point it would be favorable to block the source.  Ignorance is never an excuse and even more so with internet. Anti-competitive , now this is always bad and in fact illegal.  Even though this comes up again and again as the cause of blocked growth. Political gain , this is just as bad as the above.  It is more unethical to do so in this fashion as it is not only in support

Large mergers, buy outs, monopoly's and oligopoly

This is by far the most horrid.  Larger a business gets the less competition it gets and the higher to customer prices get, which comes down to massive Anti-Trust law breaking. Divided territories, Absorption of competitors, Refusal to deal, Business ethics, Tax evasion, Product sabotage, Tying, Limit pricing, Extortion, Theft, Fraud, Rent-seeking, Deregulation. Capitalism works solely off Competition which with out is no longer capitalism.  In Capitalism you capitalize on opportunities to get ahead of the competition.  So where what happens when no competition remains ? Many of you may be saying there are options and choices for nearly everything.  Yes on the surface that is what it looks like.  But this is because of mergers in which one company is bought by another but the loser's name does not get absolved, so you end up with a parent company and a child company that on the surface looks like two competing companies.  This chain of events can happen multiple times to a po

Community losing's it's core

This is here not because of a system that is being abused but as a system that is no longer being used and being used less and less as time goes on. When people first banded together into communities it was not the exploitation of others but the support gained from others.  The sharing of knowledge and experience freely with out expecting something in return. The few working for the many instead of the individual over working them self to get everything done. Community schools and community hospitals are two things that were started up to be run and paid for by the community as a whole as a non-profit as well as have it's door always open to all.  In the US modern times this has been moving farther to being for-profit being paid by the individual and limited access. The US in recent practice has been moving away from ' Community of people ' to a ' Community of individuals '.  This practice does not help economy but actually hinders the economy by reducing the

Tax's, interest and penilties...oh boy

So so many holes here that are too many to list.  But just summarizing is that nothing else helps to widen the gap of income inequality then them.  Lower your income the less incentives and exemptions you either qualify for or utilize. Limit pricing, Subsidies, Tax evasion, Refusal to deal, Deregulation, Product sabotage If your income is high enough the exemptions you can utilize gets what you need to pay so little that has no effect on your income.  This is in contrast to the other extreme where what you can utilize is so little that you end up paying more in taxing then anything else from your income. Being on the bottom end you end up paying more then you earn resulting in owing more and more over time making matters worse.  This has literally nothing on what your spending as the money is claimed before you even get it home. Incentive programs for doing things that end up letting you spend less in the long run, but the entry fee and entry level is so high that the individua

Housing bust

This I just can not understand, the only item where over time property raise's in value instead of falling.  Where a used item is still sold for more then initial purchase price.  In some limited case's property should go up only tiny bits when resold, but only in events where there was an add-on or remodel. Theft, Fraud, Usury, Deregulation, Price fixing Some property goes up/down in value based on factors that have nothing to do with the physical property it's self but neighboring property.  This you can sum up to Fraud, Usury or Price fixing.  Almost no one ever looks into this market as a source of potential crime happening as it has been going on like this for longer then 100 years. Some people when looking to sell a house will force those in the neighborhood to spend extra money and time to beautify their property to artificially inflate property values in time for the sale of their property.  But no one looks into this as a Profiteering crime as they are too bu

Law enforcement officers

Yes odd thing to list along side economy, but more then the avg person thinks interacts with economy and in fact nearly everything does. There is a small but very loud population of LEO's that really should not have a badge.  They are not violating laws dealing with economy but they are with other laws. Harassment, Bullying, Brutality, Abuse. But along with those is yet more crimes that are done less often by LEO's but still done. Extortion (not for profit but still some kind of gain), Theft, Blackmail (this goes both ways, the LEO doing or being the target), Bribing (accepting in this case). Countless reports which is mostly aimed at minority group members of those said things.  To the point some people are afraid to even go outside alone even though the only other people out there are LEO's. There have been LEO's that have taken property from people as ' evidence ' just to either use them self or sell.  Many time FBI have arrested LEO's for thi

Competitive pricing, Not

Most corps are narrow and short sighted only seeing their direct regional area no more then 3 months out.  This blinds them to pricing done in other regions and more importantly in other nations that offer more for less. Short term profits are gains with little to no extra spending and often finding ways to reduce spending that is currently done as well as up pricing to customers.  This also is done in reducing product quality in either materials or quality tolerances.  Another additive is sabotaging their own product by intentionally leaving defects needing repairs or replacements not even 6 months out. Letting experienced staff go in favor of those with less so they are not as obligated to pay employees as much.  This is also why it's hard to find employment that isn't management if you have more then 5 years experience.

Automotive wrecking

This is a mixed front, not just one step in the chain but the whole chain.  Excluding the mechanics that do repairs. Patient misuse, Business ethics, Refusal to deal. Yeah, not much listed but a lot is done with so little.  Deregulation is hard to do in this front. Brand name pricing, no where else up prices as often just cause of a name.  Tools and components used, same material and manufacture plant but just different name stamped on it resulting in as much as triple the price. Dealership up price everything unless it is for any part dealing with safety which those by law must be done for free, excluding brakes, body work and frame work.  Some part and work contracts requires the dealership to do the work at which point the dealership soaks you for crazy amounts on labor fees. Manufacturers buy up patients all the time but instead of using it they self it.  Holographic displays, electric cars, self driving cars, alternative energy driven, more economic tires, lower emission

Food industry plow unders

One would think that food would be the last place to find greed, but nope there are areas of business with less. Subsidies, Product sabatage, Business ethics, Price gouging, Rent-seeking, Refusal to deal. Deregulation would be listed but thank god it's oversight committees are harder to bend. Farms get subsided to dump product just to inflat prices through a fake shortage of supply. Water that is just bottled, only filtered and boiled to clean bacteria and sediment is often sold for profit.  Some bottles care more for profit then the environment so they will drain reservoirs who's area needs that supply or the area is in drought. Corporate farms with very little employee count sell to retailers at increased rate to price out any private farms not working with them which are forced to sell at reduced rate. The seeds which farmers buy to grow crops are owned by the same corporations they are competing against, which results in gains to the Corporate on both ends and a

Pharmaceutical escalation

There is no question drug prices are sky ward showing no limits. Deregulation, supracompetitive pricing, product sabatage, bribing, fraud. Pharmatech companies spend money on bribing both doctors and politicians.  Though bribes to doctors are often not money but free gifts.  They set pricing as high as they think they can get away with before someone with authority comes after them, thus one reason why they bribe politictions. They lobby politictions to deregulate. They don't fully disclose all details of a drug to anyone this leaves even doctors and FDA in the dark, not just patients. They pay competitors to delay release of product to have a time frame of no competition. Profit margins are so high that they pull in the most per sale of any business.  Those that claim the high cost is to cover R&D cost is blowing smoke at you as every R&D lab receives research grants yearly to cover the cost.

Pay rate practices and Unemployment

This should not be an issue but it is.  Remember this when looking at Unemployment Rate.  Pay scale comes in four forms, full time, part time, temp and contract with each having it's own value and bonus. Full time gets benefits given by the employer as well as usually increased pay. Part time is less hours with no benefits other then the less hours and usually just minimum wage. Temp being just that, either extra worker or someone filling in while someone else is on sick leave.  Temp workers get the part time or full time pay but no benefits and usually there only a single day to a single week.  Except they don't get these: sick leave, vacation and on-call. Contact being special rules of it's own. Regardless both have same same when it comes to: over time, time and a half, holiday, sick leave, vacation and on-call. Looking at it from the outside seems just fine and working as intended.  How ever this is not the case. Add in these. Contract workers often having t

Telecoms, what an ugly past they have

This list of crimes and bad practices is just wow. Divided territories, Absorption of competitors, Deregulation, Tying, Product sabotage, Usury, Bribery/Blackmail, Extortion, Business ethics, Refusal to deal. Very few other businesses spread so far in the activities that these people do. They make sure they don't overlap coverage areas as not to compete with each other so to keep prices high to customers. They create bundle packages of all their services, even though a service is offered from the same provider does not mean the different services should be gotten as a bundle.  This is often used as a scam to show a short term low entry price that later explodes in cost and contract terms. They jack up pricing for no reason at all or even pass on lawsuits, fines and penalties to the customer instead of eating into profits as intended. They buy out any competition that springs up in their coverage area. The bribe politicians to change regulations, laws and legislation in th

Insurance, what a mess

Like many businesses the executives are highly paid to excess.  Added to that there is vast spending's on incentive programs that cost over 1mil/y being given out to very few employee's, most of these being cruises which are no where near cheap. Many insurer's are guilty of Usury where they up charge to the policy holder for no ethical reason then to just do so.  Most all of the profits should be going back to the policy holder's when they need it, but this is not the case.  Up until ACA most insurer's simply would not cover or pay for a vast many things. Deregulation, unlike many other businesses they don't have to do this work them self.  This act is actually carried out by people that either don't fully understand the system or are receiving gains from the deregulation while these gains are not bribes. Auto Insurance sometimes offers you an extra service of picking your own choice of service location.  With out this service the car owner and the mec

A sad truth about all this

Pages of illegal activity done daily by a vast number and in plain sight to all even documented.  These actions go unchecked and unquestioned by most thinking ' Business as usual ' or ' That's just how business works '. The case here is ignorance is not bliss, the vast populace should be angry for being cheated and misused.  Law enforcement should be arresting people in bus loads with how many or committing crimes. But reality is nothing is getting done or it's happening way way too slowly to have an effect.  But also the biggest fault is everyone is looking solely at the effects and symptoms while ignoring the bigger picture of whats causing them, whats at the root of them, why is all this happening. Government assistance is mostly an effect of a problem gone out of hand that almost no one is dealing with directly.  Everyone is complaining about the assistance programs over use and drain on the financial system while at the same time not looking at what i

Profiteering and Racketeering explained

There is a lot that falls under this and most these actions are illegal in US law while all are immoral or unethical.  Capitalism runs > only < with healthy competition.  You'll note that almost all of the following involves the removal of competition. Divided territories, The splitting up of land to which two competing business's do not overlap and actually compete. Patent misuse, Buying of patents with the promise of one thing but doing something else, in most case's just obtaining them to self and forget as a means of removing competition or advancement of tech. Absorption of competitors, Buying up competing business's for the simply act of removing competition. Deregulation, Removal or adjustment of laws, legislation or regulation to fit their actions. Limit pricing, Setting up a minimum entry fee for new business's to reduce the chance of a new business upstart to compete. Refusal to deal, Only working with one dealer to prevent new starts fro

Intro summery

There are many many things broken in the US legal and Economy fields, but the bulk of them are just symptoms and effects of a root cause.  Health care costs, food costs, internet costs, law enforcement responses and actions, government actions, crime, government assistance programs, general product costs, transportation costs...basically everything is effected by so little and surprisingly how little is truly at fault of such a large picture. This all started back with President Reagan.  Too many people have a short and narrow view and place blame on the most recent events, but in truth viewing the world like that will only hurt the world. The two things that are at the lead for being cause's to the vast number of problems is Corporate Greed and Executive Pay. Corporations trying to pull in as much profit as they can have turned to a method of doing so by any means even those that are illegal. This is just the top: under current legislation this is not entirely illegal (I&#

Opening post

First off to get some legal issues and possible hate headed off before it starts as this kind of thing normally does and will.  No names will be listed, no links will be given, no images will be used, no ads will run as a means to reduce the ammo anyone can use to subvert anything posted or to use as an assault.  Every posted is publicly listed on other sites online and in most case's many locations, so no need to repeat but just consolidate.  One person and Org how ever is listed as he is actively campaigning and speaking the exact same thing. The point of this is to show how far things have fallen off the rails since the early 1980's.  The government we are in has shifted with the economy in the shifting of power and control to something that resembles a Corpocracy where corporate spending holds power of congressional voting. Link to a post explaining and listing basics of whats said but does not fit in the body and context of this post but needs pinned to the top as well