The Age Of Perpetual Self-Branding
Facebook wants to be the place where you feel most yourself, with the most control over how you are regarded. It inextricably intertwines marketing with selfhood, so that having a self becomes an inherently commercial operation.
Writing for n+1, Rob Horning concocts a frightening, fantastic, and thought-provoking essay on how we live today, connecting the reign of “fast fashion” companies such as Forever 21, social media such as Facebook, and 21st century capitalism’s demand that workers market and reinvent themselves endlessly:
I’ve always thought that Forever 21 was a brilliant name for a fast-fashion retailer. These two words succinctly encapsulate consumerism’s mission statement: to evoke the dream of perpetual youth through constant shopping. Yet it also conjures the suffocating shabbiness of that fantasy, the permanent desperation involved in trying to achieve fashion’s impossible ideals.
Despite apparently democratizing style and empowering consumers, fast fashion in some ways constitutes a dream sector for those eager…
Are Banksters Too Big To Jail?
Why are we banking on banks to a promote economic recovery? HBO’s “Too Big To Fail” should have been about banksters “too big to jail.”
This week the financial crisis finally went prime time in the form of a big budget HBO docudrama called “Too Big To Fail.”
It was a well-acted docudrama focused on the BIG Men and some women in the banks and in government who tried to put Humpty Dumpty back together again up on that wall to prevent a total economic collapse when panic dried up credit and financial institutions faced failure.
Based on the work of a New York Times reporter, it offered a skillfully-made but conventional narrative which, like most TV shows, showcase events but miss their deeper context and background.
We heard all the explanations, save one.
There was greed, ambition, ego and money lust. There were personal rivalries and ideological battles, parochial agendas and narrow self-interest. There…
College Graduates Earning Less
Congratulations to all the new college grads out there, but have you thought about how much your expensive new college degree is worth? For 2009-10 graduates who were able to land a job (about half), starting salaries fell 10% versus 2006-8, and it doesn’t look like 2011 will be any better. Catherine Rampell reports for the New York Times:
Employment rates for new college graduates have fallen sharply in the last two years, as have starting salaries for those who can find work. What’s more, only half of the jobs landed by these new graduates even require a college degree, reviving debates about whether higher education is “worth it” after all.
“I have friends with the same degree as me, from a worse school, but because of who they knew or when they happened to graduate, they’re in much better jobs,” said Kyle Bishop, 23, a 2009 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh…
Samoa To Jump Forward In Time By One Day
Apia, Samoa. Photo: LukMak (CC)
For better business, Samoa decides to switch time zones. BBC reports:
The South Pacific island nation of Samoa is to jump forward in time by one day in order to boost its economy.
Samoa will do this by switching to the west side of the international date line, which it says will make it easier for it to do business with Australia and New Zealand.
At present, Samoa is 21 hours behind Sydney. From 29 December it will be three hours ahead.
The change comes 119 years after Samoa moved in the opposite direction.
Then, it transferred to the east side of the international date line in an effort to aid trade with the US and Europe.
However, Australia and New Zealand have increasingly become Samoa’s biggest trading partners.
[Continues at BBC News]
Real Rate Of Inflation In U.S. Is Near 10%
Paul Volcker
“Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics” comes to mind. John Melloy reports for CNBC First Money:
After former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker was appointed in 1979, the consumer price index surged into the double digits, causing the now revered Fed Chief to double the benchmark interest rate in order to break the back of inflation. Using the methodology in place at that time puts the CPI back near those levels.
Inflation, using the reporting methodologies in place before 1980, hit an annual rate of 9.6 percent in February, according to the Shadow Government Statistics newsletter.
Since 1980, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has changed the way it calculates the CPI in order to account for the substitution of products, improvements in quality (i.e. iPad 2 costing the same as original iPad) and other things. Backing out more methods implemented in 1990 by the BLS still puts inflation at a 5.5 percent rate…
Last Minute Budget Deal Only Postpones More Serious Economic Warfare
Photo: Ser Amantio di Nicolao (CC)
The Capitol Hill battlefield is still for the moment as the Easter holidays approach and the combatants get a break from the heated polemics and overnight bargaining sessions. In a last minute deal, milked by both sides for maximum drama and political advantage, the government will not shut down—at least not now—even as its budget has taken a major whack.
Each side can posture to supporters as a victor. The President, who managed the process from the shadows, posed for photos in the White House after his great compromise of 2011 was announced.
It was a media moment to be relished, as media columnist Howard Kurtz explained on the Daily Beast:
“The White House escaped most of the blame. Once the spotlight shifted from the political gamesmanship to the human impact of a shutdown—soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan not getting checks, passport offices closed, national parks off limits—everyone…
Medical Marijuana Is Now A $1.7 Billion Market
Medical Marijuana shop in Denver, Colorado. Photo: O'Dea (CC)
The medical marijuana market has had a significant growth this year. With seven states who have opened shop and five more states planned to approve medical marijuana outlets this year, cannabis could save many states’ economies. Medical News Today reports:
Medical marijuana is now a serious $1.7 billion dollar market, according to a new report released this week by an independent financial analysis firm that specializes in new and unique markets. Currently, 24.8 million people are eligible to receive a recommendation and purchase marijuana legally under state laws, and approximately 730,000 people actually do.
Ted Rose, editor of the new State of the Medical Marijuana Market 2011 report, comments:
“Medical marijuana markets are rapidly growing across the country and will reach $1.7 billion this year. We undertook this effort because we noticed a dearth of reliable market information about this politically charged business. Hundreds of businesses exist…
Treasure Islands: The Murky World Of Offshore Tax Shelters
New Left Project sits down with author Nicholas Shaxson to talk tax havens — a mammoth system of quasi-legal money-laundering which has a far wider impact than we realize, with a large role in the global drug trade and financial crisis. As it turns out, the biggest “treasure islands” are not the Caymans or Monaco, but places such as the City of London and the U.S. state of Delaware:
There is no common definition of what a tax haven is. Everybody has a slightly different definition. Ultimately what a tax haven provides is escape from the rules and the laws of jurisdictions. Tax havens are also about ‘elsewhere’ – the laws of the Cayman Islands are not designed for the benefit of the 50,000-odd population of the Cayman Islands.
The traditional view is…palm-fringed tropical islands in the Caribbean, Monaco, Switzerland, Liechtenstein. Small states. But if you do the analysis of what a tax…
March Madness And The Class War
The term class war has been extricated from the archives of another era, while divisions over the future of the economy have become a battleground in which the adversaries yell at each other, but rarely engage in any discourse with each other in a shared language.
The worse things get, the harder it is for people to agree on what to do.
This is a month known in the USA for the “March madness” college basketball finals, but the madness seems now to be oozing from sports arenas to political capitols.
In the Middle East, all the political turmoil will ultimately impact on a regional economy build on the flow and price of oil, contends author/historian Michael Klare:
“Whatever the outcome of the protests, uprisings, and rebellions now sweeping the Middle East, one thing is guaranteed: the world of oil will be permanently transformed. Consider everything that’s now happening as just the first tremor of an…
U.S. Government Admits To Massive Waste Of Taxpayers’ Money
Just to get you even more excited about paying your taxes next month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports that billions of those tax dollars are wasted every year. Damian Paletta reports for the Wall Street Journal:
The U.S. government has 15 different agencies overseeing food-safety laws, more than 20 separate programs to help the homeless and 80 programs for economic development.
These are a few of the findings in a massive study of overlapping and duplicative programs that cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year, according to the Government Accountability Office.
A report from the nonpartisan GAO, to be released Tuesday, compiles a list of redundant and potentially ineffective federal programs…
Obama’s Change: More Tyranny and Oppression
Has anyone seen a change for the good? Or just more of the same … changes that will only leave us with less rights and money in our pockets. From Nathan Janes of PUPAGANDA.com:
In January of 2009, as the American economy teetered on the brink of economic collapse, the most prominent story within the mainstream media, called “the greatest mystery since Watergate,” was the selection of the Obama family pet. With the election of Barak Obama, many Americans, relieved that “change” was on the way, focused their attention on such trivial matters as the Presidential dog rather than the state of continual economic decline within our country. This phenomenon came on the heels of a successful election campaign where Americans were sold the Obama brand through terrific marketing and public relations. Everyone was buying “hope” and “change” with not only their votes but with their time and energy. The Obama campaign…
The United States Economy: One Massive Ponzi Scheme?
Bernard Madoff
Thank you, Bernie, for breaking your silence – even if you are still clinging to that cover-up mode you adopted since you took the entirety of the blame for your crimes.
What is clear is that ripping off the rich is punished far more severely than ripping off the poor. The lengthy sentence you were given spared countless other greedsters and goniffs from facing the music – what music there is.
In an interview – with a reporter from The New York Times who is writing a book to cash in on a man who has already cashed out – we learn, in the vaguest terms, that Mr M believes the banks he did his crooked business with “should have known” his figures did not figure. Keeping with the deceit that has served him well over the years, he names no names.
That said, how right he may be. There were many who should…
Is The New ‘Normal’ Unemployment Rate Above 5%?
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, in its Economic Letter entitled “What Is the New Normal Unemployment Rate?” states:
“Recent labor markets developments, including mismatches in the skills of workers and jobs, extended unemployment benefits, and very high rates of long-term joblessness, may be impeding the return to “normal” unemployment rates of around 5%. An examination of alternative measures of labor market conditions suggests that the “normal” unemployment rate may have risen as much as 1.7 percentage points to about 6.7%, although much of this increase is likely to prove temporary. Even with such an increase, sizable labor market slack is expected to persist for years.”
Their conclusion? “As the recovery proceeds, we should develop a clearer picture of the new normal rate of unemployment.”
The question becomes, what happens to that ‘extra’ 1.7% of US population? Are they unjustifiably unemployed, if we assume that 5% is truly normal for a super-rich society…
2010 Financial and Commodity Markets and Productivity: WTF?
I could go on and on about the way speculative finance is utterly divorced from the real economy, sapping 80 cents out of the economy for each dollar it touches*, etc., etc.. But why bother when the following chart says it all? Compiled from the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics release.
![Financial and Commodity Markets in 2010 - WTF[1]](http://disinfo.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Financial-and-Commodity-Markets-in-2010-WTF1-300x200.jpg)
See underlying analysis, along with links to original source data, within this workbook.
P.S. I would like to offer a ’special’ TBA prize to the first Dystopia Diaries reader who detects the even more disturbing trend vis-a-vis crude oil prices and CPU within the workook data. Hint: Can you say “Peak Oil?”
Footnote
*Yeah, it’s true. By giving yet another extraordinary tax cut to the finance-addled trust fund brats, Obama and the Republican’ts are throwing away 80% of those dollars’ productivity. See the analytical graph and supporting details here.
Contributed from Dystopia Diaries
The Real State Of The Union – From President Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The columnists at MarketWatch must have misread the memo from Murdoch about being staunchly Republican and pro-business no matter the cost. Following Paul Farrell’s rant about the conspiracy of the super rich, now Brett Arends reminds us of Dwight Eisenhower’s warning of a military-industrial complex taking over the United States — and shows us that it’s already happened:
Forget the posturing you’re going to hear tonight. Do you want to hear the real state of the union? Just ask Ike: President Dwight Eisenhower.
As fund manager Jeremy Grantham notes, it was 50 years ago this month that the old general delivered his famous farewell address to the nation after a lifetime of service that few will ever match.
Less well-remembered: His warning against hocking ourselves up to the eyeballs as the easy way out of any problem.
“We… must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and…
Still Think Financial Markets = Financial Investment?
For those STILL too gullible to believe that we will never recover until we stop the irresponsible hoarding and gambling behaviours of Wall Street through a property tax on large securities holdings, I present the following:
Our economy doesn’t need to print more money. The economy must have had about $1.5 TRILLION more money at the end of 2010 than it started with. What we need to do is make the banksters and uber-rich pay their fair share and stop glomming off old age pensioners.
Details available upon request. Or check it out for yourself here.
If you liked this, or better yet, if you hated this, check out my ‘Policy Directions‘ page at Dystopia Diaries.
2010 Was The Year Of ‘The Crumble’
The tenth year of the 21st Century has left us behind, and it can’t be too soon.
It was a year of the crumble.
The economy continued to crumble for ordinary people with little hope for a quick turnaround even as some markets surged. The hopes of the jobless for employment crumbled. The faith of the so many homeowners that they will find a way to stay in their homes facing foreclosure crumbled.
And so have the hopes of so many of us that our new Change Is Coming president would fight for us, would end the wars, would close Gitmo, would abandon torture, would make healthcare more affordable, would give us a government we could believe in; that, too, has crumbled.
Look back at the devastation of the year gone by its ugly election, bought and paid for by US Supreme Court sanctioned special interests, oil spilled by the Gulf-ful, wars escalated, climate…
Can Heckling Change The World? Let’s Find Out
A big molte grazie goes out to the folks at Disinformation. Their media aggregation board is always a real thought provoker. As discussed below, I got a big kick out of their recent repost of a Reuters report about the “job surge.”
The nation owes a big debt of gratitude to wise ass m*f*’s like Jon Stewart who finally shamed the ra-ra, flag wavin’ hypocrites of the Republican party into finally voting to support 911 First Responders. But while we correctly applaud the righteousness of Mr. Stewart and the Daily Show team who made this possible, we should perhaps be mindful of a broader principle: The Truth shall not only set us free, it is also fucking hillarious.
However, we shouldn’t just passively rely on television comedians to do all the heavy lifting for us. Indeed, although many contemporary comedians seem to have a firm grasp on this fact*, others do not. Remember Dennis Miller**? Time…
Job Surge Boosts Economic Outlook
Employment has a slight rise, lay-offs see a decrease, college grads smile? Reuters reports:
A surprise surge in private-sector employment last month to its highest level on record provided the most bullish signal in months that the U.S. economy is on the mend.
“Sometimes numbers come as bolts from the blue; this is one of them,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.
Private employers added 297,000 jobs in December, triple the median estimate by economists and up from the gain of 92,000 in November, an ADP Employer Services report, whose data goes back to 2000, showed on Wednesday.
The report undercut the prices of the U.S. Treasury securities, and helped the U.S. dollar gain against the yen and the euro. U.S. stocks opened lower though they did pare losses after the jobs news.
[Continues at Reuters]
Everyman Denis Ryan on What’s Wrong With Ireland’s Banks … And The World’s (Video)
I had this forwarded to me by a Canadian friend. If somehow you haven’t seen it yet, you’re welcome!
