Evolución económica y política USAna

[Taliván Hortográfico]

Esto del declive en la longevidad de la white trash me ha traído a la memoria el nuevo felómeno sociológico de la televisión USA: Honey Boo Boo, una niña de seis años aspirante en concursos de belleza y protagonista de un reality show, a la que su madre suministra un cóctel de bebidas energéticas con cafeína para desayunar y a la que alimenta con trash food que suplementa de vez en cuando con carne de alces que se encuentran atropellados en la carretera. Y eso último es lo que más se le critica, cuando a mí me parece bien. Seguro que el alce atropellado es una alimentación francamente sana y natural.



Lo que resulta evidente es que las clases (muy) bajas americanas son las que peor se han adaptado a las nuevas condiciones de vida y de alimentación que impone el american way of life. Una foto de la mamá:

http://youtu.be/CGM_ANQsQ74
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[Karunel]

Joder, vamos de cabeza a Un mundo feliz. 

[chameleon]

[Currobena]

Obama tiene prácticamente ganadas las elecciones. Romney ha rehusado publicar cuánto ha pagado en impuestos los últimos 12 años (algo que sí hizo su padre en el pasado). Todo el mundo sabe que tiene algo que ocultar que le hundiría electoralmente, y se hacen apuestas:

Mitt Romney didn’t have a very good week. When the Romney Campaign releases his 2011 taxes as a subject-changer, it’s a safe bet that things haven’t been going swimmingly.
Let’s oblige them by wading into this tax story.
Here is what we know: GOP candidate Mitt Romney has released his two most recent tax returns. According to Politifact, that’s far fewer than most presidential candidates disclose. As an example, Romney’s father, George, had released 12 years of tax returns. He has steadfastly refused to release the rest, despite being goaded by many players — not just Democrats and media pundits, but by members of the GOP establishment as well. Regardless, he has not been very forthcoming.
Why has he refused? There are no good answers, only speculations. Given that not releasing additional tax docs has cost Romney politically only increases the arm chair hypothesizing. All summer, the incumbent has battered the challenger on this (and related issues). Romney’s approval ratings have been hurt. His refusal is helping to coalesce a detrimental media narrative: There are different rules for people of privilege than for the rest of the country, and Romney has taken advantage of them. These week’s 47% gaffe only plays into that same narrative.
While the Obama ads have been politically effective, it’s been even more surprising that there has not been a successful counter from the GOP candidate. Romney was even vetted as a Veep candidate in 2008 by the McCain camp, where they ostensibly saw his tax records. McCain himself said Romney provided 20 years of records, and has paid his taxes . . . but then again, he passed over Romney for Sarah Palin as Veep.
The Obama campaign has offered to drop the issue if Romney releases just 5 years of tax docs. Still, the Romney camp has refused.
All of these minor sleights and unanswered accusations have led to a cottage industry of imagining what secrets might be hidden in these tax records. We do not know, but we can use some deductive reasoning to come up with some reasonable theories as to why Romney won’t share with voters what he showed the McCain camp (or perhaps, what took place post-McCain).
Here are our 5 top contenders:
1) 0% Tax Rates: The released tax documents show a very low tax rate, and Romney has said he never paid less than a 13% rate over the past 10 years. However, its not inconceivable that through a combination of aggressive tax planning, use of Trusts, earned income carry forwards and use of tax havens like Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Cayman Islands and Bermuda, Romney may have paid no taxes whatsoever in 2009 and years prior. His advisors may have correctly surmised this would be fatal to his Presidential aspirations.
Since I began composing this post, the Romney campaign has released a letter from his accountants to the effect that, over the period reviewed, the Romneys’ lowest tax rate was 13.66 percent (though there was a bit of numerical gymnastics to make that true in 2011). Note that Romney’s letter from PricewaterhouseCoopers discusses “adjusted gross income” — not total income; this subtle difference has already been debunked.
Not surprisingly in the post-Enron, post-WorldCom world, the word of an accountant ain’t worth the pixels used to write it. And, if it’s true, why not just get them out there and be done with with?
Well, maybe it’s:
2) Voter Fraud:  The Guardian and others came up with an even simpler theory: That Romney has voted in a state in which he was not technically a resident (i.e. voting in Massachusetts when he was actually a resident of California).
I first saw this in Forbes, which mentioned that “Romney appears to have escaped relatively unsinged from the apparently unrelated revelation that he may have committed voter fraud in January 2010, when – despite not owning a house in Massachusetts and having given every appearance of having moved to California…”
3) Broken Tax Laws: Personally, I assign this a very low to moderate probability. However, without releasing his returns, Romney leaves himself open to speculation that he may perhaps have crossed a line and submitted returns that are somehow numerically fraudulent and/or otherwise illegal (separate and apart from the aforementioned address issue).
BR has raised the issue of Romney’s IRA. William Cohan at Bloomberg has also wondered how he was able to legally amass $102 million in his individual retirement account — tax free! — during the 15 years he was at Bain Capital, despite contribution limits that would seem to make that all but impossible. What sort of rate of return is that, anyway?
Regarding the IRA contributions, Victor Fleischer, Professor of Law at University of Colorado is rather blunt: “Bottom line: Mitt Romney has not paid all the taxes required under law.”
Beyond that, it’s possible he is:

4) Much Wealthier Than Previously Reported: Romney’s wealth has been guesstimated at around $250 million. Returns from which we might infer that his wealth is significantly greater – not that $250 million isn’t a huge number – might be somewhat off-putting to the electorate, particularly in light of Romney’s recent well-publicized 47% gaffe (which actually was not a gaffe at all, but a core belief among some conservatives).
And, finally, a theory I have not seen advanced elsewhere that seems to me as plausible (maybe more so) as any other. I can’t take credit for this idea, but it certainly seems viable:
5) Did Romney Make a “Bet Against America”?: Some facts in support of this theory:
Romney suspended his presidential campaign on February 7, 2008. At that time, the Case-Shiller Comp 20 (NSA) stood at ~175 on its way to ~139 in the spring of 2009. The S&P500 stood in the low-to-mid 1300s, off the fall 2007 high, on its way to the infamous March 2009 666 low.
In 2011, we learned that:
 <blockquote>Hedge fund billionaire John Paulson is upping the ante on his already huge bet on Mitt Romney, opening his palatial Southampton home for a late August fundraiser. [...]
A big bundler for Romney’s campaign, Paulson—who made billions betting on the decline of the housing bubble -</blockquote> And, earlier this year, there was this:
 <blockquote>The Republican candidate has accepted donations from controversial hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson, but Thursday night he made their association more explicit by allowing Paulson to host a fundraiser, Ben Jacobs reports.</blockquote> Paulson’s housing market short, of course, is now widely considered one of the greatest trades of all-time. Now, I do not know the depth of the relationship between Romney and Paulson. And, importantly, I don’t know when it began. The Romney campaign could, of course, answer those questions – assuming, that is, they ever get asked.
But the question needs to be asked: Do Mitt Romney’s unreleased tax returns - in particular for 2008 & 2009 - contain evidence that he “bet against America” via participation in John Paulson’s wildly successful housing market short and/or, more generally, by being short equity markets during the decline? Of course, such behavior is hardly illegal. But I doubt his personal enrichment during that period (particularly via a housing market short) would play well with the tens of millions of Americans who were simultaneously being financially devastated. If this is the case, it could explain a lot. For example, Romney could not release, say, 2000 – 2007, withhold 2008 and 2009, and have 2010 and 2011 already in the public domain. That’s clearly a non-starter which would only focus the country on those two years and what might be contained in those two returns. The only alternative – which appears to be the way his campaign is playing it – is to declare everything prior to 2010 off-limits. Further, when McCain saw Romney’s returns and declared their contents benign, his (McCain’s) campaign would obviously not have seen the 2008 and 2009 returns, as they’d not yet been prepared or filed. Profiting handsomely from a housing/stock market short could easily be turned into an anti-Romney sound bite that would only add to the narrative of the candidate as a ruthless über-capitalist concerned only for himself while the 47 percent moocher class struggles.
The bottom line is that there’s something in Mr. Romney’s tax returns that he doesn’t want made public. Having bet against America would be at the top of my list – far more devastating, in my opinion, than simply having paid an absurdly low rate.
Adding: I’d be remiss not to acknowledge the comments raising the possibility that Romney participated in the 2009 Swiss Bank Account Amnesty program. Yet another possibility – #6.

Si algo así pasara en España...

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/09/romney-tax-records/

[Taliván Hortográfico]

Joder, vamos de cabeza a Un mundo feliz. 

Aunque en la visión tradicional de las castas de Mundo Feliz dábamos por hecho que los rubios eran los Alfas, y no los epsilones. Y me imaginaba el soma como algo mucho más sabroso que el Red Bull, que a mí me sabe a rayos. 

[Currobena]

Otra consecuencia de la creciente desigualdad de los Estados Unidos:




El porcentaje de población estadounidense que recibe ayudas para comer crece mientras el de la población trabajadora disminuye.   

http://disciplinedinvesting.blogspot.com.es/2012/09/food-stamp-participation-versus-labor.html

[Xoshe]

Creo que el análisis de Taliván es correcto. Yo añadiría EEUU en la ecuación chino japonesa. Japon sin EEUU no es nada. Israel, por desgracia, pinta mucho más de lo que créeis.

[Machetazo]

El mayor fabricante del mundo de equipamiento para la construcción, Caterpillar, suele ser un barómetro del crecimiento mundial. Y cuando la empresa rebaja su previsión como ha hecho esta semana, no sólo para el próximo trimestre o año, sino hasta 2015 por culpa del bajo crecimiento global.

Eso implica que aunque EEUU resuelva sus problemas fiscales, la zona euro escape a su crisis de deuda y China evite un aterrizaje brusco, las condiciones para las empresas probablemente seguirán siendo poco alentadoras durante bastante tiempo. La empresa ha rebajado su previsión de beneficios para 2015 desde una estimación anterior de 15-20 dólares por acción a una nueva de 12-18.

"Hay una gran transición en marcha globalmente, y va a llevar tiempo atravesarla", según Steve Blitz, economista jefe de ITG Investment Research. "Aplaudo a Caterpillar por ir tan lejos, porque están diciendo a los inversores y al mundo que estos problemas no se van a solucionar inmediatamente". No es una tema cualquiera el hecho de que, menos de dos semanas después de la proyección de tipos de la Fed, anunciado como parte de la tercera ronda de quantitative easing, uno de los principales indicadores de la América empresarial para el crecimiento dé una advertencia negativa hasta 2015 como mínimo.

"La América corporativa y los mercados están lidiando con una gran cantidad de problemas", según Michael Hanson, economista senior de Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "Parte del desafío es que hay una gran incertidumbre ahora mismo. Existe la tentación en ciertos entornos de darse la vuelta y esperar a que las cosas muestren algo más de claridad".

Después de todo, Caterpillar no es ni mucho menos la única gran empresa en el corazón de la economía que ha hecho sonar las alarmas últimamente, aunque sí es única en lo lejos que mira en el futuro. FedEx y Norfolk Southern -dos pilares del índice Dow de Transportes- han dado sus propios profit warnings para el tercer trimestre.

Aunque un pronóstico de recesión en EEUU no cuadra con la visión de la economía del consenso, las preocupaciones sobre el crecimiento abundan. Citigroup ha emitido una serie de informes cautelosos sobre el crecimiento en EEUU y en el mundo, y aunque no anticipa una recesión, ha advertido de las peligrosas dinámicas que se están desarrollando. "Para EEUU, los fundamentales y los riesgos que conllevan parecen en general los mismos: de abajo arriba, sector por sector, las bases de la recuperación están mejorando gradualmente", según el economista de Citi Robert V. DiClemente. "Pero, aun así, los riesgos marco y políticos siguen siendo decididamente negativos", añade.

http://www.eleconomista.es/mercados-cotizaciones/noticias/4275326/09/12/Que-significa-la-revision-a-la-baja-de-los-beneficios-de-Caterpillar-para-el-crecimiento-mundial.html

[visillófilas pepitófagas]

Esto del declive en la longevidad de la white trash me ha traído a la memoria el nuevo felómeno sociológico de la televisión USA: Honey Boo Boo, una niña de seis años aspirante en concursos de belleza y protagonista de un reality show, a la que su madre suministra un cóctel de bebidas energéticas con cafeína para desayunar y a la que alimenta con trash food que suplementa de vez en cuando con carne de alces que se encuentran atropellados en la carretera. Y eso último es lo que más se le critica, cuando a mí me parece bien. Seguro que el alce atropellado es una alimentación francamente sana y natural.

Perdón por el off-topic

Quizá os interese la novela Miss Wyoming de Douglas Coupland.

En palabras del autor:

The whole thing with beauty pageants is really mother-driven. What three-year old wants to be a beauty queen? … There's all this unhappiness and they think by making their kids a receptacle of all that unhappiness they can turn it into gold. The male version of this is Hollywood, full of hungry, unfulfilled people. I thought it would be interesting to take male and female versions of these people and put them together when they both wanted to change.
    — Coupland on the roles of the characters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Wyoming_%28novel%29

[ulises]

Al hilo de las últimas declaraciones de Obama, donde venía a decir que haría todo lo necesario para que Irán no fuese una potencia nuclear, ¿que opinión tenéis?

Para mi podría tratarse de un guiño electoral a cierto tipo de votante, pero ojo, los sionistas tienen una mano muy larga en el partido demócrata. Llegado el momento, ¿dejarían a Israel solo?. Son especialistas en falsa bandera y enormemente patriotas, podrían provocar el conflicto si quisieran.

Por otra parte, si ganan los republicanos, para mi que la guerra con Irán está servida. Digo esto porque por una extraña confluencia de intereses entre las maquinarias mediáticas republicana y demócrata, se ha presentado a Ryan como un señor hiperaustero (para unos para presentarlo como campeón contra el gasto, para los otros para presentarlo como un monstruo que deja a las ancianitas sin medicinas), cosa que es totalmente falsa. Puede ser austerísimo en el gasto social, pero es un típico republicano gastón cuando se trata de mimar al complejo militar-industral, o rescatar bancos/empresas (ha votado a favor de rescatar todo lo rescatable, por ejemplo). Pero es que además, todo el gabinete económico republicano está dominado por esa versión del keynesianismo (que ni es keynesianismo ni es nada) que viene a creer que lo que USA necesita para salir de esta es la III Guerra Mundial. La administración Bush es prueba del poder que tiene esta gente y de lo que son capaces de hacer.

[Xoshe]

Tengo por ahí algunas estadísticas de la biblioteca del congreso que muestran la evolución del poder adquisitivo y la calidad de vida comparando varios índices (pobreza absoluta-relativa, índice de gini, etc) absolutamente escalofriantes. La laminación que ha ido sufriendo la clase media desde finales de los 70 ha sido espectacular. Grandes capas de autónomos y pequeños comerciantes han ido desapareciendo integrándose en las estructuras de las grandes empresas como trabajadores semicualificados, lo cual se ha vendido al pueblo norteamericano como un síntoma de modernización tecnológica, pero que en realidad además de restar poder a los trabajadores ha incidido en la diversificación de la economía, creando enormes toobigstofail en todos los sectores. Concentración del poder económico- control sobre la política- más concentración and so on.

Normal que el sector financiero pueda ejercer tantísima influencia en ese gobierno -sistema de puertas giratorias mediante- ya que de una forma u otra toda actividad, incluso las más productivas, se traducen en numeritos en la pantalla.

¿Por qué no posteas esas estadísticas?

[Lacenaire]

Soy lo peor. Mañana sin falta.

El lunes sin falta, que hoy tengo lío. Pero sigo siendo lo peor.

[Xoshe]

En 1987 el filósofo y teólogo judio Jacob Taubes, que consiguió sobrevivir al nazismo en su refugio de Zurich, imparte unas clases que universalmente se consideran su testamento. La teología política de Pablo. No hace al caso comentar el texto. Decir solo, que al comienzo, Taubes dice más o menos. "Todas estas ceremonias ya se sabe como acaban. La alemana terminó en catástrofe. Y por lo que vemos la americana no sigue distinto camino."
¡Toma ya! Taubes, aclaro, se consideraba rabino liberal.

[Currobena]

Un preludio de la situación actual estadounidense: el gobierno envenenando a los pobres para probar armas.

Revealed: Army scientists secretly sprayed St Louis with 'radioactive' particles for YEARS to test chemical warfare technology
  By Emily Anne Epstein
  PUBLISHED: 14:16 GMT, 29 September 2012  |  UPDATED: 16:21 GMT, 29 September 2012 
 

•   Comments (48) 
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The United States Military conducted top secret experiments on the citizens of St. Louis, Missouri, for years, exposing them to radioactive compounds, a researcher has claimed.

While it was known that the government sprayed 'harmless' zinc cadmium silfide particles over the general population in St Louis, Professor Lisa Martino-Taylor, a sociologist at St. Louis Community College, claims that a radioactive additive was also mixed with the compound.

She has accrued detailed descriptions as well as photographs of the spraying which exposed the unwitting public, predominantly in low-income and minority communities, to radioactive particles.

Scroll down for video           Test: Sociologist Lisa Martino-Taylor, right, a sociologist at St. Louis Community College, has spent years tracking down declassified documents to uncover the lengths which the US experimented on people without their knowing. At left, cadmium sulfide, the 'harmless' chemical sprayed on the public is pictured
    Spray: She has accrued detailed descriptions as well as photographs of the spraying, which took place as part of Manhattan-Rochester Coalition, which was an operation that dispersed zinc cadmium silfide particles over the general population, a compound that was presented as completely safe
 'The study was secretive for reason. They didn't have volunteers stepping up and saying yeah, I'll breathe zinc cadmium sulfide with radioactive particles,' said Professor Martino-Taylor to KSDK.
Through her research, she found photographs of how the particles were distributed from 1953-1954 and 1963-1965.

In Corpus Christi, the chemical was dropped from airplanes over large swathes of city.  In St Louis, the Army put chemical sprayers on buildings, like schools and public housing projects, and mounted them in station wagons for mobile use.    More...

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  Despite the extent of the experiment, local politicians were not notified about the content of the testing. The people of St Louis were told that the Army was testing smoke screens to protect cities from a Russian attack.

'It was pretty shocking. The level of duplicity and secrecy. Clearly they went to great lengths to deceive people,' Professor Martino-Taylor said.
  Controversial: But Professor Martino-Taylor says that it wasn't just the 'harmless' compound, radioactive particles were also sprayed on the unwitting public. A woman refills the spray canisters in this archive picture
    Scope: In St Louis, the Army put chemical sprayers on buildings, like schools and public housing projects, and mounted them in station wagons for mobile use
 She accrued hundreds of pages of declassified information, which she has made available online.
In her research, she found that the greatest concentration of spraying in St Louis was at the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex, which was home to 10,000 low income residents.  She said that 70 per cent of those residents were children under the age of 12.
Professor Martino-Taylor became interested in the topic after hearing independent reports of cancers among city residents living in those areas at the time.
'This was a violation of all medical ethics, all international codes, and the military's own policy at that time,' said Professor Martino-Taylor.
  How To: Despite the extent of the experiment, local politicians were not notified about the content of the testing. In this picture, a man demonstrates how to spray the canisters
    School: The people of St Louis were told that the Army was testing smoke screens to protect cities from a Russian attack. A canister is positioned on top of a school in this photo
 'There is a lot of evidence that shows people in St. Louis and the city, in particular minority communities, were subjected to military testing that was connected to a larger radiological weapons testing project.'

Previous investigations of the compound were rebuffed by the military, which insisted it was safe. 

However, Professor Martino-Taylor believes the documents she's uncovered, prove the zinc cadmium silfide was also mixed with radioactive particles.
She has linked the St Louis testing to a now-defunct company called US Radium. The controversial company came under fire, and numerous lawsuits, after several of its workers were exposed to dangerous levels of radioactive materials in its fluorescent paint.
          Contaminated: The Army has admitted that it added a fluorescent substance to the 'harmless' compound, but whether or not the additive was radioactive remains classified  Exposed: In her research, she found that the greatest concentration of spraying in St Louis was at the Pruit-Igoe public housing complex, which was home to 10,000 low income residents. She said that 70 per cent of those residents were children under the age of 12
  'US Radium had this reputation where they had been found legally liable for producing a radioactive powdered paint that killed many young women who painted fluorescent watch tiles,' said Professor Martino-Taylor.
In her findings, one of the compounds that was sprayed upon the public was called 'FP2266', according to the army's documents, and was manufactured by US Radium. The compound, also known as Radium 226, was the same one that killed and sickened many of the US Radium workers.
The Army has admitted that it added a fluorescent substance to the 'harmless' compound, but whether or not the additive was radioactive remains classified.

Professor Martino-Taylor has not been able to find if the Army ever followed up on the long term health of the residents exposed to the compound. In 1972, the government destroyed the Pruitt-Igoe houses.
Upon learning of the professor's findings, Missouri lawmakers called on the Army to detail the tests.

'I share and understand the renewed anxiety of members of the St. Louis communities that were exposed to the spraying of (the chemicals) as part of Army tests during the Cold War,' Senator Claire McCaskill wrote to Army Secretary John McHugh.

'The impacted communities were not informed of the tests at the time and are reasonably anxious about the long term health impacts the tests may have had on those exposed to the airborne chemicals.'

Senator Roy Blunt called the findings 'absolutely shocking.'

'The idea that thousands of Missourians were unwillingly exposed to harmful materials in order to determine their health effects is absolutely shocking. It should come as no surprise that these individuals and their families are demanding answers of government officials,' Senator Blunt said.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210415/Revealed-Army-scientists-secretly-sprayed-St-Louis-radioactive-particles-YEARS-test-chemical-warfare-technology.html

[Lacenaire]

Voy a ver si puedo escanear el capítulo entero por si alguien se aburre (1ª parte)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ozjups