All The News That's Fit To Blog

Here’s all the news you need to know this week, all wrapped up in one tidy article. Read this and you can sleep in until Sunday! Guaaarunteeed.

● Apple: Obama just vetoed the ruling of the International Trade Commission which said that Apple could not sell old iPhones because they used a technology that infringed upon a patent held by Samsung. This seems like a head scratcher. After all, patent rights are ownership rights and if Apple wants to use Samsung’s stuff, they should pay for a license, right? But there’s another angle to this that I only read about the other day. Apparently, the technology in question was something Samsung agreed could be used as an “industry standard.” That throws a different light on this. Essentially, they agreed that their invention could be viewed as public domain and that the whole industry could build around it. If you do that, then you really shouldn’t have the right to later claim ownership of it again and demand a fee for the use of that. So I agree with Obama on this.

● Detroit: They say there’s a serial killer on the loose in Detroit. I have a hard time believing anyone in Detroit has the kind of dedication it takes to become a serial anything.

● Big Terror: We’re told that al Qaeda has something “big” planned for the coming season. I’m not entirely sure what this means, but I think Big Lots and Shoney’s Big Boy should hire more security. In all seriousness, this kind of proves that al Qaeda wasn’t wiped out by the O, doesn’t it? When Team Obama claimed they had all but destroyed al Qaeda that struck me as a total fraud the moment they said it. You can’t kill an organization like this by killing its members, by choking off its money, or by killing its leaders. Organizations like this die from indifference, not bullets, and as long as they have things they can use to whip up retarded Arabs and Africans, they will have a steady flow of morons to carry out their plans... “Yes, Jobu, Americans took your lunch money.”

Anyway, what does this tell us? Well, it tells us that all the bombings and invasions over there have pretty much been a waste. It’s time for a strategic rethink.

● Goldman Sachs: I’ve been saying for sometime that these big Wall Street banks are a menace, and that they are enriching themselves not through capitalism, but by forcing themselves into transactions as unneeded middlemen through crooked regulations. A perfect example of this has just arisen and, as of now, I commend the Justice Department for getting off their butts and thinking about doing something about it.

Here’s the set up. A few years back, our government changed the rules to let investment banks dabble in hard assets, e.g. buy actual metals rather than contracts. Goldman Sachs took advantage of this and bought a huge warehouse complex in the Detroit area in February 2010. This warehouse collects aluminum directly from makers and then ships it to purchasers when they are ready. It holds about 42% of the aluminum shipped to the US in any one year. When Goldman purchased the warehouse, it took around 3-6 weeks to turn around an order and get people their aluminum. Now it takes more than a year. Goldman claims it’s just that hard to find anyone’s order.

So people complained to the London Metal Exchange, the industry-created regulatory body that regulates warehouses. But guess who sits on the board of the LME? Goldman. Also, the LME gets funded by a kickback from warehouse rents. To “solve” this, the LME passed a rule requiring warehouses to move a certain amount of product out of the warehouses each day. But here’s the catch. They don’t say “deliver,” they just say move. So Goldman has drivers taking aluminum from one warehouse to another.

Why would Goldman do this? For one thing, they’re collecting $165 million a year in rent doing this. But that’s not the real purpose. The real purpose is to manipulate the price of aluminum by creating a shortage by keeping what is produced from reaching the market. Estimates are this scheme has increased the price of aluminum by $40 a ton. That works out to around $0.02 to $0.05 of every can of soda sold to a couple hundred dollars of every car. It is estimated that these faked delays cost consumers $3 billion a year. Companies like Coke have complained and have even taken to having their aluminum shipped directly to their plants by the makers, but they are still paying the higher aluminum prices that have resulted.

Think about that. Goldman has used a phony regulatory agency to let it inject itself into the aluminum market as an unneeded middle man, where it has injected waste into the marketplace to jack up its own profits. That has nothing to do with capitalism. It has nothing to with helping consumers or producers. This is about enriching Goldman at the expense of everyone else and using regulatory extortion to do it. Fortunately, the Justice Department is now investigating this as anti-competitive behavior. Probably not coincidentally, JP Morgan just announced they are getting out of the physical commodities business... they were about to try the same thing with copper. Goldman still owns this and other metals warehouses. Isn’t it about time someone looked at Goldman for what it is? A RICO enterprise.

● Uh, No: If you have to announce something, then it's probably not true. Zooey Deschanel decided this week she needed to deny the fact that she's stupid. She said, "I am an intelligent person." Uh, huh. The girl is a rock. And White Trash Barbie Miley Cyrus (or is it Smiley Virus?) felt she had to announce that she works hard. Yep, she's "not a ratchet white girl," which the Urban Dictionary defines as "ghetto diva." Uh, huh. Nice try girls.

● McDonalds: Leave McDonalds alone, Mofos! The left is waging a coordinated campaign against McDonalds right now. They want to unionize the place and raise wages. To do this, they’ve attacked McDonalds for not paying a “living wage” and they claim that doubling salaries would only increase the cost of the noble Big Mac by $0.68 cents. Interestingly, the study they are using was discredited because the guy who did it misread the numbers and compared only the labor costs of McDonalds corporate against the profits of the entire chain. So whoops, that $0.68 cents idea is total crap... much like Wendy’s new burger. Yeah, I don’t know, it looked so much better than it was. Sigh. Anyway, besides not understanding how to read a balance sheet, this tool also doesn’t seem to understand that once you start raising prices, consumers go elsewhere... silly commie.

Ultimately though, here’s the biggest point in this debate: No, McDonalds does not pay a “living wage,” i.e. a wage that will make you upper-middle class. No ever claimed they did, because you’re not supposed to make being a burger jockey a career choice. They’re called “entry level” jobs because they are intended for people who are just starting to build a work history. If you prove you can do that, then you move up quickly onto what is called “the career path.” That’s when you start making the kind of money you can live on. Retards.