Paul Craig Roberts on the US plutocracy

Since SE and I are in the process of finishing off whatever remains of our conservative readers, this recent article by Paul Craig Roberts was just too good to pass up. ;)

Evidence that the US is a failed state is piling up faster than I can record it.
One conclusive hallmark of a failed state is that the crooks are inside the government, using government to protect and to advance their private interests.
Another conclusive hallmark is rising income inequality as the insiders manipulate economic policy for their enrichment at the expense of everyone else.

Income inequality in the US is now the most extreme of all countries. The 2008 OECD report, "Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries," [PDF]concludes that the US is the country with the highest inequality and poverty rate across the OECD and that since 2000 nowhere has there been such a stark rise in income inequality as in the US...

...The stark increase in US income inequality in the 21st century coincides with the offshoring of US jobs, which enriched executives with "performance bonuses" while impoverishing the middle class, and with the rapid rise of unregulated OTC derivatives, which enriched Wall Street and the financial sector at the expense of everyone else.

Millions of Americans have lost their homes and half of their retirement savings while being loaded up with government debt to bail out the banksters who created the derivative crisis.

Read the rest here.

But for now...on to the next batch of victims! College graduates.

As jobs become increasingly scarce, more and more college graduates are working for free, at internships, which is great for employers but something of a handicap for a young man or woman who has to pay for food or a place to live.

“The whole idea of apprenticeships is coming back into vogue, as it was 100 years ago,” said John Noble, director of the Office of Career Counseling at Williams College. “Certain industries, such as the media, TV, radio and so on, have always exploited recent graduates, giving them a chance to get into a very competitive field in exchange for making them work for no — or low — pay. But now this is spreading to many other industries.”

Bah, humbug. When will these spoiled brats learn to stop complaining? Aren't they aware that they're supposed to "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?" (Cue story about some 19th century douche bag who was born poor but became a millionaire.)

Stop complaining about your terrible circumstances. The rich needed your money to buy new cruise ships for each of their islands. Stop being greedy and pay for their bail-outs.

Outsourced, Homeless and Blogging

An unemployed, skilled IT worker, now homeless:

outsourcedandhomeless.com (h/t to Noslaves.com)


While qualified American tech workers are sleeping in their cars, companies are running sham ads under U.S. Department of Labor rules that require them to first show that there are no willing and qualified U.S. workers for the position, before hiring a foreign worker sponsored under an H-1B visa.

These ads are called PERM (Program Electronic Review Management) Ads (see this "one-stop" service for the "Employer/Sponsor").

When an employer wishes to sponsor an H-1b worker for a green card, they are required to run a few ads in the Sunday newspaper as "good faith" recruitment to demonstrate that no qualified Americans are available for the position.

...

The employer has no intention of hiring any of the applicants - there is no job opening since the H-1b worker already holds the position. The employer only runs these ads so that they can submit copies of them to DOL along with the green card application.

...

The ads are fraud upon the unemployed readers who take the time to respond to these ads.-Majority of Tech Help Wanted in Sacramento Bee are PERM Sham Ads