In the midst of this economic recession (or depression) the F.T.C. has been cracking down on debt collectors who ”harass consumers for money they may not even be legally obligated to pay.” This is good news for consumers who have found themselves for whatever reason unable to pay their debts in this economy.

In the second-largest penalty ever levied on a debt collector, the F.T.C. said that Asset Acceptance, one of the nation’s largest debt collection companies, had agreed to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty to settle charges that the company deceived consumers when trying to collect old debts.

The F.T.C. has ”pursued eight cases related to debt collection companies over the last two years.” The recent settlement with Asset Acceptance “is part of a broader effort to patrol the industry, agency officials said.”

Consumer complaints about debt collection companies consistently rank as the second-highest category among all complaints at the agency, behind identity theft. But in 2010, complaints jumped 17 percent to 140,036, which represented 11 percent of all complaints in the commission’s database, up from 119,540, or about 9 percent of complaints, in 2009.

It is noted in the NY Times article about this issue that “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the F.T.C. now share enforcement authority for debt collection companies, though the new bureau has a power that the F.T.C. did not: it can write new rules for debt collectors.”

If you are being harassed by debt collectors who use nefarious means do not hesitate to contact the F.T.C. and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to file complaints. These debt collectors who strong arm consumers with financial problems will not be stopped unless complaints are filed.

I slept the day away in hopes that I would feel better, but, today’s Ten Post Round-Up tells me I probably should crawl back into bed:

1: Shameful: US servicewomen more likely to be raped by fellow soldiers than killed by enemy fire…

At War With Ourselves: Battling Sexual Violence in the Military–AlterNet

2: Not A Surprise: Teenage girls adopting eating disorders from healthy eating messages at school…

‘Eating disorders fuelled by teachers’–The Australian

3: ACLU comes out in defense of polygamist ranch…

ACLU weighs in on Texas polygamist custody case–CNN.com

4: Florida fire hydrants to begin multi-tasking as spyware…

Florida Gets All Stasi On Citizens–duckplops

5: Smart: Bush sneaks into New Orleans, Not So Smart (?): To discuss expanding NAFTA…

José Can You See? Bush’s Trojan Taco–Greg Palast

6: Grandma’s weird Depression-era recipes are beginning to look good, now…

Food Rationing Makes Unwelcome Return–The Huffington Post

7: Oh, but flip-flops are so comfy, aren’t they?….

McCain: That was then (flip). This is now (flop).–Hypocrisy.com

8: Un-frak-ing-believable…

Judges deny some crack convicts legal help on sentences–McClatchy

9: Put this in perspective: The Army and Marines are recruiting individuals who would otherwise not be able to purchase or possess guns as civilians or be able to live in neighborhoods with a school nearby…

Army doubled felony waivers for recruits in year of Iraq surge–Raw Story

10: Oklahoma sheriff (D) works to up the ante of sexual predators vs (R)s…

Cain’t Say No–Reason Magazine

272 días hasta el final de un error…

Peace.

(I like my morning cuppa with a little hypocrisy chaser)

It’s smells like a pep rally burning out of control, in my front yard.  Today’s Ten Post Round-Up might singe your eyebrows:

1: What a relief! The Cheney sunglasses mystery is solved!…

Image In Cheney’s Glasses Actually Bush’s Eternal Soul–CAP News

2: Ahem–Attention American Taxpayers: You are supposed to squander your stimulus check NOT pay bills with it! Putting it away for your own benefit is not why we are sending it to you…

Economic Stimulus: Good for individuals or the overall economy, not both–Colorado Confidential

3: On the upside, those stimulus checks might come just in time for you to make the massive going-out-of-business sales, sure to be all the rage this summer…

More Economic Pain: Retailing Chains Caught in a Wave of Bankruptcies–The Democratic Daily

4: More “good” news…umm…the war in Iraq might come to an end, particularly if those stimulus checks don’t work out like they’re supposed to…

US Financial Collapse Will End Bush/Cheney Iraq War–duckplops

5: Some conservatives like to complain about all those “liberal activist judges”. Would you like to guess who the truly “activist judges” really are (pssst…they are conservative)…

So Much For The False “Activist Judges” Canard…–Firedoglake

6: Decisions, decisions: affordable food prices or less oil-dependency. Hmmm…those mud pies look really good…

Backlash Against Ethanol–Free Market News

7: Silver lining emerges after the military finally releases AP photographer…

At least this poor sot didn’t make it to Gitmo..–Its my Right to be Left of the Center

8: Even visitors are being ticketed for not having their vehicles registered in Washington, D.C….

Don’t Live in D.C.–Reason Magazine

9: Mystery of what happened to the good ship (snicker) Titanic still lingers after all these years ….

Rivets–Talking Points Memo

10: The plot thickens: It appears that the FLDS compound has a financial connection with the Pentagon…

BREAKING NEWS:::FUNDING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SECT…..NBC REPORTED TONIGHT–Watergate Summer

278 días hasta el final de un error…

Peace.

(I love the smell of hypocrisy in my morning cuppa)

Other than a very robust war policy, about the only discernible policy that BUSHCO has is their proprietary version of an energy policy, namely The Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Mind you, we can’t use any of our oil stockpile, because then it would not be available in case we face times even tougher than these. I mean, what would our military use to be able to wage war if OPEC were to ever stop it’s policy of price aggression and switch to some form of even more serious supply reduction aggression?

On the other hand, there would certainly be no problem in asking our troops to do without food should a true food shortage develop. Anyway I guess that there wouldn’t be a problem, because we certainly maintain no stockpile of food that can be said to be the functional equivalent of our oil reserve. And then I think about the disaster that would be occurring today if we were taking food off of the world market at the same rate that we are still pouring crude oil into some bottomless Louisiana salt dome. Wow, the whole thing makes my head spin trying to think about which is spiraling in price the fastest, oil or food.

It’s being said that the current “perfect storm” of food supply constrictions is partially influenced by a modicum of prosperity in Asia resulting in increased meat consumption (more grains being feed to raise poultry and livestock), and things like sugar cane and corn farm lands being devoted to creating ethanol for use in motor vehicles. But one would be remiss in not considering the affect of oil price increases on food cost/supply given the role that petroleum plays in supplying both fuel and fertilizer for agriculture.

My fantasy is a food/energy policy that would dump a few hundred million barrels of oil onto the world market cheaply and in a couple of weeks, along with an immediate moratorium on the use of ethanol made from food items. Could you imagine waking up some morning to food and gasoline prices dropping so rapidly that you could literally watch them go down?

But, anyway, enough of fantasies. Let’s concede that a Strategic Petroleum Reserve, at least in the hands of a Democratic administration, can actually serve a legitimate function. Would we not then also be forced to agree with the logic of managing food resources in some similar fashion?

But maybe our “energy policy” that aids OPEC/big oil exists only coincidentally. And maybe an impending situation of some vast number of people facing impending starvation really is of only minor consequence.

Call me naive, but I think that answers to these problems can be found if a major effort at the highest levels of world cooperation and organization is made. And I could be just plain old fashioned stupid, but I can still imagine some success in such an endeavor being possible if lead from our side by a Democratic President, and nothing even vaguely similar to any sort of a positive outcome being possible so long as we entrust the power of our national government to any person carrying the banner of the Republic Party.

This is so not a good sign:

Since last fall, eight mostly midsize chains — as diverse as the furniture store Levitz and the electronics seller Sharper Image — have filed for bankruptcy protection as they staggered under mounting debt and declining sales.

More on the way…

But the troubles are quickly spreading to bigger national companies, like Linens ‘n Things, the bedding and furniture retailer with 500 stores in 47 states. It may file for bankruptcy as early as this week, according to people briefed on the matter.

Even retailers that can avoid bankruptcy are shutting down stores to preserve cash through what could be a long economic downturn. Over the next year, Foot Locker said it would close 140 stores, Ann Taylor will start to shutter 117, and the jeweler Zales will close 100.

The surging cost of necessities has led to a national belt-tightening among consumers. Figures released on Monday showed that spending on food and gasoline is crowding out other purchases, leaving people with less to spend on furniture, clothing and electronics. Consequently, chains specializing in those goods are proving vulnerable.

It is STILL the ECONOMY — STUPID.

I can’t say I didn’t see this coming because I did. 

THE MOST SEVERE FAMINE EVER?

F*ck American conservatives! Just f*ck the rotten murdering bastards.

My wife is Filipino. A main food staple for the Philippines is rice. What we pay to buy food for her family back home has tripled in the last six months.

People are now starving to death in the Philippines. Mainly homeless people now, but people nonetheless. Sure beggars are still allowed to beg, but doing it no longer keeps them alive. They used to look to those one or two notches above them on the economic scale for help, but that source is either going or gone because of the cost of food. The well to do? They won’t give the time of day. They live in walled compounds, travel in guarded comfort, and have their security provided by the government that they’ve bought and paid for. The middle class? What middle class?

Seen the stories the past month or so about worker riots in places like Egypt, Bangladesh, Haiti and other places I didn’t pay enough attention to because it was only the news I’ve heard in the past few days that got me to properly focus? Worker riots in poor countries are always another way of saying that people can’t feed their families, because billions of people do modern labor on this planet with no purpose other than just that. With a full stomach, people will put up with even grave injustices. Facing starvation, any minor event can be the spark that sets the planet on fire.

Food prices are spiraling upward here, and we grumble about it. In fact, it’s even to the point where an occasional economist will point out that one factor deepening the current recession is that the cost of food is draining off discretionary income. And me, I was shocked when I went into Costco yesterday and couldn’t buy our favorite rice brand because it is no longer even on the market.

On the way to Costco I had the radio on a random news report and heard a small piece about world rice prices. The world largely depends on India and Thailand for rice exports, and India just put a moratorium on selling rice outside the country, to make sure that it can feed its own people. This move caused rice traders in Thailand to push the market price up by 40% in one week.

Oil prices skyrocket on us, and what do we do? Park the car, take the bus (for less money, I might add), and watch our economy slowly sink. Not pretty, but not something that pushes us into the streets.

Rice becomes unaffordable in the third World, and what happens? In Haiti, people eat mud pies to kill the hunger, and the starvation still takes them. In the Philippines the homeless eat nothing and die, while others avert their eyes and say a prayer of blessing that that isn’t their family today. In other countries people protest more vigorously, or less vigorously, but ultimately are still left with prayer as their last resort.

One planet, pushing seven billion people, and do you know the regulatory structure we have for dealing with world food supply problems? Other than that blood sucking scum of a doctrine called “supply and demand” we have a U.N. agency that gathers food donations where available, and takes them for distribution to where they might be needed. And now we face a situation where almost no one has food to spare, and almost everyone desperately needs more, and all we can do is acknowledge how pitifully prepared we are to deal with any true world crisis.

As for supply and demand? If we are dumb enough to put that conservative a*shole McCain in office, he will point out that the free market ended up working just fine. That is, “The demand for food exceeded the supply until enough poor people died that balance was reached again. Now let’s get down to truly serious issues, and figure out who we need to attack next to make sure that we get the respect from the rest of the planet that we, as Americans, are entitled to.”

American conservatives have battled human progress for at least my whole life. They have bitched and moaned about us being able to create a system to care for even our own. With them, it has always been survival of the fittest, with the fittest being those who survived, and f*ck everyone else.

And now the entire planet faces a potential crisis that we have nothing better than decent odds of stumbling through. A crisis that need not even have been. Planning sets priorities, but Democratic planning never sets as a priority the promotion of the welfare of the small minority who have far too much of every resource necessary for survival, while acting like most of us matter, really, not at all. Democratic planning, Democratic governance, knows, at a minimum, what constitutes the necessities of life, and assures both sufficient production, and adequate distribution of those necessities.

Our standard garden variety American conservatives, of course, damn all planning. They know allegiance only to the flawed god of supply and demand. They possess the damnable ability to sacrifice any consequence to this supremely flawed “principle”, and will bet every penny of their vast fortunes on its ultimate planetary dominance.

Goddamn those f*cking bastards!

A couple of days ago I noted here that most Americans are “glum” on economic progress in America.

As a small business owner I keep my eye on the economic news and I have contended here long before the media began to speak more frankly about the economic state of our nation, that the economy sucks.  

Today, AP News reports:

The nation’s retailers reported the weakest March sales in 13 years on Thursday as consumers — fretting about mounting economic problems and enduring a frigid Easter — limited their shopping to food and other essentials.

With prices at the pump rising and worries about jobs increasing, shoppers bought basics at discounters and wholesale clubs and snubbed mall-based chains’ clothing, jewelry and furniture. The earliest Easter in 95 years also hurt sales; shoppers weren’t in the mood to buy spring clothing in cold weather.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. were among the best performers. Wal-Mart raised its earnings outlook, noting that better inventory control helped to limit markdowns on merchandise.

Last months, The Conference Board, a business-backed group, said, “‘consumers’ outlook for the economy was the gloomiest in 35 years.” Contributing factors to the gloomy, glum outlook: “A deteriorating economy, soaring food and gas prices, limited credit and slumping home prices.”  

The Bush administration insists that economic growth should “revive this summer when 130 million households start spending their economic stimulus checks.” Good luck with that…

Janet Hoffman, managing partner of the North American retail division of Accenture, and other analysts believe that any sales lift at stores will only be temporary, however. And many believe that shoppers will use a chunk of the money to pay down debt.

Don’t hold your breath for things to improve anytime soon. The per barrel price for oil continues to rise and so does the price at the pumps.

Glum…

I’m on fire, right now, as I have a lot on my mind. I’m sure many of you are getting worked up about the same things that are sticking in my craw. Yet, when I try to express myself in a coherent fashion, it comes out on the page looking something like  ”akjf;laghoehtoieWTFgj;akjoijfoidjAHHHH!” Of course, I “know” what it says, but it’s impossible to translate.

I have plenty of time to think of these things, as I go about my daily tasks. I think “oh, how witty that will sound” and then I sit down to write and…I got nothin’!

Maybe I worry too much about censoring myself once I set down to my computer, trying not to offend anyone or at least, not offend them too much, especially with everyone on even higher alert and pointing to offenses more than usual during the current primary/caucus race. I think that I am coming to a point where I say fu…–I mean, “bleep” that (*wink*), I would rather lose friends than not be able to speak my mind. Of course, I will always be respectful when I am in a space (where you may be reading this) that does not belong to me, but I’m thinking it’s time for me to cut to the chase and actually say whatever the he…–I mean, “bleep” is on my mind.

That being said, there is some shi…–I mean, there are some things in today’s round-up that will definitely make you go “wtf?” So, why don’t we start off with a little soft shoe to ease you into it: Gregory Hines & Steve Martin Tap.

++++++++++

Try dancing around today’s Ten Post Round-Up:

1: If sisters are doing it for themselves, how come movies and television are not representing them properly?…

On-Screen Sex Ratios Add Up to One Big Negative–AlterNet

2: Things not so comfy cozy on the housing front between GWB and the GOP?…

Bush throws GOP Senators under the bus on the bi-partisan housing bill–AMERICAblog

3: Those rebate checks might not arrive in time to do the economy any good, but at least the average Jane and Joe can maybe pay off one more bill before finally hitting the skids…

It’s official now: George W. Bush is today’s Herbert Hoover–Brilliant at Breakfast

4: Milestones and reminders on the road to victory in Iraq: Are we there yet?…

Another anniversary!–Bring It On!

5: They’re gonna git cha, so ya better pay up!…

IRS Hunts Down “Tax Defiers”–The Huffington Post

6: They have all this money, yet, they are still relying on the US for financial help? Excuse me while I beat up my desk with my forehead…

Iraq’s Oil Profits–The J-Walk Blog

7: Just one more thing for the cash-strapped working poor to worry about: Fraudulent rental agreements that leave them out on the streets (after handing their first and last plus security to a complete stranger who disappears into the night)…

Scam Leaves 3 Families Moving Into Same House–NBC10.COM

8: In a “real” free-market system, this makes perfect sense. Everyone is going broke, you gotta be able to make money where you can and if the whole world suddenly is starving, the last thing a hungry fisherman is going to be concerned with is the purple-bellied flying carp and whether or not it’s extinct…

As Prices Rise, Farmers Spurn Conservation–New York Times

9: I miss the old “Dr.” Phil: “You shouldn’t shush a nation when a president decides he’s gonna go to war. If we ever need the First Amendment, we need it then”….

Phil Donohue Stands Up For Free Speech In A Time Of War–News Hounds

10: I’ve said it before, being a friend of GWB and company means never having to say you’re sorry…

Bush Justice in the Department of Just Us–Scatablog

Oh, I definitely need more coffee!

284 días hasta el final de un error…

Peace.

(yes, I suffer from head*desk syndrome)

In the WaPo today, “Most Americans Glum on Financial Progress”:

Offering the gloomiest assessment of personal economic progress in close to half a century, a new survey has found that most Americans think they have not made economic progress over the past five years, as their incomes have stagnated and they have increasingly borrowed money to finance their lifestyles.

As many Americans struggle with declining housing values, increasing food and energy prices and growing unemployment after a long period of flat wages, well over half of respondents said they are either losing ground economically or are stuck in the same place, according to the report released today by the Pew Research Center. Only four in 10 said they have moved forward in the past five years — a record low, Pew says, and far off the record 57 percent who in 1997 said they had moved forward in the previous five years.

The squeeze is particularly tight for those who are low-income and for the 53 percent of Americans who classify themselves as middle-class. Nearly four out of five middle-class adults say it is more difficult for people like them to maintain their standard of living. In 1986, fewer than two of three middle-class people shared that opinion.

Only two in five middle-class Americans say they “live comfortably,” while one in five says he or she is just able to meet expenses. The others say they are able to meet expenses with some money left. Overall, slightly more than half said they had to “tighten their belts” to adjust to the increasing economic pressure.

AP reports on another poll out today that shows that “Rising health care costs and the faltering economy are making consumers worry that they won’t be able to save enough for a comfortable retirement.”

Glum indeed. And finally, as a small business owner, I think it is important to note this from INC Magazine:

The nation’s small-business owners are cutting back on hiring and spending plans amid weaker sales and a bleaker outlook on business conditions, the National Federation of Independent Business reported Tuesday.

We need a president who has the right ideas about fixing the economy.