Society's ChildS


Chalkboard

Best of the Web: Empire collapsing: Half of Americans earn less than $27,520 a year... and 15 other signs the middle class is dying

Depression
© Sander van der Wel
If you make more than $27,520 a year at your job, you are doing better than half the country is. But you don't have to take my word for it, you can check out the latest wage statistics from the Social Security administration right here. But of course $27,520 a year will not allow you to live "the American Dream" in this day and age. After taxes, that breaks down to a good bit less than $2,000 a month. You can't realistically pay a mortgage, make a car payment, afford health insurance and provide food, clothing and everything else your family needs for that much money. That is one of the reasons why both parents are working in most families today. In fact, sometimes both parents are working multiple jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet.

Over the years, the cost of living has risen steadily but our paychecks have not. This has resulted in a steady erosion of the middle class. Once upon a time, most American families could afford a nice home, a couple of cars and a nice vacation every year. When I was growing up, it seemed like almost everyone was middle class. But now "the American Dream" is out of reach for more Americans than ever, and the middle class is dying right in front of our eyes.

Comment: It is necessary to start taking actions so as to be prepared for the coming collapse, as things will only get worse. Dmitry Orlov has written about it extensively and an alternative way forward.

See: The coming collapse: Age of limits 2014

Or listen to the Sott Talk Radio interview: Lessons from collapse of USSR for USA: Interview with Dmitry Orlov


Arrow Up

Soaring food prices and Abenomics' legacy: Japan's greatest "misery" in 33 years

Back in early 2013, in article after article, we warned that Abenomics would be an epic disaster. Actually we take that back: we said it would be an epic disaster for most of Japan's citizens. A select very few, just like in the US, would benefit greatly from the unprecedented asset reflation to follow the massive currency devaluation that the prime minister had just launched.

Over a year later, we find that we were yet again accurate in our forecast.

Meet Mieko Tatsunami, a 70 year old retired kimono dresser from Tokyo. Unlike the scores of paid actors ordered to pitch Abenomics and to spread the gospel of rising asset prices, Mieko shares a most rare commodity in this day of pervasive propaganda: the truth.

"The price of everything we eat on a daily basis is going up," Tatsunami, 70, a retired kimono dresser, said while shopping in Tokyo's Sugamo area. "I'm making do by halving the amount of meat I serve and adding more vegetables."

Ironically, that's what Americans are doing too. Only here the "halving" of the food is done by the food producers, while the consumers rarely if ever notice that they are being jobbed, and are paying the same amount for ever lesser amounts of food. At least in Japan they are honest about food inflation.

As Bloomberg shows, Tatsunami's concerns stem from the price of food soaring at the fastest pace in 23 years after April's sales-tax increase. Rising prices helped push the nation's misery index to the highest level since 1981, while wages adjusted for inflation fell the most in more than four years.
Japan misery index
© Unknown
Ah yes, the title. We weren't kidding. As of this moment, Japan's misery has not been higher in an entire generation! Its Misery index that is, which combines unemployment (3.6%) and inflation (3.4%), and results in an unprecedented 7.0%: the highest in 33 years!

People 2

German company asks for €100,000 on crowdfunding website to develop 'NSA-proof' server, gets €750,000 in 89 mins

Image
© Protonet
Developers of secure server Protonet asked for some $136,000 on a local crowdfunding website - and were rewarded with $1 million in an hour and a half. The record campaign, one year after Snowden's NSA leaks, ended with more than $2 million raised.

Hamburg-based startup Protonet, which launched its first private cloud device in July 2013 - a month after the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the scale of US internet surveillance - on Wednesday proved the spying scandal is still in full swing.

The small team of 23 asked for 100,000 euros in funding ($135,830) to support its products, including a new model of a secure server for small companies, on the German crowdfunding site Seedmatch. While Protonet had already raised twice as much on the same website last year, the developers were amazed at the speed the people responded to their cause.

Comment: This small example goes to show the extent of public discontent against government surveillance. With the psychopaths in power desperately tightening their grip, more and more people are waking up.


Stormtrooper

Psycho-bully Toronto cop goes "off the chart ballistic"


Militarized bully Cop didn't like me calling 911 to get a hold of a supervisor, so he went ballistic, beating on my window, ordering me out of the car so he could 'protect me' (cuff, stuff, taze and beat) and essentially acting like a wing nut who should not be dealing with the public. If bullies like him are walking around armed, the people who hire him and others like him will have nothing to complain about if the peace officers employed by The Canadian Common Corps of Peace Officers are armed as well.

Pistol

Seattle Pacific University campus shooting leaves one dead, three injured

Image
© AFP/Getty images/Justin Sullivan
One person has died of gunshot wounds and three other people were injured Thursday afternoon in a shooting on the campus of Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington. Police have one suspect in custody.

One female victim is still in critical condition, while two male victims are in "satisfactory" condition, Harborview Medical Center sources told KIRO. The four victims, each in their 20s, are all believed to be students of the university. Three of the four victims suffered gunshot wounds.

One suspected shooter is in custody, Seattle police told KIRO. The suspect was disarmed by university staff, according to police, after entering Otto Miller Hall on the university's campus.

A building monitor confronted the shooter, according to police, as the suspect was reloading a shotgun. The monitor, a student, pepper-sprayed and tackled the suspect, then was joined by other individuals in neutralizing the shooter before police arrived.

Info

Top EU court rules individuals have 'right to be forgotten': Google must amend results

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© Georges Gobet/AFP/Getty ImagesGoogle had argued that it did not control personal data and should not have to act as censor.
Individuals have right to control their data and can ask search engines to remove results, says European court

The top European court has backed the "right to be forgotten" and said Google must delete "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" data from its results when a member of the public requests it.

The test case privacy ruling by the European Union's court of justice against Google Spain was brought by a Spanish man, Mario Costeja González, after he failed to secure the deletion of an auction notice of his repossessed home dating from 1998 on the website of a mass circulation newspaper in Catalonia.

Costeja González argued that the matter, in which his house had been auctioned to recover his social security debts, had been resolved and should no longer be linked to him whenever his name was searched on Google.

He told the Guardian: "Like anyone would be when you tell them they're right, I'm happy. I was fighting for the elimination of data that adversely affects people's honour, dignity and exposes their private lives. Everything that undermines human beings, that's not freedom of expression."

Comment: On the surface, it seems like a good thing that one can exercise their "right to be forgotten" on the internet, but one wonders who will use this court ruling to erase an unsavory, depraved past?


Books

One more reason higher (and all) public education is in trouble

highest salaries in states
© deadspin.com
A picture sure is worth a lot of words.... The above map, from here, really demonstrates how completely insane higher education has become.

That's a map of highest paid public employees, by state.

State by state, every state, the highest paid public employee is in higher education. Not the governor, not a senator, not some life-saver...but someone in higher education.

Yes, most of it is coaches, so I guess the time for me to talk about the immense fraud of college athletics draws nigh...but the fact remains, higher education is a system of plunder, devoid of integrity. All the money poured into higher education has not gone to education, or to educators.

And the picture tells the tale.

Airplane Paper

Symbolic! Second fighter jet crashes in California within 24 hours

Fighter jet lands on warship
© ru.wikipedia.org
Two US Navy fighter planes crashed in California, CBS reported on Thursday.

The first incident occurred at 16:20 local time on Wednesday. An AV-8B Harrier fighter jet crashed in El Centro, a residential neighborhood near the US-Mexican border, 120 kilometers from San Diego.

At least two houses caught fire, but no one was hurt. The pilot also managed to eject safely. The crashed jet was stationed at MCAS Yuma and attached to the Miramar-based Third Marine Aircraft Wing.

Later on the same night, at 22:00 local time an F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet crash landed into the sea when attempting to land on the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, CBS reported.

The plane sank, but the pilot was able to eject into the sea and was later recovered and brought on board. The planes still in the air were diverted to the Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego.

Comment: Military Harrier jet crashes into residential area in California


Cow Skull

'Nine meals away from anarchy' - Our food supply: When it's gone...it's gone

It's often said that we are only nine meals from anarchy. The theory behind the saying is simple. Most people have no more than a three day supply of food in their homes, and that equates to nine meals before they start to go hungry.
empty store shelves food shortages
Some believe that many governments would take advantage of this and use it against their own people in times of civil unrest. History shows us there is justification for holding this view.

The delivery and supply chain employed by major stores across the world is very simple and designed to increase profits by reducing waste.

Each time a barcode is scanned at the checkout it sends a message to the warehouse that a particular item has been sold. Warehouse staff restock the shelves having scanned the barcode on the boxes they are unpacking. That triggers a message to a distribution centre, where a tally is kept and the required number of boxes, each full of an individual item, will then be dispatched on the next truck heading to that store.

This system is why you may be told " We are having some more in tomorrow madam" They really are, they know that if it is not in the store it is in the distribution centre/truck and it will be arriving the next day.

There are of course other systems that come into play. Large stores that sell clothing etc will have sales projected on what they sold during the same season the previous year and that will be the stock starting point.
There is a couple of major flaws in this just in time delivery system, namely that it assumes what is true today will also be true tomorrow, and that it relies on electricity.
With the war that is being waged against coal in the name of protecting the environment this is a rather stupid policy. The UK has already had warnings from energy providers that lack of investment is likely to lead to rolling blackouts within the next couple of years.

Comment: The best preparation you can do is to optimize your health with a diet that maximizes nutrition with minimal food input. Given the rise in world-wide weather anomalies, a good supply of canned meat and high-quality fats is far more reliable than a garden plot.


Airplane

Mysterious noise picked up in ocean on day MH370 vanished

A mystery underwater sound recorded at the time missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished is being investigated by Australian researchers
Flight MH370
© Press Association/Associated PressFlight MH370 disappeared three months ago
The low-frequency noise was picked up by underwater listening devices in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia on March 8, the same day that the stricken plane carrying 239 people disappeared.

Researchers are analysing the signal to determine whether it could be the noise of the jet crashing into the ocean.

Search teams have been working on the theory that the plane, which was meant to be heading to China, instead went south before crashing into a remote part of the Indian Ocean.

Despite extensive underwater searches of an area narrowed down by authorities, no sign of the missing Boeing 777 has been found.

Researcher Alec Duncan, of Curtin University in Western Australia, acknowledged that the sound being analysed by his team fell outside of the projected flight path officials believed the plane took.

He said: "It's one of these situations where you find yourself willing it all to fit together but it really doesn't.

"I'd love to be able to sit here and say, 'Yeah, we've found this thing and it's from the plane' - but the reality is, there's a lot of things that make noise in the ocean."

He said there was about a 20 per cent chance of the noise being linked to the missing plane, adding that it could have been caused by a natural event such as a small earthquake.

The International Air Transport Association has said that plans to improve global tracking will be ready in September, to make sure there is "no repeat" of the mystery surrounding the fate of flight MH370.