March 29, 2016

Bank of America, Microsoft Denounce NC’s Anti-LGBT Law, but Fund Politicians Who Passed It

(The Intercept) BANK OF AMERICA, Lowe’s, Microsoft, and American Airlines all have two things in common: They have strongly criticized North Carolina’s new law that prevents local governments from prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and money from their affiliated political action committees helped put the politicians who passed the law in office.

Representatives from Bank of America and Lowe’s declined to answer questions from The Intercept about whether they plan to stop contributing to the responsible politicians. American Airlines’s corporate communications manager stated, “We don’t discuss future contributions.” Microsoft did not respond to inquiries before publication.

The North Carolina law, which has been widely condemned in the business world, as well as by Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, was an initiative of the state’s Republican Party, which controls both houses of the state legislature. The bill passed the North Carolina House 83-25 and the state Senate 32-0 after all the Senate Democrats walked out; it was signed into law by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory.

Charlotte-based Bank of America said last Thursday in response to the law’s passage that the company “has been steadfast in our commitment to nondiscrimination and to our LGBT employees. … We support public policies that support nondiscrimination.”

However, Bank of America’s PAC has been a consistent, significant contributor to Gov. McCrory; Phil Berger, president pro tempore of the state Senate; Tim Moore, speaker of the state House; and the North Carolina Republican Party. The Bank of America PAC’s treasurer is Wendy Jamison, who is also Bank of America’s senior vice president for public policy. ...............(more)

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/28/bank-of-america-microsoft-denounce-north-carolinas-anti-lgbt-law-but-fund-politicians-who-passed-it/

March 29, 2016

If nothing else, this campaign season is exposing our amazingly undemocratic election system...

......including the 'Superdelegate' farce.


via truthdig:



Bernie Sanders crushed Hillary Clinton in Washington’s caucuses Saturday, yet state Rep. Rick Larsen, a superdelegate, is ready to vote for her anyway. Sanders backers flooded Larsen’s Facebook account, demanding that he honor the will of his constituents.

“Superdelegates,” explained The Guardian’s Trevor Timm in February, are roughly 700 members of Congress, governors, mayors and other party elites “who aren’t elected by anyone during the primary process and are free to vote any way they want at the (nominating) convention.”

Washington voters overwhelmingly favored Sanders over Clinton, 72 percent to 27 percent, in Saturday’s Democratic caucus. The Vermont senator carried every county in the state—and voters in Whatcom County, where Larsen keeps an office, chose Sanders by 81 percent.

Roughly one day after the results came in, the following graphic appeared on the Facebook walls of social media users across the state:



....(snip).....

A petition urging other Washington state Democratic superdelegates to support the candidate chosen by the electorate garnered 25,800 signatures by mid-Monday. Those officials, all of whom publicly backed Hillary Clinton, include Gov. Jay Inslee, U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, and U.S. Reps. Jim McDermott, Suzan DelBene, Adam Smith, Denny Heck and Derek Kilmer. ...............(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/wash_voters_descend_on_superdelegate_who_supports_clinton_20160328

March 28, 2016

Climate Disruption in Overdrive: Submerged Cities and Melting That "Feeds on Itself"

Climate Disruption in Overdrive: Submerged Cities and Melting That "Feeds on Itself"

Monday, 28 March 2016 12:28
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report


As the presidential campaign circus dominates headlines across the US, glaring signs the planet is undergoing abrupt anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) abound.

A major study published in Nature Climate Change shows that the planet is warming a stunning 50 times faster than when it comes out of an ice age. The implications of the rapidity of this warming, for those who care to digest it emotionally, are horrifying.

The study shows that even if carbon reduction targets are achieved and the planet's temperature is kept below the 2 degree Celsius warming threshold, sea-level rise will still inundate major coastal cities around the world, forcing one-fifth of the total world population of humans to migrate away from the coasts. New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, Jakarta, Cairo, Kolkata and Shanghai will all be underwater.

As though to reinforce this point, NASA recently released data confirming that February was the warmest month ever measured globally, at 1.57 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial baseline temperature average. The new record easily smashed the old global temperature record, which was set just one month before, in January.

This means that while it took from the advent of the industrial age until October 2015 to warm the planet 1 degree Celsius, humans have managed to warm the planet another .57 degrees Celsius in just the next four months since then. ...........(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35398-climate-disruption-in-overdrive-submerged-cities-and-melting-that-feeds-on-itself

March 28, 2016

The best-selling airplane of all time may not be No. 1 for much longer

(MarketWatch) It didn’t start off as a winner, and its maker considered canceling it. It has climbed, however, to the post of world’s top-selling commercial airplane of all time, a flying workhorse for airlines and the millions who fly on it everyday.

The little twinjet that could is, of course, the Boeing Co. BA, -1.05% 737. Anyone who has spent time at an airport in the last 20 years will have at least seen it, although its main competitor is nipping at its heels.

“If you are looking for the winner, the answer is clear,” said aviation consultant George Hamlin.

According to Boeing, the company has taken orders for 13,298 737s, with first orders in 1965, and has delivered nearly 9,000 of those orders.

In recent years, however, the Airbus 320, also a twin-engine, single-aisle plane, has been gaining ground. Boeing’s European competitor Airbus Group launched the A320 in 1988, and since then has taken 12,463 orders and delivered nearly 7,000 planes in the A320 family. ...................(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-best-selling-airplane-of-all-time-may-not-be-no-1-for-much-longer-2016-03-19

March 28, 2016

NYC's Newest Subway Station Is Leaking

[font size="1"]NY Post[/font]

(WNYC) The 34th Street-Hudson Yards station opened to great fanfare last September. The first new subway station in over 25 years, it's meant to do great things — namely, anchor the city's redevelopment of the far West Side.

So it's a bit of the buzzkill for the agency to have the crown jewel of the system be described in the press as a mess. Specifically, "a crumbling hot mess," "a disgusting, moldy mess," or a just plain "watery mess."

MTA Capital Construction president Dr. Michael Horodniceanu put it more pragmatically at the agency's recent board meeting:

"The fact that we have leaks is evidence that the waterproofing system is not performing as intended," he said Monday, adding that the agency knew about leaks as long ago as the summer of 2012 and directed its subcontracter, Yonkers Contracting Company, to remediate them.

He added that the material Yonkers had used to waterproof the station was different than the one the MTA had specified, "but it was believed to be equal." ......................(more)

http://www.wnyc.org/story/mta-says-subcontractor-must-pay-leak-fixes-hudson-yards/

March 28, 2016

“Spike in Defaults”: Standard & Poor’s Gets Gloomy, Blames Fed

“Spike in Defaults”: Standard & Poor’s Gets Gloomy, Blames Fed
by Wolf Richter • March 27, 2016


[font color="blue"]“Hangover from years of lenient credit may become painful.”[/font]

Credit rating agencies, such as Standard & Poor’s, are not known for early warnings. They’re mired in conflicts of interest and reluctant to cut ratings for fear of losing clients. When they finally do warn, it’s late and it’s feeble, and the problem is already here and it’s big.

So Standard & Poor’s, via a report by S&P Capital IQ, just warned about US corporate borrowers’ average credit rating, which at “BB,” and thus in junk territory, hit a record low, even “below the average we recorded in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 credit crisis.”

The one-year average default rate for US companies with a credit rating of B- is 9.8%, according to Standard & Poor’s. That’s a 1-in-10 chance that the company will default over the next 12 months. Companies getting downgraded deep into junk and issuing more low-grade bonds are precursors to soaring defaults. ...............(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/03/27/sp-gets-bearish-sees-spike-in-defaults-blames-fed/

March 28, 2016

RTA Update on Rapid Transit Plans to be Shared at Public Meetings

http://www.detroittransit.org/rta/

RTA Update on Rapid Transit Plans to be Shared at Public Meetings


The RTA is working to address one of the biggest gaps in southeast Michigan’s transit: the complete lack of rapid transit throughout our region. Planning is underway for Bus Rapid Transit on Woodward, Gratiot and Michigan Avenues and for regional commuter rail connecting Detroit to Ann Arbor.

You’re invited to, and asked to RSVP for, a series of public open house meetings to learn the latest plans, ask questions, and share your ideas and concerns:

• Tuesday March 29, 4:00 – 7:00 pm
At Aloft Detroit at the David Whitney building, 1 Park Avenue in downtown Detroit
• Wednesday, March 30, 4:00 – 7:00 pm
At The Collaborative: 21 N. Main Street, in downtown Mt Clemens
• Thursday, March 31, 4:00 – 7:00 pm
At Shinola Ann Arbor, 301 S. Main Street, in downtown Ann Arbor
• Saturday, April 2, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm
At The Crofoot Ballroom, 1 S. Saginaw Street in downtown Pontiac

Note: All events are open house style, so you can stop by anytime within the posted hours. The information presented at each meeting will be largely the same (although with varying emphasis), so attend the one that is most convenient for you.

March 26, 2016

Port Authority's Grand Compromise Yields New Bus Terminal, and Tensions

(WNYC) Usually, political horse trading goes on behind closed doors. But at the Port Authority's most recent board meeting, it was on full display, in all its tension-infused glory.

New York Gov. Cuomo has made airport modernization a theme of his administration, and rebuilding LaGuardia's Central Terminal Building is one of his priorities. It's the responsibility of his appointee, Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye, to move that ball down the field.

But sometimes priorities of the two states don't mesh, and this was one of them.

The authority's chairman, New Jersey Gov. Christie appointee John Degnan, had previously said he wouldn't support the LaGuardia project because it was too expensive. But he changed his mind after board members agreed to support one of his key projects: to fund — and build — a new Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan.

"I am at the Port Authority to get things done," Degnan said, explaining his change of heart. "We did just that earlier in this meeting when the board committed to a new bus terminal in Manhattan and rejected the misguided notion of pursuing such a facility in New Jersey." ...................(more)

http://www.wnyc.org/story/bruising-port-authority-board-meeting-yields/

March 26, 2016

The Big Unwind Hits Investment Banking

The Big Unwind Hits Investment Banking
by Wolf Richter • March 24, 2016


The meme has been that central-bank-imposed low interest rates and negative interest rates are killing bank earnings, and that oil-and-gas loan loss reserves maul what’s left of these earnings. But it’s tough for banking all around, as the global QE bonanza is bumping into real-world limits. And the Big Unwind has started.

For investment banking revenues, a key income source for “systemically important” banks, it has been one heck of a terrible first quarter, according to Dealogic’s preliminary Global IB Strategy Review. And the damage will show up in earnings reports soon.

If, in the list of fee mayhem below, you frequently stumble across phrases like “plunged,” “plummeted,” “lowest since Q1 2009” when the bond market imploded during the Financial Crisis, or “lowest since Q1 2001” when the dotcom and IPO bubble imploded, it’s because that’s the kind of quarter it has been for investment banks and their lifeblood: extracting big-fat fees coming and going.

.....(snip).....

Barring a financial crisis, it is hard to imagine a worse quarter for the big banks engaged in investment banking. And yet, it’s just the beginning. Banks have been at the epicenter of the great credit bubble. They’ve benefited from it. They’ve sucked it dry. They’ve become bigger and fatter and paid out record bonuses for years. But now the Great Unwind has arrived. .........(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/03/24/the-big-unwind-of-investment-banking/

March 26, 2016

The Empire Files: Understanding Marxism and Socialism with Richard Wolff

Published on Mar 18, 2016

Despite a concerted effort by the U.S. Empire to snuff out the ideology, a 2016 poll found young Americans have a much more favorable view of socialism than capitalism.

Though he died 133 years ago, the analysis put forward by one of the world’s most influential thinkers, Karl Marx, remains extremely relevant today. The Empire’s recent rigged presidential election has been disrupted by the support of an avowed socialist, Bernie Sanders, by millions of voters.

To find out why Marx’s popularity has stood the test of time, Abby Martin interviews renowned Marxist economist Richard Wolff, Professor Emeritus of Economics at UMass - Amherst, and visiting professor at the New School in New York.

Prof. Wolff gives an introduction suited for both beginners and seasoned Marxists, with comprehensive explanations of key tenets of Marxism including dialectical and historical materialism, surplus value, crises of overproduction, capitalism's internal contradictions, and more.

http://multimedia.telesurtv.net/v/the-empire-files-522625/