Apr 03

Today’s News 3rd April 2018

  • Israel Announces Deal To Resettle African Migrants In Western Countries; Hours Later Netanyahu Walks Back

    Hours after Israel announced the planned resettlement of 16,250 African migrants to Canada, Italy and Germany – which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was a “good agreement” which “protects the interests of the state of Israel,” – Netanyahu reversed course – “pausing” the deal struck with the U.N.

    The U.N. deal would have seen Israel absorb the other half of the country’s roughly 35,000 African migrants.

    In a Monday tweet, Netanyahu said he will review the agreement when he meets with the Minister of the Interior on Tuesday morning.

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    Most of the refugees came from Eritrea and Sudan – beginning their migration in 2005 after neighboring Egypt violently put down a refugee demonstration and “word spread of safety and job opportunities in Israel,” reports AP.

    While Israel’s border wall, completed in 2012, stopped the influx, the country has been divided on what to do about refugees who made it before its erection – with some Israelis arguing that Israel has a special responsibility to take in those in need. “Groups of Israeli doctors, academics, poets, Holocaust survivors, rabbis and pilots had also objected to the planned expulsion,” notes AP, while others, such as Netanyahu, believe the migrants threaten Israel’s “interests.”

    Tens of thousands crossed the porous desert border before Israel completed a barrier in 2012 that stopped the influx. But Israel has struggled with what to do with those already in the country, alternating between plans to deport them and offering them menial jobs in hotels and local municipalities.

    Thousands of the migrants concentrated in poor neighborhoods in south Tel Aviv, an area that has become known as “Little Africa.” Their presence has sparked tensions with working-class Jewish residents, who have complained of rising crime and pressed the government to take action. –AP

    Prior to Monday’s announced UN resettlement deal (which is now “paused,”), Israel threatened migrants with prison – placing them in a new-shuttered desert detention camp and offering them money and a one-way ticket back to Africa. When that failed, Israel announced plans to send them all to an unnamed African country believed to either be Uganda or Rwanda, on April 1.

    The plan was scrapped, according to Netanyahu, when the planned “third country” which he did not identify, could not handle the influx.

    “From the moment in the past few weeks that it became clear that the third country as an option doesn’t exist, we basically entered a trap where all of them would remain,” he said – describing Monday’s compromise with Canada, Italy and Germany as the best available option.

    The U.N. refugee agency said it signed a framework of common understanding “to promote solutions for thousands of Eritreans and Sudanese living in Israel.” The UNHCR said it will work to relocate about 16,000 Sudanese and Eritrean nationals and that others will receive “suitable legal status in Israel.” –AP

    A debate raged on Twitter following both the announced resettlement and Netanyahu’s rescinding of the deal he signed just hours before.  

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    It will be interesting to see what Netanyahu and the Interior Minister decide on in the coming days – perhaps only to un-decide hours later.

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  • France Risks War With Fellow NATO Member Turkey In Effort To Prop Up Syrian Rebels

    Authored by Darius Shahtahmasebi via TheAntiMedia.org,

    U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent surprise announcement that he plans to withdraw the United States military from Syria “very soon” and that he will let “the other people take care of it now” may be more telling of what’s to come than the mainstream media would have us believe.

    The indication that Trump may let the “other people take care of it now” might appear, on the face of it, to refer to regional players and prominent backers like Russia and Iran, which have helped guide the course of the Syrian conflict to an almost certain victory for the Syrian government.

    But what if Trump is actually opening the door for another Western imperial power to try its hand at taking on Syria for itself?

    According to Reuters, France is looking to increase its military presence in Syria to help the U.S.-backed coalition in its so-called fight against ISIS. France has warned that a planned Turkish assault on these U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Manbij would be “unacceptable,” according to a presidential source.

    On Thursday of last week (incidentally, the same day as Donald Trump’s surprise announcement), French President Emmanuel Macron met with a Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) delegation that included the YPG militia, which Turkey has expressly designated a terrorist entity. According to Reuters, a senior Kurdish official said Macron had promised to send more troops to the area as part of the U.S.-backed coalition’s efforts and, in essence, to present a buffer between the Kurds and Turkey.

    “France doesn’t foresee any new military operation on the ground in northern Syria outside of the international coalition,” Reuters’ source said.

    “(But) if the president felt that, in order to achieve our goals against Islamic State, we needed a moment to bolster our military intervention, then we should do it, but it would be within the existing framework,” the source said, without elaborating further, according to Reuters.

    Some local reports are alleging that France was even contemplating sending French special forces to the Syrian city of Manbij, where Turkey is currently gearing up for an invasion of its own.

    France has reportedly denied that it is planning a military build-up in Syria but has still offered to mediate between the Kurds and Turkey, an offer Ankara instantly rejected.

    Interestingly enough, no media reports on these issues ask the much-needed questions regarding France’s legal basis for sending troops into Syrian territory in the first place. Never mind that Turkey has warned sternly against the move, threatening that France could become a target for the Turkish military; it bears reminding that the territory doesn’t belong to France or Turkey, anyway. Any additional military presence should at the very least be initiated in accordance with international legal norms and principles.

    While much of the discourse in Syria has focused on what the Assad government is allegedly doing, no one has really bothered to question the extent of France’s involvement in Syria already to date. Last week, Turkish press agency Anadolu published a map purportedly showing French military positions in Syria, including five military bases in northeastern Syria where close to 70 French soldiers may be operating.

    Anadolu also reported in mid-March that France’s top military official had already warned that France had the means to intervene in Syria independently of the U.S. and its allies, specifically in relation to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons.

    While it still remains to be seen, it seems more than possible that if the Trump administration decides to take a backseat in this next phase of the Syrian conflict, the driver’s seat may be passed on to France, instead, which is reportedly looking to take the reins and involve itself even further in the country despite having any legal basis to do so.

  • The American Revolution In Two Acts

    Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

    The American colonies were made up of people who could not accept the downward progression in Europe and said, “I’m leaving.” That took great courage, as they were leaving their few known comforts for unknown difficulties.

    However, once they had made the move and overcome the difficulties of settlement, they understood that their courage had been rewarded. Such people never look back and say, “Maybe we shouldn’t have left.”

    There can be little doubt that they taught their children and grandchildren the values of courage, determination, hard work, and self-reliance. And more and more immigrants were added to their numbers, each of whom was also courageous enough to abandon Europe for freedom and opportunity. They raised generations of people with a “pioneer spirit.”

    Not surprisingly, then, that when the American colonists were squeezed by King George for increases in tax, it wasn’t difficult for them to refuse. They chose to go it alone, rather than allow the British king to steal the fruits of their labours.

    Although the tax level at that time was a mere 2%, it was the principle that taxation is theft that angered them. Further, they had already proven to themselves that they had all the character qualities necessary to determine their own future.

    And so, in a sense, the American Revolution was Act II of the quest for freedom and, of the two challenges, it may have been the easier one to face.

    However, the America of the late eighteenth century is not the America of today – and the outcome will not be the same for Americans in the present era.

    It’s important to remember that only a very small percentage of people actually left Europe to find freedom. The great majority remained behind, complaining about the ever-increasing loss of freedoms, but doing nothing about it. Although their governments took more and more from them, the great majority simply tolerated it, saying, “What can you do?” They became the eventual victims of that oppression, as has happened throughout history.

    Those in America today are, in essence, a subjugated people, just as Europeans were prior to the American Revolution. They’re accustomed to the concept of the “nanny state”—one which taxes its people heavily and throws back a portion of what they’ve stolen in the form of “bread and circuses,” as in ancient Rome.

    Americans today complain continually, either that too much is being taken from them or that the state isn’t providing them with sufficient largesse. Some even complain of both at the same time.

    And yet, a very large percentage of Americans holds out “hope” that somehow, the process will reverse itself—that a new political candidate will appear—a “Freedom Fairy,” who will somehow stand in front of the runaway train, stop it, and reverse it.

    Historically, this never happens. What happens is that a small number decide to set sail and escape. Whether it’s the Roman commercial class, who walked away from their shops and travelled north to live amongst the barbarians, rather than accept Rome’s increasing domination, or the German Jews who locked up their shops and homes and boarded ships to the West, just prior to the lockdown of 1939, every burgeoning new “free” society has been created by the few who took courage and made an exit from a dying society.

    In every case, those who exited did so with fear in their hearts that they would fail. They left their larger possessions behind and travelled light, sewing coins and jewellery into their clothing, not knowing whether they would succeed.

    However, when they arrived at the new frontier, they met other like-minded people, each of whom had also shown courage and determination. They then created a new society that was, predictably, based upon the principles described above.

    Today, a similar exodus is occurring. It’s made of those who place their liberty and hope for a promising future above the comforts and freedoms that, one by one, are being taken from them by their governments.

    Of course, the details are not the same. They no longer travel by ship, but by jet. No one sews valuables into their clothes, as they’d never get through the metal detectors. Instead, they convert their assets to cash and purchase precious metals, to be stored in a country where there is diminished risk of confiscation by governments.

    As has happened throughout history, the exodus is being undertaken quietly. Those who emigrate do not wish to call attention to themselves, but then, neither do the governments of the countries they’re leaving. It’s never seen on the news, and the official numbers who leave are far below the number that actually departed.

    But the details of the exit are unimportant. What is important is that, when people meet the challenge to exit to find freedom and self-determination, they then build an extremely strong and free society. And there are many locations in the world where this is presently taking place.

    But what of those left behind? Surely, the present-day US is at a breaking point and may very well explode into civil disobedience—even revolution.

    Yes, this is quite so. And again, history shows us what happens in countries where the majority feel that they’re entitled to be looked after; that the rich must “pay a little more” to provide them with largesse. Good examples of this are the Russian Revolution and the French Revolution.

    Both of these are marked by a predominance of belief that “someone has to pay so that I can benefit.” In both revolutions, the aristocracy were violently removed and the rebels scrambled to grab as much of the spoils as possible. Disorder became prolonged and the new leaders that rose up were, if anything, more oppressive than those they replaced.

    Today, in visiting the US and talking with Americans, it’s palpable that most Americans now have a gut feeling that this will most certainly not end well. Most hope that there might be a peaceful transition of some sort. Some vainly hope that a “Freedom Fairy” will emerge.

    But, Americans, more than most people in the world, incorrectly believe that freedom only exists in their country and that, when it dies there, it will die everywhere. This is far from true, but it does mean that those who were born in the former “land of the free” are more fearful and discouraged than those elsewhere. The great majority doubt that it’s possible for them, individually, to choose freedom, rather than to go down with the ship. They, in effect, are exactly the same as the great majority in Europe in the eighteenth century.

    The American colonies were built upon the courage of a few who chose to leave the dominance and stagnation in Europe. The same is true today. The USA may be a sinking ship, but the concept of “America” is not. It’s a movable concept and it can exist anywhere that people have chosen future freedom over tentative comforts.

    *  *  *

    A “pioneer spirit” isn’t the only thing you need if you want to leave the sinking ship and pursue freedom. You’ll find details on what else you’ll need in Doug Casey’s special report, Getting Out of Dodge. Click here to download your free PDF copy.

  • Flying Above The Law: Chinese Gangs Used Drones To Smuggle $80 Million In iPhones Into China

    On March 29, the General Administration of Customs People’s Republic of China arrested 26 criminals who were part of a high stakes iPhone smuggling operation. The criminal ring used consumer drones to smuggle 500 million yuan ($79.8 million) worth of smartphones between Hong Kong and the mainland city of Shenzhen, the state-owned Legal Daily reported.

    Customs officials describe the smuggling operation as the “flying line,” where 26 criminals used drones to transport two 200-meter (660-feet) cables between Hong Kong and the mainland China to carry tens of millions of dollars in refurbished iPhones.

    A drone that was confiscated after authorities arrested suspects who used drones to smuggle smartphones from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, is pictured in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China March 29, 2018. Liu Youzhi/Southern Metropolis Daily via REUTERS

    According to Reuters, the Legal Daily describes the latest bust as part of a much broader acceleration of illegal imports into mainland China, but, “it’s the first case found in China that drones were being used in cross-border smuggling crimes,” customs officials said.

    State-owned media reports are unclear about which drone model was used, but speculations from images point to a highly modified DJI Phantom 4 Pro. Interesting enough, DJI is headquartered in Shenzhen, generally considered China’s Silicon Valley.

    Under cover of darkness, Reuters reveals how the smuggling operation started around midnight and would continue into the early morning. Once the drones connected the cables between both buildings, the organized crime units were able to transport 15,000 smartphones across the international border per night.

    “The smugglers usually operated after midnight and only needed seconds to transport small bags holding more than 10 iPhones using the drones, the report quoted customs as saying. The gang could smuggle as many as 15,000 phones across the border in one night, it said.”

    A customs officer speaks at the crime scene after authorities arrested suspects who used drones to smuggle smartphones from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China March 29, 2018. Liu Youzhi/Southern Metropolis Daily via REUTERS

    CCTV News Shenzhen Special Zone News published an exclusive surveillance video of the criminal gangs in action.

    Here is social media’s response to the 200-meter “flying line” transporting 15,000 iPhones on a given night across international borders…

    One Twitter user said, “And trump thinks a wall will keep drugs out? “Gangs used drones and pulleys to smuggle $80 million in smartphones from Hong Kong, officials say” Washington Post April 2.”

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    “Eventually, all technology will be used to support crime. Criminals are now using drones to smuggle smartphones into China,” said another Twitter user.

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    Although using drones to smuggle high-value products like consumer electronics across the Hong Kong/China border appears to be a new technique, the deployment of ziplines has been around for ages.

    According to the South China Morning Post, government officials recently busted a criminal gang network, who used fishing line — shot over the international border with a crossbow to transport electronics into Shenzhen.

  • High School Counselor Arrested After Threatening To "Execute" White People

    Via TheCollegeFix.com,

    The in-school suspension coordinator/counselor at a Bridgeport, Connecticut high school has been arrested after threatening to “execute every white man he gets his hands on.”

    Warren Harding High School’s Carl Lemon was taken into custody Wednesday on charges of second-degree threat and breach of the peace.

    According to NBC-4 in New York, the police report states a teacher heard Lemon say “he couldn’t wait for the Panthers to give the OK and a revolution begins,” so he could carry out his threat. The teacher said Lemon had made “similar statements in the past.”

    During Lemon’s arrest, the school was put on lockdown for approximately ten minutes. Police noted the counselor was “pacing around his desk and repeatedly” and opening and closing a desk drawer which contained a kitchen knife.

    The Connecticut Post reports Lemon also had stomped on an American flag in a classroom exclaiming “This is what I think about it!” In addition, Harding’s principal discovered an anonymous student note in her school mailbox which said Lemon “talks about shooting whites a lot! He watches radical stuff during class. I am scared he will do something… he is crazy.”

    The official police report indicates the note also said Lemon “disrespects” students and that he doesn’t like the school’s principals and “will take them out.”

    More from the arrest report:

    I [Officer Angelo Collazo] could see Mr. Lemons [sic] looking into the draw [sic] and closing the draw over and over. Mr. Lemons appeared to be very frustrated, then began moving papers across his desk attempting to hid [sic] things on his desk.

    After a few minutes Mr. Lemons agreed to walk out of the building and be arrested. Mr. Lemon was allowed to walk out of the building without handcuffs on. Once outside, Mr. Lemons was handcuffed and transported to booking.

    I then returned to Mr. Lemon’s classroom and looked in the draw he opening and closing [sic]. I located a white plastic bag in the same draw. Inside the bag was a large kitchen knife in the bag. I removed the kitchen knife (black handle) from the bag and secured it.

    Officer Collazo adds that he collected “several random papers and journals” from Lemon’s desk and advised an assistant principal that she should remove Lemon’s computer so its hard drive could be reviewed.

  • White House: China's Overcapacity Is Causing Global Steel Crisis

    The White House has responded to China’s decision to impose tariffs on 128 different categories of US imports – primarily foodstuffs and industrial items. The tariffs, which went into effect Sunday but were previewed more than a week ago, are meant to be a response to the Trump administration’s Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum (not to be confused with the $60 billion in section 301 tariffs unveiled later).

    Steel

    In a statement posted on China’s Ministry of Finance website, China’s Customs Tariffs Commission confirmed reports from March 23, stating that additional duties on 128 kinds of products of US origin would be introduced from Monday “in order to safeguard China’s interests and balance the losses caused by the United States additional tariffs.”

    In response, a White House Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters said the US tariffs were justified because China is creating a global steel glut with its oversupply.

    “China’s subsidization and continued overcapacity is the root cause of the steel crises. Instead of targeting fairly traded U.S. exports, China needs to stop its unfair trading practices which are harming U.S national security and distorting global markets,” Walters said in an emailed statement.

    Meanwhile, the Chinese are calling for another round of trade talks with the US after the US didn’t respond to China’s March 26 request for a dialogue on the steel and aluminum tariffs, per Bloomberg.

    Earlier Monday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president is “doing exactly what he said he was going to do” to help reduce the US trade deficit with China.

    As a reminder, here’s the list of US imports upon which China has imposed tariffs of between 15% and 25%.

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  • Welcome To Xi Jinping's Orwellian Dystopia

    Authored Vicky Xiuzhong Xu and Bang Xia oby via ABC.net.au,

    Chinese authorities claim they have banned more than 7 million people deemed “untrustworthy” from boarding flights, and nearly 3 million others from riding on high-speed trains, according to a report by the country’s National Development and Reform Commission.

    The announcements offer a glimpse into Beijing’s ambitious attempt to create a Social Credit System (SCS) by 2020 — that is, a proposed national system designed to value and engineer better individual behaviour by establishing the scores of 1.4 billion citizens and “awarding the trustworthy” and “punishing the disobedient”.

    Liu Hu, a 43-year-old journalist who lives in China’s Chongqing municipality, told the ABC he was “dumbstruck” to find himself caught up in the system and banned by airlines when he tried to book a flight last year.

    PHOTO: Chinese journalist Liu Hu was “dumbstruck” to find himself caught up on the bad side of the country’s social credit system. (Supplied: Liu Hu)

    Mr Liu is on a “dishonest personnel” list — a pilot scheme of the SCS — because he lost a defamation lawsuit in 2015 and was asked by the court to pay a fine that is still outstanding according to the court record.

    “No one ever notified me,” Mr Liu, who claims he paid the fine, said.

    “It’s baffling how they just put me on the blacklist and kept me in the dark.”

    Like the other 7 million citizens deemed to be “dishonest” and mired in the blacklist, Mr Liu has also been banned from staying in a star-rated hotel, buying a house, taking a holiday, and even sending his nine-year-old daughter to a private school.

    And just last Monday, Chinese authorities announced they would also seek to freeze the assets of those deemed “dishonest people”.

    Bonus points for donating blood and volunteer work

    PHOTO: Surveillance software identifying customers’ patterns at a department store in Beijing. (Reuters: Thomas Peter)

    As the national system is still being fully realised, dozens of pilot social credit systems have already been tested by local governments at provincial and city levels.

    For example, Suzhou, a city in eastern China, uses a point system where every resident is rated on a scale between 0 and 200 points — every resident starts from the baseline of 100 points.

    One can earn bonus points for benevolent acts and lose points for disobeying laws, regulations, and social norms.

    According to a 2016 report by local police, the top-rated Suzhou citizen had 134 points for donating more than one litre of blood and doing more than 500 hours of volunteer work.

    …

    In Xiamen, where the development of a local social credit system started as early as 2004, authorities reportedly automatically apply messages to the mobile phone lines of blacklisted citizens.

    “The person you’re calling is dishonest,” whoever calls a lowly-rated person will be told before the call is put through.

    …

    Could China combine these projects to engineer society?

    If the Chinese Government manages to amalgamate the regional pilot projects and the immense amounts of data by 2020, it will be able to exert absolute social and political control and “pre-emptively shape how people behave,” Samantha Hoffman, an independent consultant on Chinese state security, said.

    “If you are aware that your behaviour will negatively or positively impact your score, and thus your life and the lives of those you associate with, then you will likely adjust your decision-making accordingly,” Ms Hoffman said.

    But the question remains if the Chinese authorities could really “pull it off”, Ms Wang said.

    “The Ministry of Public Security runs a number of databases, and then regional authorities also run their databases,” Ms Wang said.

    “It is difficult to know how these databases are related together and how they’re structured and how they are updated.

    “At the moment, I would say that they [are] updated to some extent but they’re not very well integrated, and the integration is going to be difficult.”

    PHOTO: Some CCTV cameras have facial recognition or infrared capabilities. (Supplied: Dahua Technologies)

    Hu Naihong, a finance professor at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, who is helping to build the national social credit system, seems to agree.

    “The top-level design, the institutional framework, and the key documents are all in place, but there are still many problems to be solved,” the professor said in a 2017 meeting in Zhejiang.

    “The most serious problem being that all kinds of platforms are rigorously collecting [data], while having vague legal and conceptual basis and boundaries.”

    …

    Many observers fear human rights could be increasingly violated via the social credit system, and — combined with a growing surveillance system and technologies such as facial recognition being rolled out across the country — the Chinese Government could have the ability to turn the system on its citizens.

    “China is characterised by a system of ‘rule by law’, rather than true rule of law,” Elsa B Kania, an expert in Chinese defence innovation and emerging technologies at the Centre for a New American Security, said.

    “That law [and extra-legal measures] can be used as a weapon to legitimise the targeting of those whom the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] perceives as a threat.

    “In such an environment, such a system could be abused to those same ends.”

    The question that remains to be answered in coming years, experts say, is where the line between “bettering society” and “controlling society” will be drawn.

    PHOTO: There are fears China could turn its mass surveillance technologies on its people. (Supplied: Guiyang Public Security Bureau)

    Read more here…

  • Employees Working With Corporations To Stop Corruption And Overreach Of Unions

    It should be of no surprise that companies are now starting to “weaponize” their own employees to try and keep the corruption and price gouging of unions out of their respective places of business.

    Unionization has not only resulted in the lack of free market price discovery for labor, but it is also been recently found to be extraordinarily corrupt. As we pointed out in a January 2018 article:

    …a new report from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), obtained by the Detroit Free Press, proves that the corruption inside of union offices around the country is far more rampant than you ever imagined.  As the Free Press notes, in the past two years alone, more than 300 union locations have discovered embezzlement of union funds totaling millions of dollars…and that’s just counting the people who got caught.

    Even though the UAW is the poster child of union corruption, cases reported by the DOL involved unions representing nurses, aerospace engineers, firefighters, teachers, film and TV artists, air traffic controllers, musicians, bus inspectors, bakery workers, roofers, postal workers, machinists, ironworkers, steelworkers, dairy workers, plasterers, train operators, plumbers, stagehands, engineers, electricians, heat insulators, missile range workers and bricklayers.  Meanwhile, the various cases involve embezzlement and fraud ranging from $1,051 up to nearly $6.5 million.

    So it was no surprise when today, on Bloomberg it was reported that U-Haul workers were lobbying for the Trump administration to tackle rules that would make it tougher for unions to organize:

    The men, along with dozens of other people working for U-Haul, the self-storage company, seem to have taken an outsized role in the debate over whether the Trump administration should revisit the rule. They’ve been doing this by flooding the National Labor Relations Board with very similar comments. While at least one employee said workers got together on their own, labor experts contend that the campaign has all the hallmarks of a company-influenced effort. U-Haul agreed, saying that while it didn’t compel workers to take part, it did provide the language for them to use.

    Over the past few months, the NLRB received at least 100 similarly worded submissions urging it to throw out the policy that shortens the time between when some employees decide to unionize and when a vote is held. More than 60—roughly one out of every 25 comments submitted so far—used names matching people who work at the self-storage and rental giant, according to a review of LinkedIn pages and recent company announcements. More than a dozen additional comments appear to come from people who worked for the company in the past. 

    U-Haul was profiled as a company that is encouraging its employees to stand up for the same free market price discovery that allows their business to function, and ultimately pay them. Imagine the shock!

    The article continues, noting that the practice has “seen a renaissance” in recent years:

    The volume and similarity of comments raise questions as to whether there was a coordinated effort, said Paul Secunda, who directs the labor and employment law program at Marquette University. “These U-Haul employee comments to the NLRB smack of employee mobilization by the company itself,” he said, though encouraging employees to comment on proposed rulemaking is perfectly legal. That companies urge employees to take part in campaigns for or against government regulations isn’t novel, but the tactic has enjoyed a renaissance of late. Employers and the business lobby have recently urged workers to fight various corporate
    taxes and support the recent tax legislation. Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, a political scientist at Columbia University who just wrote a book on the topic, recounted how a lobbyist bragged of helping a financial company get 100,000 letters opposing the fiduciary rule—the now-endangered conflict-of-interest regulation for financial advisers. Hertel-Fernandez said a telecommunications company interested in shaping a different debate established an internet portal for workers, providing letter templates they could tweak before sending.

    Unionizing, and the forced labor rules and regulations that accompany it by the government does little to help free market price discovery. Instead, it is yet one additional method for government to stick their nose not only into the economy, but also into the world of both private and public businesses. Free market price discovery in the labor market means that individuals should be compensated by their skill set, productivity and what they bring to the table as employees, not by what the government has pre-arranged in as a deal for them or by what unions can embezzle.

    It should come as no surprise that once these labor unions are granted power via regulation through the government that they can become extremely large, corrupt and powerful and often times associated with additional corruption and foul play outside of the workplace as we wrote about in January.

    Of course, the biggest and most highly publicized union embezzlement scheme of 2017 involves multiple Fiat Chrysler and UAW employees who stole millions of dollars intended for worker training…

    Jerome Durden, a former financial analyst in corporate accounting at Fiat Chrysler and former Controller of the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center, pleaded guilty in August 2017 after preparing and filing tax returns that concealed millions of dollars in prohibited payments directed to others in 2009-15. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 23.

    Alphons Iacobelli, former vice president at FCA, was charged in July 2017 with conspiracy and delivering more than $1.2 million in prohibited payments and things of value to the late General Holiefield, former vice president of the UAW, Holiefield’s wife and other UAW officials. His trial is scheduled for March 19.

    Monica Morgan, wife of Holiefield, was charged in July 2017 with tax evasion and conspiracy stemming from her family’s receipt of more than $1.2 million from the former vice president of FCA between 2009 and 2014. Her trial is scheduled for March 19.

    Virdell King, a former assistant director of the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center, pleaded guilty in August 2017 to receiving more than $40,000 in prohibited payments and things of value from the former vice president of FCA and “others acting in the interest of FCA.” Payments received between 2012 and 2015 included purchases of clothing, jewelry, luggage, golf equipment, concert tickets and theme park tickets. She is scheduled to be sentenced May 1.

    If not anything else, the employees of U-Haul are getting taught a lesson to not  “bite the hand that feeds them” and hopefully more companies moving forward will actively employ the same strategies to help keep free market price discovery in the labor market as ever present as they can, outside the confines of an already overly regulated economy and job market.

  • "I Can't Pay My Bills" – McDonald's Employees Furious As Company Renegs On Wage Hikes

    When the initiative was first announced, McDonald’s decision to raise its employees’ wages to $1 above minimum wage (albeit only at corporate-owned stores, a minority of the company’s total count) was hailed as a radical example of corporate accountability – a direct repudiation of the far-left notion that “quarterly capitalism” and employers accepting responsibility for their employees were mutually exclusive.

    As any steely eyed realist might’ve expected, McDonald’s widely lauded “wage hike” was little more than a publicity stunt. In the three years since McDonald’s announced the wage hike in 2015, the firm has essentially frozen employee wages, often leaving them just a few cents above minimum wage, as Bloomberg has discovered.

    McDonalds

    But the company doesn’t expect to experience any blowback from this decision: After all, McDonald’s never said it was pegging employees’ wages to $1 above minimum wage. The company, it appears, deliberately equivocated during its initial announced – and what’s worse, nobody in the media has called the company out.

    Until now, that is.

    In Milpitas, California, north of San Jose, where the local minimum wage rose to $12 an hour on Jan. 1, several workers’ February paychecks show they received $12.35 or $12.45. In Los Angeles, where the minimum wage for large employers has been $12 since July, some checks show hourly pay of $12.69 or less.

    Employees and members of the “Fight for $15” coalition – which had successfully pressured McDonald’s to assent to the wage hike (or so we had thought) – are understandably angry at the company, possibly having planned to receive higher wages in the near future, and based some major financial decisions on that.

    “They need to give us the dollar that they promised us,” said one of those employees, Fanny Velazquez, who’s worked for the corporation for a decade. “I can’t pay my rent or my bills.”

    The Service Employees International Union – most likely the initial anonymous source who brought the story to Bloomberg – blasted the company in an on-the-record statement. It’s also organizing workers to organize and exert whatever pressure they can.

    The Fight For $15, a 6-year-old effort by the Service Employees International Union to organize fast food workers and secure more stringent wage laws, seized on the paychecks as evidence that the McDonald’s 2015 announcement was a “publicity stunt.”

    “If McDonald’s wants to play semantics with its workers and continue to drive a race to the bottom instead of giving us real raises, it is going to continue losing workers to the growing number of employers who are leading the way to a better economy for all,” said Betty Douglas, a McDonald’s worker in St. Louis, in a statement on behalf of the Fight for $15.

    Fight For $15 criticized McDonald’s pay announcement from the start, because it didn’t apply to the majority of the chain’s stores, which are owned by franchisees, and didn’t meet the group’s signature demand of $15 hourly pay.

    The group plans to launch a hotline Monday that workers can call to report their wages, and will hold rallies in three cities on Tuesday to press its case that workers need a union in order to hold the company accountable.

    What’s worse than McDonald’s not following through with the wage hike, employees say, is that recent changes to McDonald’s menu – primarily the “Experience the Future” suite of customizable menu options – have made the job harder.

    Burger chains like McDonald’s are facing record-high turnover as workers depart for better jobs options in a tightening labor market. Last year, McDonald’s lagged behind peers like Wendy’s and Burger King in average drive-through times. Some employees complain that the chain’s “Experience of the Future,” a suite of changes to menus, technology and food delivery, has meant performing more tasks without commensurate staffing expansions or pay increases.

    “It’s going to get increasingly challenging to attract the talent you want into your business,” Easterbrook said earlier this year, “and then you’ve got to work really hard through training and development to retain them.”

    Of course, that McDonald’s did this shouldn’t come as a surprise to any long-time Zero Hedge readers. The company has been rapidly adopting kiosks in its dining rooms that allow customers to order without interacting with a cashier. Analysts believe these machines will eventually lead to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of fast-food service jobs.

    As we’ve said before, McDonald’s employees, while you’re agitating for a $15 minimum wage, don’t forget to thank your corporate overlords when they fire you and your comrades and replace you with this guy…

    John5

     

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