Bread & Circuses

[reggie]

Re: Bread & Circuses

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/...n_victory.html

Kaeperdoodle's QB rating against the Seachickens = 20.1... oops.

[Mega]

Re: Bread & Circuses

American Football............a game for girls!
Mike

[c1ue]

Re: Bread & Circuses

Kaeperdoodle's QB rating against the Seachickens = 20.1... oops.

Unfortunately your prediction was for the Packers, not Seattle.

And you didn't make any predictions for Seattle vs. SF

Still a big, fat zero cred.

[shiny!]

Re: Bread & Circuses

American Football............a game for girls!
Mike

Who you callin' a girl! Oops, that would be me ;-)

[don]

Re: Bread & Circuses

Government dependency well underway . . .

[shiny!]

Re: Bread & Circuses

Whatever happened to honor, pride and dignity?

[don]

Re: Bread & Circuses

The Third World model is wealthy and indigent, with a small or non-existent middle class. Nearly everyone is dependent on the government, including, or perhaps especially, the elite. We're well on our way. The corruption of working people is part of the process. Remember, indebtedness makes one behave. (see Greenspan, etc.)

[lektrode]

Re: Bread & Circuses

Whatever happened to honor, pride and dignity?

would you like fries with that?

;)

The Third World model is wealthy and indigent, with a small or non-existent middle class. Nearly everyone is dependent on the government, including, or perhaps especially, the elite. We're well on our way. The corruption of working people is part of the process. Remember, indebtedness makes one behave. (see Greenspan, etc.)

uh huh - so doesnt stuff like this (note all the 'happy/smiling faces' - after all, its just another "self-esteem enhancement" - uh huh - and they call me 'biased' - or more typically: right-wing-redneck (with plenty of savings-induced self-esteem, thankyouvermuch) - when i say the big ny banks are dem-run, with front-row box seating at the beltway hog-trough - never mind when one party 'rules' all 3 branches, like in 2009-10, merely another co-incidence, that is, i guess, huh? )

and then theres these little tidbits of 'trivia'

....the Agriculture Committees are not alone in their influence over the program. The USDA
and its presidential appointees also influence the direction of program policy. This can be seen in
the development of broad based categorical eligibility. JPMorgan’s donations to political
campaigns also show a clear trend. During the 2008 election, Barack Obama received more than
twice the contributions of John McCain: $807,000 for Obama compared to McCain’s
$345,505.43

(gotta make sure they're 'equal opportunity' - esp for newyork-centric candidates)

After Obama’s election, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act made two
important changes to existing SNAP policies. First, it increased SNAP benefits by 13.6 percent.44
Second, it actively encouraged states to adopt broader rules to increase SNAP caseloads.45 From
2009 to 2012, 32 states adopted the interpretation.46 The first change creates a stronger incentive
for individuals to enroll for food stamps, and the second change accommodates this increase in
enrollment. All of this, working together with an underperforming economy, sets the stage for
increasing profits for the companies providing EBT services. The more persons enrolled in the
program, the more money the EBT industry makes.

(and more campaign contributions do flow = permanent majority, well underway)

Unfortunately, the crony connections do not stop with congressional lobbying. Several members
of Congress and the executive branch have significant investments in JP Morgan stock. President
Obama has up to $1 million in a private client asset checking account.47 In 2010, then White
House Chief of Staff William M. Daley also had invested up to $5 million with JP Morgan. 48 In
2007, West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller had over $50 million with the bank.49 Increasing
profits for JP Morgan in turn means increasing returns for investors.

(and if that isnt pure 'insider-horse-trading' aka: quid pro quo - couldnt imagine what would be?)

EBT card systems were guaranteed expansion on December 13, 2010, when President Obama
signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. This legislation requires all states to develop and
implement the use of EBT cards for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women,
Infants, and Children (WIC) by October 1, 2020. 50 According to the most recent participation
data released by the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, WIC served 8.9 million consumers in
FY 2011 51, which means that EBT card providers are looking at many new customers thanks to
the legislation.

The expansion of the EBT program did not happen in a vacuum. In fact, JP Morgan was
lobbying on issues related to the use of EBT cards in the WIC program during 2009, months
before the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was introduced in the Senate. 52 While the justification
may be that the EBT program is more efficient than the use of actual stamps, the industry
pushing for the increased “efficiency” is also the industry that stands to benefit from the change.

and just months before the action heated up in the house, too, i'll bet.

quite a program, they all got goin here (esp the 'efficiency consultants')

but this one really spells it all out quite nicely: (by same guy who wrote THROW THEM ALL OUT)
How the welfare state became a profit center.

According to the website of the Agriculture Department—which oversees the food stamp program—three companies administer the bulk of EBT card programs in 49 states (the state of Montana runs its own program) through multi-year contracts ranging from five to seven years. JP Morgan Electronic Financial Services, Inc. (a subsidiary of JP Morgan Chase), which entered the welfare market in 2004 by acquiring Citicorp Electronic Financial Services, has contracts with 24 states and two U.S. territories. Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), a subsidiary of Xerox, has 15 state contracts. And eFunds Corporation, a subsidiary of Fidelity National Information Services (not connected to Fidelity Investments), handles the EBT cards for 10 states and one U.S. territory.


“This business is a very important business to JP Morgan,” Christopher Paton, the company’s managing director of treasury services, told Bloomberg News in 2011. “It’s an important business in terms of its size and scale. We also regard it as very important in the sense that we are delivering a very useful social function. We are a key part of this benefit delivery mechanism. Right now volumes have gone through the roof in the past couple of years or so … The good news from JP Morgan’s perspective is the infrastructure that we built has been able to cope with that increase in volume.”

(oh hey!!! bet they must be some proud of all the 'social' do-gooder stuff they doin, huh? just imagine how big the bonuses are in that dept...)

Just how lucrative JP Morgan’s EBT state contracts are is hard to say, because total national data on EBT contracts are not reported. But thanks to a combination of public-records requests and contracts that are available online, here’s what we do know: 18 of the 24 states JP Morgan handles have been contracted to pay the bank up to $560,492,596.02 since 2004. Since 2007, Florida has been contracted to pay JP Morgan $90,351,202.22. Pennsylvania’s seven-year contract totaled $112,541,823.27. New York’s seven-year contract totaled $126,394,917

yep, i'd have to think the bluestates are esp good customers, since 2009 in particular...