Trucker Strike 2008
A day in the life of a trucker
Thank you for your service and for your courage.
Previously here:
Truckers Strike 2008: Additional
Truckers Strike 2008: A Search Record Set
Is The April 1, 2008 Truckers Strike Real?
Truckers Strike: April 1, 2008
April 1: Truckers Strike?
Fortune magazine — no collection of marginalized fraidy-cat panic-mongers — has two headlines so important that I’m reproducing them as screensnaps here.
First one:
Read the article: Chaos on Wall Street
Second:
Read the article: On the brink of disaster
Guess what? When Fortune says it’s dire — it’s already too damned late.
Supplemental:
I won’t be doing any lame posts along those lines.
Instead, click the below link to see the Candid Camera-like toilet video from Japan.
As Jobs Vanish and Prices Rise, Food Stamp Use Nears Record
Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s.
The number of recipients, who must have near-poverty incomes to qualify for benefits averaging $100 a month per family member, has fluctuated over the years along with economic conditions, eligibility rules, enlistment drives and natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, which led to a spike in the South.
But recent rises in many states appear to be resulting mainly from the economic slowdown, officials and experts say, as well as inflation in prices of basic goods that leave more families feeling pinched. Citing expected growth in unemployment, the Congressional Budget Office this month projected a continued increase in the monthly number of recipients in the next fiscal year, starting Oct. 1 — to 28 million, up from 27.8 million in 2008, and 26.5 million in 2007.
The percentage of Americans receiving food stamps was higher after a recession in the 1990s, but actual numbers are expected to be higher this year.
But wait! That can’t be true, because:
The ‘Recession’ Is a Media Myth
The average inflation rate under Clinton was 2.6 percent, under Bush it is 2.7 percent. Indeed, one has to go back to the Kennedy administration to find a lower average rate. True the inflation rate over the last year has gone up to 4 percent, but that is still lower than the average inflation rate under all the presidents from Nixon through Bush’s father.
Gas prices are indeed up 33 percent over the last year, but to get an average of 4 percent means that lots of other prices must have stayed the same or gone down.
Or that the government is cooking the goddammed numbers, you egghead eejit!
Just like they do with the unemployment statistics by not counting people who are “no longer looking for work.” As if such people no longer have to pay rent, utilities, and eat!
This twat probably thinks Herbert Hoover was scapegoated by a biased press too.
Bear market rallies only delay day of reckoning
Bernard Connolly at Banque AIG, who foresaw this crisis with uncanny accuracy, believes central banks will resort to full-throttle reflation, setting off a fresh boom in shares and gold. But this will occur only after the economic slump has spread to Europe and beyond.
The authorities will wait too long to act, believing their own decoupling myth. Unemployment will ratchet up. Civil unrest may rock Latin Europe.
In the end, the whole industrial world will stoke a fresh credit bubble to put off the day of reckoning, for another cycle.
The capitalist system is now so deformed by debt that it requires ever lower interest rates to keep going. It survives on perma-bubbles. Monetary rigour at this late stage would endanger democracy.
How did we ever let matters reach this pass?
Emphasis added by me.
If you’ve come in late: The British press is doing the best coverage of the current (final?) financial crisis. News you do not see in American press coverage. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at the Telegraph.co.uk is the best of them.
Buyers’ Revenge: Trash the House After Foreclosure
The stucco subdivisions of Las Vegas are caught up in the nation’s foreclosure crisis. These days, bankers and mortgage companies often find that by the time they get the keys back, embittered homeowners have stripped out appliances, punched holes in walls, dumped paint on carpets and, as a parting gift, locked their pets inside to wreak further havoc. Real-estate agents estimate that about half of foreclosed properties to be sold by mortgage companies nationwide have “substantial” damage, according to a new survey by Campbell Communications, a marketing and research firm based in Washington, D.C.
These idiots should never be allowed to have a mortgage ever again.
I don’t give a damn if you were snookered into an adjustable-rate mortgage that eventually tripled or quadrupled your monthly payment.
That’s beside the damned point.
The point is: You’ve shown yourself to be a low-life pig bastard.
Do you think there won’t be any repercussions for this?
They have your name, your employer information, your Social Security number, your signature — everything.
And banks keep records. For a long time.
Your next home should be a cardboard box on the sidewalk.
And, to me, that’s more than you deserve!
Update: Lots of links added from a Comment here to the end of the original post. I’ve also changed the timestamp to pop this to the top of the blog for a while.
Prior posts in this blog:
Truckers Strike 2008: A Search Record Set
Is The April 1, 2008 Truckers Strike Real?
Truckers Strike: April 1, 2008
April 1: Truckers Strike?
Prior links mentioned in this blog:
Truckers Strike April 1, 2008 at the Truckers Forum
TRUCKERS ROCK !! – Owner Operators joined by Corporate Haulers in Shutdown at Godlike Productions
Attention!!! at High Diesel
Trucker Strike at MySpace
Links given by a trucker (in a Comment here):
http://www.theamericandriver.com/files/truckers2unite.html
http://www.uscattlehaulers.com
http://www.thetruckingindustry.net/strike.html
http://www.truckdriversunited.com/truck_stop_talk.htm
http://www.thetruckersvoice.net/
Statement from MySpace page holder (in a Comment here) (lightly edited to improve clarity):
We are The American Trucker…
Good Morning All,
I’ve have had a very Long weekend.
I’m glad this week has arrived.
I’ve had several calls over the weekend from news media outlets. Bloomberg was probably the biggest so the word is still traveling at the speed of light.
I hear alot of “I’m waiting to see what happens.”
If we all wait to see what everyone else does we will accomplish nothing.
We have to shutdown and make a stand. Now is the time to take action. If we don’t speak for ourselves who will — the ATA, OOIDA? They care enough for us to wash their hands of this protest. But send them your money [and] they will speak on important issues.
I’m tired of paying Lumpers to unload my truck, I’m tired of high insurrance, I’m tired of waiting for hours in a dock with no pay, Brokers keeping money that was intended for fuel.
We should all be tired and it is time we let them know.
By now everyone knows about the protest. But we need to keep on the support.
My own local news station reported last night on this but they have it wrong.
This protest isn’t a one day protest. This protest is all week and longer if needs to be.
This protest is not aimed at the public we want public support.
This protest will be the biggest protest ever accomplish by the American Trucker and we plan to speak loudly.
God Bless you all thank you for your support.
Links from the first MySpace page holder:
http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2008/03/19/news/iowa/doc47e03e9ea03bd427238845.txt
http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_272619638.shtml
http://www.stjoenews.net/news/2008/mar/25/it-makes-it-lot-harder-survive/
http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2008/03/24/business/doc47e7c7c7f14a1907210554.txt
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=695995407
http://www.kswo.com/Global/story.asp?S=8065926
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-tue-trucks-repo-diesel-mar25,0,3589923.story
http://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Daily/2008/Mar08/032408/032408-01.htm
http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/CA6545569.html
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/27/news/economy/diesel_impact/index.htm?cnn=yes
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23436726/
http://www.theindependent.com/stories/03152008/new_diesel15.shtml
http://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?S=8049452
http://www.ksnt.com/home/ticker/16767641.html
http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=8031423
http://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Daily/2008/Mar08/031708/031708-02.htm
http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/prices_5384___article.html/gas_rising.html
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080312/NEWS01/803120349/1001/news
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=60155
http://www.wciv.com/news/stories/0308/507094.html
http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local_story.aspx?storyid=50704&type=local&method=viewTB
http://www.news1130.com/news/topstory/article.jsp?content=20080327_013503_5664
http://www.ktnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8082258
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=60155
http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local_story.aspx?storyid=50704
http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_news/default.asp?ArID=204058
http://www.wtoctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8085319&nav=menu89_2
http://www.kswo.com/Global/story.asp?S=8068278
http://www.nbc4.com/traffic/15698449/detail.html
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/15735957/detail.html
http://www.kidk.com/news/local/17050256.html
http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_8711170
http://www.wesh.com/news/15715347/detail.html
http://cbs4denver.com/business/truckers.strike.diesel.2.684735.html
http://www.wlns.com/Global/story.asp?S=8071057&nav=0RbQ
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?storyid=105454
http://www.ktka.com/news/2008/mar/27/independent_trucker_strike_possibility/
myspace again
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_8743899
God bless the American trucker!
Drudge sure knows how to drive home a point:
Civilians handle minor duties for strapped police
In my neighborhood, minor things can equal death. So good luck with that strategy for failure.
Brace for $1 Trillion Writedown of ‘Yertle the Turtle’ Debt
March 31 (Bloomberg) — Be it ever so devalued, $1 trillion is a lot of dough.
That’s roughly on a par with the Russian economy. More than double the market value of Exxon Mobil Corp. About nine times the combined wealth of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.
Yet $1 trillion is the amount of defaults and writedowns Americans will likely witness before they emerge at the far side of the bursting credit bubble, estimates Charles R. Morris in his shrewd primer, “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown.” That calculation assumes an orderly unwinding, which he doesn’t expect.
“The sad truth,” he writes, “is that subprime is just the first big boulder in an avalanche of asset writedowns that will rattle on through much of 2008.”
Expect the landslide to cascade through high-yield bonds, commercial mortgages, leveraged loans, credit cards and — the big unknown — credit-default swaps, Morris says. The notional value for those swaps, which are meant to insure bondholders against default, covered about $45 trillion in portfolios as of mid-2007, up from some $1 trillion in 2001, he writes.
Morris can’t be dismissed as a crank. A lawyer, former banker and author of 10 other books, he knows a thing or two about the complex instruments that have spread toxic debt throughout the credit system. He once ran a company that made software for creating and analyzing securitized asset pools. Yet he writes with tight clarity and blistering pace.
Emphasis added by me.
Why is the one trillion dollar amount suddenly news? Do reporters have zero memory? Where are their files for background material?
I mentioned a two trillion-dollar amount back on January 2, 2008 here!
If this isn’t outright fascism, what is? Must our leaders grow moustaches in the style of Hitler and prance around with swastikas on their forearms?
Fed eyes Nordic-style nationalisation of US banks
The US Federal Reserve is examining the Nordic bank nationalisations of the 1990s as a possible interim solution to the US financial crisis.
The Fed has been criticised for its rescue of Bear Stearns, which critics say has degenerated into a taxpayer gift to rich bankers
A senior official at one of the Scandinavian central banks told The Daily Telegraph that Fed strategists had stepped up contacts to learn how Norway, Sweden and Finland managed their traumatic crisis from 1991 to 1993, which brought the region’s economy to its knees.
It is understood that Fed vice-chairman Don Kohn remains very concerned by the depth of the US crisis and is eyeing the Nordic approach for contingency options.
Emphasis added by me.
OK, if that doesn’t just scare the living shit out of you, you’re either too goddammed stupid to be reading this blog, or your brain is too goddammed medicated to understand those words, or you’re one of the evil motherfuckers hoping to cut himself a nice slice of cheese from this.
With control of money comes control of everything else.
They can tell you how much money you can withdraw.
They can tell you when you can withdraw it.
You have an medical emergency for your child and have to pay in cash? If you need to get that cash out of a bank, you’re shit out of luck if the amount is greater than the government permits or the day you need to withdraw it is not the day you’re allowed to withdraw it.
Let me step back so you understand just how monumental this is.
We have been preached to for over two decades now about the “free” market. We’ve been told that Government intervention is evil. That Government is incompetent. That we, the people, know how to best handle our affairs.
Day after day, year after year, in election after election, in Presidential speech after Presidential speech we have had this drummed into our heads.
And now, suddenly, the Government itself is considering stepping in to basically grab all the money — and that’s a good thing?
What happened to our ability to make our own decisions?
You can bet your life this is going to be even worse than Great Depression 1.0 now.
Wikipedia: Emergency Banking Act
Farming in the 1930s: Penny Auctions
During Great Depression 1.0, FDR declared a “bank holiday,” which closed all banks — neatly cutting people off from their money. That could happen again:
Which bank is going to follow the Bear?
“I would not be surprised to see an emergency bank holiday announced. That hasn’t happened since Roosevelt.” During the Depression, 75 years ago almost to the day, Franklin Roosevelt declared a four-day bank holiday, which stemmed a frantic run on banks.
Emphasis added by me.
Do you think if banks start reporting to the Fed on unusual withdrawal activity by their depositors that D.C. won’t move fast to act?
This is very, very, very bad.
All of you truckers out there who will be idling your rigs in solidarity beginning midnight tonight: Make sure you have enough cash on hand to survive!
Mike Cane 2008 
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