Beware the gentry: they don’t like your music!

Posted on October 16, 2015 by bitemaster

Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in West Oakland received a cease-and-desist letter from the city threatening them with $500 a day in fines plus a $3,500 nuisance fee, CBS San Francisco reports. Church members believe the sudden complaints about the choir are due to the fact the area is becoming gentrified.

When the rich techies move in, you’d better abide by their standards. One local Yuppie commented:

I paid good money for a 3000 square foot house in an underdeveloped neighborhood. All I’m trying to do is improve the community by getting the riffraff out. Hell, if they’re not making in the mid-six figures, they have no business being here anyway. Besides, after I put in a 70-hour week at the office, I’m entitled to party hearty on Saturday night. Then, on Sunday morning, I usually wake up with a massive hangover and have to put up with these idiots and their awful “gospel” music. If they won’t keep it down, we’ll get City Hall to chase them the fuck out of here.

Source: Singing while black: Oakland choir threatened with ‘nuisance’ fines after tech workers enter neighborhood

Why all true Americans hate Pope Francis

Posted on September 26, 2015 by bitemaster

When Pope Francis goes around comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, it just gets my goat. Like any patriotic American, I believe in the American Dream of wealth and fame. If we could just give free enterprise a real chance in this country, we would all be rich like Donald Trump or Kim Kardashian. But Francis wants jack-booted thugs to seize our homes and give them away to the lazy Mexicans who have already taken all our jobs. He’s probably not even a Catholic. Remember how he washed the feet of that Muslim girl? Would a real Catholic do that? I don’t think so. I heard he’s not even Italian. Weird, isn’t it? If you don’t believe me, listen to Alex Jones’s radio program.

Scalia Forms Search Committee for New Pope

Posted on September 25, 2015 by bitemaster

According to the New Yorker magazine, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said today that he was forming an “independent search committee” to select a new Pope.

I’m sorry it had to come to this. The Pope said he doesn’t want to speak out against abortion and gay marriage. Well, sorry, my friend, but that’s the entire job description. You should have thought of that before you let them blow that white smoke in Rome.

Source: Scalia Forms Search Committee for New Pope – The New Yorker

Billionaires are working for you and me

Posted on July 26, 2015 by bitemaster

In New York City, Uber is running television ads saying how they really care about people in minority neighborhoods and how they’re creating thousands of new jobs. Airbnb ran ads touting how they help little old ladies put their boychiks through college. And the Rent Stabilization Association (trade association of NYC landlords) ran ads telling how their real purpose is to create affordable housing.

Based on valuation by recent investors, Uber is worth about $50 billion and Airbnb is worth about $20 billion. The Rent Stabilization Association’s members control about a million apartments, worth in the tens of billions of dollars.

I’d say “bite me,” but first I have to go and throw up.

Texas wants to repatriate their gold bullion holdings but are unsure where to store the stuff

Posted on July 6, 2015 by bitemaster

I think that Texas should ask Pastor James D. Alderdice for some guidance in this. According to his website, Pastor Alderdice was “co-founder of what was then [in the 1980s] the largest seller of gold and silver bullion in the U.S.”

Source: We’re gonna need a bigger mattress: Texas lawmakers want to hide their gold from Obama but don’t know where

Chicago public schools could follow Greece down the toilet

Posted on June 21, 2015 by bitemaster

This month’s scramble by Chicago school officials to find enough cash to pay the bills is the result of “an appalling situation” years in the making — a cascading financial crisis that could hit classrooms this fall when nearly 400,000 kids return to school.

For years, the Chicago school system has been paying the bills on a hope and a prayer. Now it’s time to pay the piper. They don’t have the dough to pay what they owe to the teachers’ pension fund. Their creditworthiness has been downgraded to “junk” status. They lost over $100 million on a series of complex interest-rate gambles engineered by their former COO, David Vitale, who previously — you’re gonna love this — served as Vice Chairman at Bank One Corp.

Unless Mayor Rahm Emanuel can squeeze some aid out of the state government, things look bleak for his school system.

Source: Chicago Public Schools faces cash crunch now, possible crisis in the fall

The Biteme Report on Greece

Posted on June 13, 2015 by bitemaster

The Biteme Think Tank, somewhat aslosh in ouzo, olives and feta cheese, has been studying the Greece problem.

We previously noted that Greece is screwed. For decades, Greek governments of both the right and left have been cooking the books to disguise the actual state of their economy. (And during that period, most of the country’s prime ministers had degrees in economics!) Today, Greece is no less screwed, mainly because the citizenry still has no stomach for financial retrenchment.

So what should the economic powerhouses of Europe (i.e., Germany) do? Cutting Greece off from further loans could have a destabilizing effect on the whole of the EU. On the other hand, not doing so would just be throwing good money after bad,

On balance, we think they should cut Greece loose and concentrate on shoring up Spain and Italy.

Thanks to Governor Sam Brownback, Kansas is heading the way of Greece

Posted on May 25, 2015 by bitemaster

Because of the tax cuts enacted in 2012 and 2013, Kansas faces a deficit that equals 17% of the entire state budget. What is their legislature doing about it? Jack shit. That’s because die-hard conservatives won’t roll back the cuts that are sending the state down the drain.

Source: Kansas’ Governor Destroyed The State Budget With Massive Tax Cuts And Now Kansans Are Paying The Price | ThinkProgress

99% of NYC population is now in jail

Posted on May 25, 2015 by bitemaster

According to Think Progress:

Out of all 35 jurisdictions mentioned in the report, New York City had the largest jail population by far, with 8,405,837 behind bars in 2014.

Given that the city’s population is 8,491,079, the percent in jail is 0.989960993178841. That’s one hell of a revelation. Thanks, Think Progress!

Source: Jail Doesn’t Cost What You Think It Does

Republicans want to screw double-wide purchasers — who are probably Republicans

Posted on April 17, 2015 by bitemaster

Rep. Stephen Fincher (the Republican gospel singer from Frog Jump, Tenn.) has introduced a bill in Congress to repeal consumer protections for his white trash neighbors who are gypped by the predatory lending practices of the mobile home (“pre-manufactured”) industry.

Fincher’s reasoning probably goes like this: “If God had wanted these people to get loans on good terms, He would have made them rich like me.” Fincher himself did not just fall off a turnip truck — he’s been receiving millions in government money from both the Feds and the state government.

House Republicans Want To Strip Protections For People Living In Mobile Homes | ThinkProgress.

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Category Archives: Economics