Today in Lying Liars Lying

Keith Sonderling, Trump's Acting Secretary of Labor just threatened nearly every state and territory in the union with an unemployment funding cutoff for imaginary fraud.

These are truly horrible human beings.

Keith Sonderling sent letters to 53 states and US territories demanding action to “combat waste, fraud, and abuse” within the unemployment insurance program, threatening to withhold administrative funds from states for the first time in history.

“We are officially putting governors on notice,” said the acting US secretary of labor. “The American people will no longer tolerate the blatant waste, fraud, and abuse of their hard-earned tax dollars – no state should allow it either. If states allow it, they will suffer the consequences. This department is no longer afraid to use every lever available to ensure taxpayer money is protected.”

The agency did not provide data on fraud or alleged fraud in unemployment systems, but highlighted three Democrat-led states – California, New York and Illinois – and made claims about each.

Spoiler, Florida has a higher error rate than any of those states.

I Wish That I Lived in a First World Nation like Mexico

Do you know what Mexico has that we in the USA do not now? 

They are getting universal healthcare.

Lucky bastards.

At her morning press conference on April 7, President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that the credencialización process, or enrollment, for Mexico’s new universal health care service was set to begin. The goal, she explained, was unambiguous: “By the time we leave office, any Mexican will be able to go to any public health institution and receive care for any condition.”

To be phased in over the next four years, the reforms represent, in her words, “a historic step.” And if successful, indeed they will be. But in a fragmented health landscape where the Holy Grail of genuinely universal coverage has proved elusive, how will Sheinbaum’s ambitious rollout work?

The key to the answer lies in the name itself: it will be a national health service, not a system. Broadly speaking, Mexico’s current public system is divided into four main areas: The Mexican Social Security Institute (or IMSS, for its Spanish acronym) is for salaried, private sector workers; the Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers (or ISSSTE) is for their counterparts in the public sector; workers at the state oil company PEMEX have their own system; and the IMSS-Bienestar (Spanish for “well-being”), established by Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) administration, for those who do not qualify for the others, namely contract workers and the 33 million or so laboring in the informal sector. (An effort somewhat hampered by the fact that, in a dynamic roughly equivalent to the Obama-era expansion of Medicaid, a minority of states with right-wing governors have refused to opt in.)

………

Here’s how it will work. In 2026, all citizens will be given their credencial, or health ID card, which will also serve as an official means of identification. The card, which will gradually replace the health booklets currently in use, will be linked to an app containing each individual’s medical records, appointments, and available services. In 2027, portability will begin for an initial set of services: universal emergency care (currently patients are stabilized at the hospital of arrival before being transferred to a hospital in their system); high-risk pregnancies and other obstetric emergencies; heart attacks and strokes; breast cancer; universal vaccination; and basic consultations such as flu, diarrhea, and preventive care.

Patients will not only receive care at any health center but will also have the option of remaining there for the duration of care, eliminating situations where forced transferals lead to truncated treatments. Then, in 2028, portability of care will be extended to chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension; cross-institution specialist consultations and hospitalizations; and the ability to fill prescriptions at any institution.

Great.  Not tell Donald Trump to f%$# off.

Extra credit if you hire Peter Capaldi to tell Donald Trump to f%$# off. 

The Cruelty is the Point

Is anyone surprised that adding work rules to SNAP (Food Stamps) does not increase employment?

It's not about getting people to work.  It's political masturbation. 

………

As part of the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act, all “able-bodied adults” 64 or younger who don’t have dependents and don’t work, volunteer, or participate in job training at least 80 hours a month are now restricted to three months of benefits every three years from SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. Previously, the federal requirement applied to those 54 or younger. The new rule, which went into effect in November, also applies to parents of children 14 or older. And it removed exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young adults who’ve aged out of foster care.

Proponents of work requirements argue that they incentivize people who are “work-ready” to seek and keep jobs, reducing dependence on government assistance and upholding the “dignity of work.”

Rhonda Rogombé serves as health and safety net policy analyst for the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. She and her colleagues have studied the effects of SNAP work rules and found that requiring recipients to work does not lower an area’s unemployment rate.

 

The Term for this is Rodef (רוֹדֵף)

The Trump administration has just sent an email out to grocery stores stating that they might face legal sanctions if they offer discounts to food stamp (SNAP) recipients who are receiving reduced benefits.

I guess that they think that charity and kindness are a Democratic Party plot of some kind. 

This is a whole new level of gleeful cruelty, even for for them:

The Trump administration’s freeze on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds during the government shutdown is forcing many struggling Americans to make hard decisions about feeding themselves and their families. Now the administration is even restricting how much grocery stories can help. 

After several food delivery apps and grocery store chains sought to offer discounts to those whose SNAP benefits were interrupted or delayed, the Department of Agriculture sent an email to stores across the country warning them that they weren’t allowed to offer discounts to people hurt by the cuts to the food stamp program.

MSNBC anchor Catherine Rampell posted a screenshot of the email on X Sunday, and reported that at least two stores withdrew their discounts after receiving the email. At issue is SNAP’s “Equal Treatment Rule,” which bars stores from either discriminating against people in the program or offering them favorable treatment.  

USDA sent an email to grocery stores telling them they are prohibited from offering special discounts to customers affected by the SNAP funding lapse. I'm aware of at least 2 stores that had offered struggling customers a discount, then withdrew it after receiving this email pic.twitter.com/E0vZ4hvrfY

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) November 2, 2025

There is a difference between an opposition and an enemy.  The Trump administration is clearly the latter.

Assuming that there are future elections, and that the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) does not f%$# it up completely, these people, as well as their fellow travelers, need to be removed root and branch, not just from government, but from society.

^*The term Rodef (רוֹדֵף) is a Hebrew term which translates literally to pursuer.  It refers to an entity, think something like a rabid dog, where the use of lethal force is mandated to protect human life.

As a remindcer to Kristi "ICE Barbie" Noem, a puippy being rambunctious does not make it a Rodef (רוֹדֵף), so your putting a bullet in its head is still a bad thing.

Hunger Gets Memory Holed

In response to reports of increased hunger in the United States, the the Trump Administration is terminating the decades-old annual hunger survey.

I guess that's one way of dealing with societal problems, suppress any information about the problem:

The Trump administration is canceling an annual government effort to gather data on how many Americans struggle to get enough food.

The data, which is collected each December and analyzed by the U.S. Agriculture Department, measures food insecurity across states and demographic groups. 

The data has been collected every year since the mid-1990s and is widely used by federal, state and local policymakers to make funding decisions for food-assistance programs and to evaluate how well those programs work.

The decision to discontinue the survey for 2025 was announced in meetings with USDA employees this past week by an administrator for the Economic Research Service, an arm of the Agriculture Department, according to people present at the meetings. 

……… 

Employees inside the USDA as well as economists outside the agency who work closely with the data reacted with shock and anger as word spread about the cancellation. 

“For the past 30 years, the USDA food insecurity measure has provided insight into the extent that American families have been able to cover their food needs,” said Colleen Heflin, a professor at Syracuse University, who has been studying the data since its inception and learned of its cancellation. “Not having this measure for 2025 is particularly troubling given the current rise in inflation and deterioration of labor market conditions, two conditions known to increase food insecurity.” 

………

The decision to end the USDA data collection comes at a time when more Americans are struggling to get enough to eat. Food banks have seen requests for assistance from households rise over the past few years, driven by the end of pandemic aid programs and the impact of inflation on grocery prices. 

………

The decision to end the USDA data collection comes at a time when more Americans are struggling to get enough to eat. Food banks have seen requests for assistance from households rise over the past few years, driven by the end of pandemic aid programs and the impact of inflation on grocery prices. 

………

Lindsey Smith Taillie, professor in the nutrition department at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, said without the study, the nation would have no real compass on a key health indicator for Americans.

“Why would you not want to measure it?” she said. “I think the only reason why you wouldn’t measure it is if you were planning to cut food assistance, because it basically allows you to pretend like we don’t have this food insecurity problem.” 

When there is a reckoning for these folks, there will not be a dungeon deep enough to throw them into.

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day

Publicly condemning interpersonal acts of political violence is often a tool for normalizing and promoting ongoing acts of mass political violence like stripping people of Medicaid, destroying public health systems, police-state violence against immigrants and minorities, etc.

— Eric Reinhart (@_Eric_Reinhart) September 11, 2025

Kills more people too.

This Is Not a Surprise

Trump has a plan to eliminate Social Security.

It's simple, they believe that if they gut the Social Security Administration, the resulting poor performance will undermine support for the program.

They put it in a memo, and the memo got leaked:

An internal Social Security Administration (SSA) memo, sent on March 13 and obtained by Popular Information, details proposed changes to the claims process that would debilitate the agency, cause significant processing delays, and prevent many Americans from applying for or receiving benefits.

The memo, authored by Acting Deputy SSA Commissioner Doris Diaz, purports to be motivated by a desire to mitigate "fraud risks."

 

Elon Musk has pushed several false claims about the nature and scope of Social Security fraud. In a recent interview on Fox Business, Musk suggested that 10% of federal expenditures were related to Social Security fraud. This is false. Social Security fraud does exist, but "improper" Social Security payments amounts to about $9 billion annually — less than 1% of total Social Security benefits paid and 0.1% of the federal budget. Most improper payments are not criminal fraud but the result of beneficiaries or the SSA failing to update records.

The biggest change contemplated by Diaz's memo is to require "internet identity proofing" for "benefit claims… made over the phone." When an SSA customer is "unable to utilize the internet ID proofing, customers will be required to visit a field office to provide in-person identity documentation."

When this is juxtaposed with thousands of layoffs at field offices, and dozens of field office closures, it means that people will not be able to get their benefits.

With wait times for face to face appointments exceeding a month before the cuts, it is no stretch of the imagination to see wait times of 6 months to a year to address even the most basic issues.

When people don't get their benefits, or they are forced to jump through ridiculous hoops to get them, the popularity of the program will tank, and at that point, Trump and his  Evil Minions™ can gift wrap social security and give it to Wall Street.

Yeah, This is Going to Go Over Like a Lead Balloon

It appears that President Musk is planning to fire half the workforce of the Social Security Administration.

The goal here appears to make sure that people cannot get their issues with their Social Security benefits addressed.

My guess is that Elon thinks that it can all be replaced by Google style, "Customer Support," or he thinks that the poor performance will result in people losing faith in the program.

Have I mentioned before that Elon Musk is really, REALLY, stupid? 

The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA) requested in a meeting on Tuesday that managers present him with a plan for a 50 percent reduction in staff, a mass firing that could affect tens of thousands of employees across the country.

The deadline for the plan to be submitted to Leland Dudek, who was elevated to the acting commissioner position just a couple of weeks ago, is this afternoon, according to two sources who wished to remain anonymous.

The decision could target one of the government’s most prominent public-facing initiatives: SSA field offices, where seniors, people with disabilities, and survivors whose parents have died can sign up for benefits and get information.

“I’m getting conflicting reports on what was discussed in that meeting,” said Rich Couture, spokesperson for the Social Security General Committee of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), adding that some reports indicated that field offices would be spared. But one manager present at the meeting indicated that the 50 percent trim was at all levels. And cuts that have dribbled out over the past several days appear to impact field offices where a majority of SSA employees work.

Remember how Republican Congressmen were shocked at the push-back at what's happening so far at their town halls. (The Republican response was to tell members of the caucus not to hold town halls)

When seniors discover that they cannot get a hold of anyone when their checks are late, that is going to make that little bit of drama look like a kissing booth at the county fair.

Osama, Take Me Now

Mehmet Oz?

Fucking "Doctor"
Fucking Memhet
Fucking Oz?!?!?!

Fuck.

Yes, I realize that it is not , "Say Fuck January."  I've been inspired.

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day

Biden oversaw the single biggest removal of social benefits in American history, which resulted in the single biggest increase in poverty in American history. He called this "Bidenomics."

Then Kamala said she'd do nothing differently while campaigning in a $62,000 gold necklace. pic.twitter.com/uhEzzH5SGG

— Holding Dems Accountable (From the Left!) (@PushBidenLeft) November 8, 2024

This is indeed true.

While Biden did not have to power to keep all of these programs in place while facing a hostile, and honestly nihilist, Congress, he did have the power to keep many of them in place, simply by not declaring that the Covid emergency was over.

He declined to do so, because he and his people had decided that the appearance of normalcy was more important than the actual state of the ongoing pandemic and the condition of the people most effected by the pandemic.

To quote (not) Tallyrand, it was worse than a crime, it was a mistake.

Disgraceful

Argentine President Javier Milei has had to be forced by a judge to distribute food in warehouses to the poor.

It seems that he would rather let the food rot than distribute it to hungry children, because he derives pleasure from hurting people.

If he were an American, he'd be on his way to being the Republican nominee:

By order of Judge Sebastian Casanello, President Javier Milei was forced to distribute food that was intended for social assistance programs for the poorest Argentines.

On Tuesday, the Argentine army began distributing food valued at approximately US$4 million that had been stored unused and was about to expire.

This situation triggered a scandal, leading to the resignation of senior officials from the Human Capital Ministry. Prosecutor Paloma Ochoa is leading an investigation into the matter.

About 5,000 tons of food, abandoned in two state warehouses, must be distributed in the next two weeks under an immediate delivery protocol due to the expiration dates of the products.

With the support of the highway police, food distribution operations are being carried out in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Tucuman.

………

Specifically, the food will be distributed by the Foundation for Child Nutrition (CONIN) in community dining halls in Buenos Aires peripheral settlements such as Hurlingham, Merlo, Jose Paz, Escobar, and Tigre, which are areas severely affected by poverty.

………

The Human Capital Ministry announced that it will design a new emergency aid storage system to be overseen by presidential advisor Federico Sturzenegger, who is considered the architect of the Milei administration's anti-regulation and anti-state reforms. 

Yeah, let's put one of the, "The cruelty is the point," psychopaths in charge of this. That's going to end well.

40+ years of international Neoliberal economics has left an electorate that see no hope beyond burning everything down.

This is what you get.

 

Headline of the Day

Why America Hates Its Children

—Business Insider

They make the obvious point that in the United States, children are neglected and confined by society in some profoundly worrying ways:

Last summer, my kids and I spent a month in Greece, where their grandfather lives. Time and again, I was struck by a public attitude toward children I seldom encountered in America: unequivocal support.

On Athenian buses, women older than myself frequently gave up their seats for my 5- and 8-year-old daughters. On one trip, an older woman hauled my younger child up next to her and tucked her hand underneath my daughter's elbow to prevent her from being thrown forward with every sudden stop. She held on to her like this for the whole ride.

In America, we socialize our children to see strangers not as helpers but as threats. Worried parents scour Nextdoor for loiterers and miscreants; neighbors routinely call the police when parents let their kids explore outside. And when kids aren't being treated as endangered, they're often viewed as a nuisance. How many articles have I read about whether children should be allowed on airplanes, or at weddings, or in restaurants?

Every country has its share of adults who pose a threat to children. But the difference in how America treats its kids goes far beyond the "it takes a village" attitude that prevails in countries like Greece. Virtually every other industrialized nation provides more government aid for their children than America does. Of the 38 countries that belong to the leading Western trade alliance, the US ranks No. 32 in spending on early childhood. In Sweden, which offers single parents a staggering 480 days of paid parental leave, preschool costs no more than 3% of a family's gross income. America, by contrast, has no mandated paid parental leave. It has no universal childcare. Only one-third of American families can afford childcare, which consumes 27% of their income on average. Parents are being forced to leave big cities because they can't absorb the costs of childcare, while those in rural areas often can't find care at all.

America's rampant child neglect doesn't stop with its lack of day care. Infants are more likely to die in childbirth in America than in any other rich nation, and US newborns are more likely to grow up in poverty. Millions of children attend public schools that are literally falling apart. Children who are neglected — a loose term inextricably tied to poverty — are thrown into a foster-care system known for its propensity to harm children. The shortage of foster families is so critical that many kids wind up being temporarily housed in settings like casinos, office buildings, and juvenile detention facilities. The US is the only member of the United Nations that hasn't ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which includes the right to be free from violence and labor exploitation. In Oregon, where I live, children as young as 9 are allowed to do agricultural work, and many states are trying to loosen their already flimsy child-labor protections so teenagers can be forced to work longer hours. The leading cause of death for American children and teens is gun violence.

All of which raises the question: Why does America hate its children?

Because children have needs, and America is Lord of the Flies writ large.

How dare you be helpless.

How dare you have needs.

You should have considered that before you were born.

What Do You Call a Politician Whose First Instinct Is to Cut the Minimum Wage?

A Republican, like for example, California Gavin Newsom. 

This is not a surprise.  If you look at Newsom's actions throughout his time as  Governor, they have been all the same, overestimate the budget impact, overestimate state budget problems, and kill progressive initiatives that have passed the house.

He is doing this for the minimum wage increase for healthcare workers, attempting to roll back legislation that he has already passed.

His department of finance is claiming a $4 billion first year cost, when independent assessments place that at $300 million, and so he wants the law rewritten and neutered. (Gee only a 93% dfference)

I get it, hospitals, hospital lawyers, and hospital executives are major campaign donors.

To quote Emilio Estevez from Repo Man, "F%$# that."

With California facing an expected $68-billion budget deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom is seeking “major reforms” to pull funding from a costly plan next year to begin raising the statewide minimum wage for healthcare workers to $25 an hour.

Newsom told The Times last week that his staff has “been working behind the scenes” with Democratic leaders in the Legislature on how to move forward with the minimum wage law in light of state budget concerns. The changes, which would have to be approved by lawmakers next year, were “all part of an understanding” with labor leaders before he signed the bill, Newsom said.

F%$# his "Understanding."  The law was passed, the law was signed into law by him, and the amount is (from the accurate assessment of cost) just 0.4% of the deficit.

Are there no alternatives?  Nope:

………

The Legislative Analyst’s Office said conditions exist for Newsom to declare a fiscal emergency to dip into budget reserves to cover some of the shortfall. Analysts laid out other maneuvers that could be used to reduce the deficit, including saving $16.7 billion by reducing education funding under Proposition 98 to the constitutional minimum.

The state budget reserves are something north of $35 billion, but according Newsom, they are not to be touched, because, he really does not want a minimum wage increase, or setting a price cap on insulin, or banning caste discrimination, or the decriminalization of psychedelic drugs, or offering unemployment benefits to strikers, rolling back internet connectivity programs in poor neighborhoods (but not rich ones), homeless housing support, etc.  (Links from me about this here)

………

Laurel Lucia, director of the healthcare program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, said a yet-to-be-published estimate by the university suggests the cost is closer to $300 million from the general fund in the first year — lower than the state’s prediction. The labor center developed the estimate based on the final law to help inform policymakers, she said.

Newsom said he was “resolved” that he couldn’t sign the bill into law without promises from key players that changes would be made in the legislative session that begins in January.

Tia Orr, executive director of Service Employees International Union California, said the financial health of the state is consistent with raising wages for 500,000 healthcare workers, nearly half of whom are on some form of public assistance.

Note that no one here is calculating the costs of 250,000 workers receiving public assistance, much of which would not be necessary with the minimum wage increase, because he does not care.

We do not need another neoliberal weasel on the national political scene.

Free Healthcare, Unionized Schools, and Their Parents All Have Jobs

So people are wondering why military schools seem to deliver education of such high quality.

It's pretty simple:  These kids parents have a decent job, they all have very good healthcare, and the unionized teaching corps is unionized.

Maybe if we did this for the rest of America ……… Naah, that's crazy talk!

H/t Atrios.

But It's San Francisco!

S.F. mayor London Breed is calling for drug testing for people who are getting social welfare benefits.

Yep, standard reactionary position.

It appears that she is sucking up to the Silly-Con Valley political donors, who want their pot and their abortion, but want the poors kept in their place:

Recipients of public assistance — in a city once known for its embrace of counterculture drugs — would have to submit to tests for substance use under a proposal announced Tuesday by Mayor London Breed as she faces mounting pressure to address San Francisco’s fentanyl epidemic.

Breed, who is running for reelection in 2024, outlined the plan the same day that an heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune launched his own mayoral bid, arguing that his incumbent opponent had let the drug and homelessness crises fester under her watch.

Her proposal — which progressive critics immediately compared to Republican-style welfare mandates — would require all recipients of locally-funded cash assistance participate in a substance abuse treatment program if screening showed drug use.

“No more handouts without accountability,” Breed said at a City Hall news conference. “People are not accepting help. Now, it’s time to make sure that we are cutting off resources that continue to allow this behavior.”

………

Breed has increasingly leaned into tough-on-crime rhetoric in recent months as she faces political headwinds and a growing field of challengers. On Tuesday, she defended her welfare proposal with a Clinton-esque commentary about the need for incentives that make subsidies contingent on personal responsibility.

All the highfalutin words mean nothing when there is no cost for them.

London Breed has just revealed who she really is, and it is not pretty.

Thanks Joe and Kyrsten

Last year, child poverty nearly doubled with the end of the child tax credit instituted as a part of the Covid response. 

The Republicans opposed this, of course, but the reason that the single most effective anti-poverty program in US history was rolled back was because Manchin and Sinema insisted on it, because they wanted to hurt the poors.

What is driving this is likely the fact that opposing aid to the poor is a way to speak in tongues to racist constituetts in their states:  (Dumping on poor people has been a proxy for racism since the founding of the republic.)

The United States’ poverty rate experienced its largest one-year jump on record last year, with the rate among children more than doubling from 2021’s historic low of 5.2 percent to 12.4 percent according to new numbers from the US Census Bureau out today. They’re the latest data to reflect the devastating effects following the expiration of nearly all pandemic-era relief programs. That includes the end of Medicaid rules that protected recipients from getting kicked off because of administrative errors, an end to rental assistance policies, and the restart of student loan payments.

………

But as the pandemic receded, Republicans with the help of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who in private remarks reportedly warned that families were using the extra income to buy drugs, [How to drop the N-word without actually saying n***er] appeared to remember the country’s longstanding pre-pandemic hostility. Their opposition ultimately tanked President Biden’s agenda, and along with it, the brief life of the expanded child tax credit. That’s something worth remembering today as the predictable crowd is likely to cry about Democratic-engineered inflation.

Not mentioned in the above article is that Kyrsten Sinema helped tank the child tax credit while fighting to keep the carried interest tax loophole than only benefits big finance.

The Democratic Party needs better Democrats.

I’ve Been Saying This for How Long?

Someone just did a study on the best available data, and discovered that private equity and hedge funds under-perform the market by 1.2% annually.

This may not sound like much, but remember compound interest, 11.4% in 10 years, 21.5% in 20 years, and 30.4% in 30 years.

The best guess, because hedge funds deals with pension funds are notoriously opaque, is that they are getting gigged on the funds like a  disemboweled tuna:

Private equity, hedge funds, and real estate have failed public pensions for more than a decade.

A study that will be published in The Journal of Investing shows that not only did alternatives not deliver better returns, but adding them to portfolios actually destroyed alpha, the portion of return seemingly not explained by risk. Most people in finance define it more loosely: as the return on an active investment above what an index fund would provide.

“Alpha appears to respond to the presence of alts as if the latter were kryptonite — the greater the exposure, the harsher the effect on alpha,” wrote Richard Ennis, author of the study, a former editor of the Financial Analysts Journal, and co-founder of EnnisKnupp, one of the first investment consultants.

According to the study, public pension funds in the U.S. have generated negative alpha of approximately 1.2 percent annually since the global financial crisis in 2008. Ennis found that private equity didn’t help — or hurt — excess returns. But both real estate and hedge fund exposures detracted significantly from performance.

Endowments, public and corporate pensions, and other U.S. institutions have put about $2 trillion into alternative investments. Institutions have made a dramatic shift since about 2000 from holding mostly public stocks and bonds to adding extensive investments in private markets, because they’ve been convinced that many of these strategies will outperform public markets and add diversity and lower the volatility of their portfolios. 

………

Ennis collected data on the most transparent institution, U.S. public-sector pension funds, for the 13 fiscal years ending June 30, 2021. His collection methodology demonstrates how hard it is to get comprehensive information on alternatives. Ennis was limited by a number of funds that had different fiscal year-ends, making comparisons difficult, and pensions that didn’t explicitly say that their reported rates of return were net of fees.

So it could actually be worse, because hedge fund fees are typically 2% of the investment PLUS 20% of any profits.

………

Despite the shift in the composition of institutional portfolios, Ennis undertook the study because little research on the behavior of alternatives and whether they improve portfolios has been conducted. That’s because the investments are private — by definition, unlisted companies don’t trade on an exchange where prices are broadcast in real time — and only public pension funds and some large endowments disclose detailed and timely performance data.

Ennis collected data on the most transparent institution, U.S. public-sector pension funds, for the 13 fiscal years ending June 30, 2021. His collection methodology demonstrates how hard it is to get comprehensive information on alternatives. Ennis was limited by a number of funds that had different fiscal year-ends, making comparisons difficult, and pensions that didn’t explicitly say that their reported rates of return were net of fees.

He then used returns-based analysis to explain the returns of a 59 public pension fund-composite and 59 individual funds. From there, he calculated the returns that have been generated above a passive investment — in other words, alpha. Returns-based analysis is a widely accepted method based on the work of Bill Sharpe that identifies underlying market exposures from a series of returns.

Ennis found that in addition to the destruction of alpha, alternatives don’t offer the diversification benefits that institutions expect. “Stock and bond indexes alone capture the return-variability characteristics of alternative investments in the public fund composite for all intents and purposes in the post-GFC era,” said Ennis.

This is why private equity and hedge funds contribute so generously to campaigns.

The politicians get the donations, they lean on the pension funds, which generates the funds for political donations.

It's a self-licking ice cream cone.

The Cruelty is the Point

It appears that the latest attempt by Republicans to create a society in their own image, by which I mean cruel and small, is their Jihad against universal free school lunches.

I'd argue that Republicans have some sort of social imperative to be schmucks, but as I have said many times, a schmuck has a head.

States across the country are moving to provide universal free school meals to all our children. Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to stop them from doing just that.

The Republican Study Committee (of which some three-quarters of House Republicans are members) on Wednesday released its desired 2024 budget, in which the party boldly declares its priority to eliminate the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, from the School Lunch Program. Why? Because “CEP allows certain schools to provide free school lunches regardless of the individual eligibility of each student.”

This behavior is short-sighted, stupid, and self destructive. 

Yet more evidence that Frank (The composer, not the political scientist) Wilhoit's observation is true, "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

From the Land of the Guillotine

In 1958, at the prodding of Charles de Gaulle, the France's 5th Republic was established. (It could be argued that it was a coup)

It established what can be best described as an, "Elected Dictatorship," because de Gaulle despaired of French parliamentary politics, or as he put it, "How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?"

Generally, France's President has used this power with restraint, but after Macron invoked pension cut-backs by decree after it was clear that the National Assembly and Senate would not approve the bill, the country has erupted in protest:

It’d been hanging over France’s retirement reform fight from the beginning — a reminder that, come hell or high water, President Emmanuel Macron intended to have his way.

Last Thursday, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne announced that Macron’s government would “commit its responsibility” (the terse wording for decree in the French constitution’s Article 49, Section 3) to force adoption of a hike in the retirement age from sixty-two to sixty-four. Promptly filed on Friday, two motions of no confidence in response — the only way to reverse a so-called 49.3 —were struck down in the National Assembly on March 20. Enough MPs from the center-right Republicans, ostensibly an opposition party, opted to prop up Macron’s minority government.

Macron’s pension bill is now set to become law, barring a few scenarios like an appeal to the Constitutional Council and a possible referendum initiative to revoke the package. The government’s reform was officially about covering a budgeting hole and calming the supposedly wary financial markets, as Macron is said to have warned in the cabinet meeting last Thursday when the decision to force the legislation was finally made.

Unofficially, pulling off retirement reform had morphed into an obsession for the president, who came to view it as a silver bullet for reaffirming his authority at the start of his second term. The irony now is that Macron has fired the first shot in a political crisis that has left him increasingly isolated.

The 49.3 is one of the most brazen acts of executive privilege allowed by France’s top-heavy Fifth Republic — the political system established by Charles de Gaulle after he maneuvered back to power following a 1958 right-wing putsch. While in last June’s parliamentary elections Macron’s supporters remained the single largest bloc, they lost their majority of seats; already before last week’s pension decision, Borne had used this power to override parliament ten times before, on a string of budgeting bills.

But falling back on the 49.3 for a sensitive issue like pension reform means igniting a political powder keg. The president’s single-minded quest to force his desired reform — one rejected by an alliance of the country’s unions and whose economic justification has been criticized by the state’s own pension advisory body — is dangerously straining France’s governing institutions, astonishing the opposition and even some of the president’s allies.

Millions of people have taken to the street since mid-January, when the legislation was formally introduced and placed on a fast-track pathway to rush to adoption in fifty days. If it was not enough to bring the government to reconsider its package, the wave of strikes and protests has at least forced Macron into the embarrassing position of strong-arming his signature reform. It could end up turning into a Pyrrhic victory for the president.

And a powder keg it is. 

Pretty much the entire country is on a general strike, with (and this is the first time that I have ever heard of this) staff of the Louvre Museum blockading entrances in protest, in addition to road blockages, strikes by garbage collectors in Paris, transportation workers, refinery workers, students, teachers.

Basically it's pretty much everyone but the brutal and confrontational French riot police.

The right wing in the Parliament rallied to Macron's support, at least to the degree that Macron survived a no-confidence vote, but his actions, and particularly the unilateral nature of those actions, has led to protests unlike anything in my memory.

It's gotten dicey enough that a state visit by King Charles of the UK had to be postponed.

Certainly the optics, a state dinner at Versailles invokes Maria Antoinette's apocryphal, "Let them eat cake," quote, were absolutely atrocious.

In the, "This sh$# is getting real," department we had protesters setting fire to the Bordeaux city hall, which is rather more aggressive than the usual vandalism from the small number of assholes at French protests, who normally content themselves with smashing the windows of McDonald's Restaurants and the like.

As it stands, the French state security apparatus appears to continue to (brutally) support the regime, albeit with the condemnation of the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner.

I do not know if the French 5th Republic will survive this, but I hope not.  It is a truly awful way to govern a society.

What Part of “Comcast” Don’t You Understand?

We don't care, we don't have to ……… we're Comcast

Gee, Comcast "customer service" agents are "accidentally" refusing qualified poor folks from federal subsidies.

It could be incompetence, but we are talking about Comcast, so it's safer to assume that this was driven by a malicious profit motive, because that is how they roll:

People with low incomes can get free Internet service through Comcast and a government program, but signing up is sometimes harder than it should be because of confusion within Comcast's customer service department.

Massachusetts resident Tonia Williams qualified for the US government's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provides $30 monthly discounts, and for Comcast's Internet Essentials Plus, a $30 monthly service for low-income people that is essentially free when combined with the ACP discount. But when she tried to use the ACP discount with Comcast's low-income service, Comcast incorrectly told her she wasn't eligible because she was already a Comcast customer.

Williams, a certified nursing assistant who was not working when she spoke to Ars, was eventually able to get free home Internet service for her family. But she faced several hassles and said she would have given up if it hadn't been for David Isenberg, a Falmouth resident who's been helping low-income people in his town navigate the process. Isenberg knew Williams because she was previously a home health aide taking care of Isenberg's wife's uncle.

………

The confusion is related to a Comcast rule that makes customers ineligible for Internet Essentials low-income service if they have been a Comcast subscriber in the previous 90 days. That rule and another one related to unpaid bills are not supposed to apply to people who also qualify for the federal ACP program.

Comcast can call it an error all they want, but it appears that their customer service representatives are forcing customers to jump through unreasonable hoops to get their lowest cost tier.

I am inclined to believe that this is not poor training, but rather a mandate to up-sell.