There Is No Recovery: Utah Proposes Scrapping 12th Grade; Nevada Rations Diapers; Harrisburg Heads For Bankruptcy; NBA Lockouts Loom

Prepare for collapse.


Here is a quick roundup with a general theme of “Hard Times”.

12th Grade Optional

Utah considers cutting 12th grade — altogether

At Utah’s West Jordan High School, the halls have swirled lately with debate over the merits of 12th grade. The sudden buzz over the relative value of senior year stems from a recent proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars that Utah make a dent in its budget gap by eliminating the 12th grade.

Buttars has since toned down the idea, suggesting instead that senior year become optional for students who complete their required credits early. He estimated the move could save up to $60 million, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

The proposal comes as the state faces a $700-million shortfall and reflects the creativity — or desperation — of lawmakers all over.

“You’re looking at these budget gaps where lawmakers have to use everything and anything to try to resolve them,” said Todd Haggerty, a policy associate with the National Conference of State Legislatures. “It’s left lawmakers with very unpopular decisions.”

“The bottom line is saving taxpayer dollars while improving options for students,” said state Sen. Howard A. Stephenson, a Republican and co-chairman of the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee. “The more options we give to students to accelerate, the more beneficial it is to students and taxpayers.”

Jordan Utah School District To Lay Off 500

Jordan District to lay off 500 employees because of $30M shortfall

The Jordan School District will lay off 500 employees by July 1 as part of an effort to make up for a $30 million shortfall.

By a 6-1 vote, the Jordan Board of Education approved options to reduce the 2010-11 budget, which include personnel cuts, programs and services cuts, transfer of expenditures to other programs, compensation adjustments, class-size increases, and possible tax increases.

Between now and the end of March, the board will determine which positions and programs will be eliminated. As many as 250 teaching positions and 250 administrative/support staff positions will be cut.

Not a single teacher need be cut. All it takes is unions to lower salary demands and/or pensions. Any cuts are the direct responsibility of the Teachers’ union.

Harrisburg Pennsylvania Heads For Bankruptcy

Harrisburg excludes debt payments from 2010 budget

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, moved a step closer to defaulting on a bond payment when its city council passed a 2010 budget that does not include $68 million in debt repayments on an incinerator.

Without the debt provision in the $65 million budget, the state capital may miss a March 1 payment of $2.072 million, a rarity for a municipal bond issuer.

Joyce Davis, a spokeswoman for Mayor Linda Thompson, confirmed the council’s decision — taken at a special session on Saturday — and said the mayor is not commenting for now on the implications of exclusion of the debt payments from the budget.

The council also defeated a plan to sell city assets to help pay down the debt which is guaranteed by the city on behalf of the Harrisburg Authority, a separate municipal entity that owns the incinerator. Council members also rejected Thompson’s plan to raise property taxes and water rates.

N.B.A. Lockout Likely

Falk Says N.B.A. and Players Headed for Trouble

A year ago, during a wide-ranging interview to promote his book, Falk – the N.B.A.’s first superagent and a longtime confidant of Michael Jordan’s – warned that the league was in economic distress, that the owners would be seeking huge concessions from players and that a lockout was possible, perhaps even likely.

Falk predicted then that the N.B.A. would seek a hard salary cap, shorter contracts, a higher minimum age for incoming players, elimination of the midlevel cap exception and an overall reduction in the players’ percentage of revenue.

When the N.B.A. and the players union opened negotiations this weekend in Dallas, every item on Falk’s list was in play, as part of the league’s initial proposal.

Billy Hunter, the union’s executive director, called the proposal oppressive Friday, after a 90-minute negotiating session that he described as contentious. Predictions of a lockout are common among players and owners.

the signs are troubling, and the sides have rarely seemed so far apart. About half of the league’s 30 franchises are losing money, according to some estimates. Owners want a radical restructuring of the economic system, starting with a hard salary cap to replace the current soft-cap system. The union is in favor of maintaining the status quo.

Falk has been a player agent for 36 years, but he shares the view of league officials that the N.B.A.’s economic system is broken. Small-market owners cannot keep pace with their big-market peers. Players with modest skills are making too much money, leading to a decline in the quality of play.

Falk blames the union, which in its zeal to protect the salaries of rank-and-file players, accepted maximum salaries on superstars in 1999. The result is a system that guarantees tens of millions of dollars to modest bench players like Jerome James and Brian Cardinal via the midlevel exception.

In the grand scheme of things, will it matter if the N.B.A. folded? Other than vendors selling beer and guys on the cleanup crew etc., most would not miss it. If half the franchises are losing money, the owners only have themselves to blame.

Owners don’t need salary caps, they just need common sense. All they need to do is stop bidding incredible amounts for players. They have a chance to put their foot down now and negotiate a better contract. The ball is in the owners’ court. A nice two year lockout would set the appropriate tone.

Downtown Minneapolis Hooters Hasn’t Paid Rent For A Year

Party over for Hooters downtown?

The Hooters in downtown Minneapolis owes more than $350,000 in rent, utilities, taxes and penalties, and the landlords are taking the restaurant’s owners to court to force them to pay up.

Block E Realty claims Hooters’ owners, John and Steven Marso, haven’t paid the monthly base rent of $9,218 for their prime skyway location at N. 6th Street and Hennepin Avenue S. for nearly a year and a half.

The suit, filed in Hennepin County District Court on Jan. 21, said the restaurant also owes at least $105,000 in operating costs, $58,000 in taxes and $33,000 in utilities, phone lines and other services.

The Marso brothers operate the downtown Hooters and another one in Burnsville under the name Twin Wings of Minneapolis. The Burnsville restaurant is delinquent on $47,947 in property taxes for 2009, according to Dakota County records. The Hooters that Steven Marso owned in St. Cloud closed in January 2009.

Nevada To Ration Diapers, Dentures, Hearing Aids

NEVADA’S BUDGET WOES: Dentures, diapers for elderly out under proposed reductions, officials say

Poor people eligible for free Medicaid health care no longer would receive eyeglasses, dentures, hearing aids or as many adult diapers under the $109 million in social service spending reductions proposed by Gov. Jim Gibbons.

“We are down to the ugly list of options of where we can cut,” Department of Health and Human Services Director Mike Willden told members of the Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee on Tuesday.

The state would save $829,304 by reducing the number of adult diapers that incontinent disabled and elderly people would receive. The reduction was mentioned repeatedly Tuesday as the most horrendous example of a budget cut.

Eligible people now receive 300 diapers per month; that would be cut to 186, which, according to the Health and Human Services agency, is in line with national standards.

But Washoe Legal Services lobbyist Jon Sasser predicted that elderly people will be spending hours per day “with poop in their diapers.”

“It is abhorrent to be discussing this,” Buckley said. “Are we really going to tell the elderly we are cutting them off dentures and hearing aids and diapers? I don’t know how we can look the elderly in the eye.”

When questioned about the proposal, Gibbons’ communication director, Daniel Burns, said the state simply does not have the money. If legislators do not want to take the limit off diapers, the governor will support them if they find something else to cut, he said.

“The state can’t pay for everything,” Burns said. “The governor realizes some adults have to wear diapers. This is a serious (recession).”

Recovery? There is no recovery. Things are going to get worse for states, not better.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Sunday, February 14, 2010

Source: Global Economic Analysis

The US government and the Fed are destroying America:

Societe Generale Chief Strategist Albert Edwards: Theft! Were the US & UK central banks complicit in robbing the middle classes?

How to invest for a global-debt-bomb explosion; Prepare for an apocalyptic anarchy (Market Watch)

Marc Faber on CNBC: All Governments Will Default On Their Debt, Including The US

Cynthia McKinney at Munich Germany NATO Peace Rally: ‘My Country Has Been Hijacked By A Criminal Cabal’

Report: 1 in 5 US Homeowners Underwater; Foreclosures at Record High

Another lie:
President Obama’s Pledge Never to Raise Taxes on Anyone Making Less Than $250,000 a Year

Rep. Alan Grayson: ‘20 Percent Of Our Accumulated Wealth Over The Course Of 2 Centuries Gone in 18 months!’

Paul Craig Roberts: It Is Now Official: The U.S. Is A Police State

Prof. Russell Roberts Testifies Before House Committee: ‘I Want My Country Back!’

Director of National Intelligence Says US May Kill Americans Abroad

President Obama Ups Pakistan Drone Strikes in Assassination Campaign

The New Vision of the Obama Administration: War Without End

Pentagon’s New Record Black Budget Tops $56 Billion

Rep. Ron Paul on Obama seeking to assassinate ‘US citizens’ he labels as terrorist

White House to Paint Grim Fiscal Picture: Another Record Budget Deficit

US: GDP Mirage – The Last Hurrah

Controller: Pennsylvania Capital Should Weigh Bankruptcy

Marc Faber: Obama Makes Bush Look Like a Genius

Obamanomics: Why Did the ‘Stimulus’ Fail to Help the US Economy?

Paul Craig Roberts: How Wall Street Destroyed Health Care – Greed, Be Thou My God

Ron Paul: US Foreign Policy is Bankrupting America

Rep. Ron Paul: State of the Republic Address – ‘Dangerous Times Indeed.’

America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship! (MUST-READ!)

The CFR Controls American News/Media

Senate Proposes Increasing US Debt Limit to $14.3 Trillion: “If Congress does not enact this legislation, and soon, then the Treasury would default on its debt for the first time in history,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus

US: Unfunded Benefits Dig States’ $3 Trillion Hole

Illinois enters a state of insolvency: ‘We’re close to de facto bankruptcy, if not de jure bankruptcy.’

The No.1 Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente: Financial Mafia Controlling US and Wall Street

Peter Schiff: The Lunacy of US Government Programs

– Former Dean of Harvard College Harry R. Lewis: Larry Summers, Robert Rubin: Will The Harvard Shadow Elite Bankrupt The University And The Country?

Experts: Dollar Crisis Looms if US Doesn’t Curb Debt

Marc Faber on Coming Sovereign Debt Crisis: Next Countries to Default are the US, Japan and the ‘PIIGS’

Fitch: US Must Cut Spending To Save AAA Rating; US December Deficit Nearly Doubles

The Coming Sovereign Debt Crisis

US slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels

PIMCO’S Bill Gross: ‘Let’s Get Fisical’ (… or why the US will not make it.)

Barack Obama’s Health Care Lies And Reversals

US sheds 85,000 jobs in December; Record 40% Of Unemployed Without Job For 27+ Weeks

Peter Schiff on Fast Money: ‘America is broke’; ‘The Fed created a currency crisis’; ‘Dollar to collapse 50-70% or more’

US: Public Pensions Face $2 Trillion Deficit

U.S. Avoids Technical Default By Three Days

As an American, I refuse to buy mandatory health insurance … that supports Big Pharma

The US Government Is Preparing For Collapse: Your Legal Right To Redeem Your Money Market Account Has Been Denied

Prof. Dr. David Michael Green: Now I’m Really Getting Pissed Off … With Obama

US Treasuries Post Worst Performance Among Sovereign Markets In 2009

US losses will top $400 billion on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

US: More Ammo For The Treasury Bazooka

US government wants farmers to use coal waste on fields

The No.1 Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente: The Terror And The Crash of 2010

We’re Screwed! Hyperinflation like in the Weimar Republic; Great Depression worse than in the 1930s

US Congress: Banksters Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank

Traitor in chief:
Treason: Obama gives INTERPOL immunity from the Constitution (Amending Executive Order 12425)

Peter Schiff on Obamacare, Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Obama administration backs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac no matter how big their losses may be

Rep. Dennis Kucinich: US War Presidents ignore Congress and Constitution

Obamacare: Big payoffs to senators on health bill stoke public anger

US: Trillions Of Troubles Ahead

Chinese central banker Zhu Min: ‘The world does not have so much money to buy more US Treasuries.’

Obamacare: Change Nobody Believes In

Obama’s surge comes at a cost: At least $57,077.60 per minute

US National Debt Tops Debt Limit

Hypocrite in Chief (Funny):
President Obama: Another Busy Day in The Oval Office!

Fascism in America: By Political Definition The US Is Now Fascist, Not A Constitutional Republic

John Williams of Shadowstats: Prepare For The Hyperinflationary Great Depression

Liar in Chief (NOT funny!!!):
Barack Obama Lies 7 Times In Under 2 Minutes!!!!!

Robert Fisk, The Independent’s award-winning Middle East correspondent: Obama is a Disaster, Worse than Bush

Rep. Dennis Kucinich: ‘These Wars Are Corrupting The Heart Of Our Nation!’

Famous Investor Jim Rogers: Incompetence In Washington, Abolish The Fed And The Treasury

Rep. Dennis Kucinich: The Truth About Afghanistan

Obama’s Big Sellout (Rolling Stone Magazine)

Obama administration to lift debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion

Climategate: President Obama’s rule by EPA decree is a coup d’etat against Congress, made in Britain

Obama administration tells Pakistan: Tackle Taliban or we will

MSNBC Rachel Maddow: War President Obama

Ron Paul: ‘Obama is Actually Preparing Us For Perpetual War’

–  Afghanistan Surge to Cost At Least $40 Billion, That Is $1.333.333 For One US Soldier Per Year

Rep. Brad Sherman: Geithner rejects $1 trillion limit on bailout power (Section 1204 is unlimited in dollar amount!)

Liar in Chief (Over 300 soldiers died in 2009 because of this lie!!!):
Obama: ‘I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am President, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.’

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