Category: Money, Class, and Poverty,

The Amount of Money Being Made Ripping Migrant Families Apart Is Staggering

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing software was “mission critical” for ICE’s operations, as Berkowitz explained to me, and the agency paid Microsoft nearly $20 million for its use. 

…Accenture, Boeing, Elbit, G4S, General Dynamics, IBM, L3 Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Palantir (with software provided by Amazon), Raytheon, and UNISYS are among the hundreds of companies who are facilitating the migrant detention and deportation machine—and have been raking in, from 2006 to 2018, more than a combined $45 billion, dispersed among nearly 100,000 separate contracts with CBP and ICE. 

…Immigration enforcement budgets have ballooned from $350 million in 1980, to $1.2 billion in 1990, to $9.1 billion in 2003, to a whopping $23.7 billion in 2018. …Those budgets then annually funnel $2.32 billion back to the private sector through federal immigration, corrections, and detention contracts.

…Since 2006, “177 people have gone through the DHS revolving door and 34 have worked both for the House Homeland Security Committee and for a lobbying firm,” the report notes. Just from 2003 to 2017, four CBP commissioners and three DHS secretaries went on to work in homeland security corporations after leaving government.

…John Kelly …joined the board of directors of Caliburn International.  …[During] the period Kelly was in office, from July 2017 to December 2018, …the average length of stay for an unaccompanied child migrant in US custody “skyrocketed.” The company that ran Homestead, a subsidiary of Caliburn, also happened to land a contract, in that same period, for a whopping $222 million.

…The border-security corporate giants, especially Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Boeing, are the biggest campaign contributors to members of the House Appropriations Committee—the congressional body that regulates expenditures of the federal government. Between 2006 and 2018, these companies contributed a total of $27.6 million just to members of the committee.

Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar, to take just one example, received large campaign contributions from GEO Group and CoreCivic ($55,690), Northrop Grumman ($13,000), Boeing Corporation ($10,000), Caterpillar Inc ($10,000) and Lockheed Martin ($10,000). 

The Amount of Money Being Made Ripping Migrant Families Apart Is Staggering | The Nation

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Google’s ‘Project Nightingale’ Secretly Gathers Private Health Data on Millions of Americans, According to a Report. Most Patients Have No Idea It’s Happening

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Privacy,Leave a comment

Google’s ‘Project Nightingale’ Secretly Gathers Private Health Data on Millions of Americans, According to a Report. Most Patients Have No Idea It’s Happening | Inc.com

Repeat after me sheeple: No information that is transferred digitally is private. Ever.

More Builders Are Selling Homes Wired For Technology But Data Privacy Is At Stake

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Privacy,Leave a comment

This partnership between builders and Amazon benefits both sides. Amazon wants to push for wider adoption of its Echo smart speaker. Lennar relies on Amazon to help distinguish it from other home builders.

…He wasn’t looking for a smart home, but …now he enjoys all the smart home features.

…His favorite is a Ring doorbell that logs visitors. “I have teenagers,” he said.

…On the one hand, it’s nice to ask Alexa to heat up the house before crawling out of bed in the winter. On the other, there’s all those cameras. “If I’m walking on our street, I walk on the other side of the street,” she said, meaning the side without the smart homes. “Just because I don’t feel like being on everyone’s cameras.”

…It’s not just cameras, even light switches capture information. “That data’s not just sitting there, just… empty,” he says. “Somebody’s gonna look at it and leverage it, to try to turn a profit, or try to create an ad, or try to create some revenue.”

More Builders Are Selling Homes Wired For Technology But Data Privacy Is At Stak : NPR

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Apple Co-Founder Says Apple Card Algorithm Gave Wife Lower Credit Limit

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

On Saturday, Wozniak chimed in with a similar experience, saying he got 10 times more credit on the card, compared with his wife.

“We have no separate bank or credit card accounts or any separate assets,” Wozniak said on Twitter, in reply to Hansson’s original tweet.

“Hard to get to a human for a correction though. It’s big tech in 2019.”

Apple Co-Founder Says Apple Card Algorithm Gave Wife Lower Credit Limit | Top News | US News

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Viral Tweet About Apple Card Leads to Goldman Sachs Probe

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,Leave a comment

Traditional lenders are upping their use of machines to decide who gets how much credit as part of a strategy to reduce costs and boost loan applications. Meanwhile, technology companies are moving in on the financial services industry’s turf, with businesses such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google offering loans and payment options.

…A series of posts from David Heinemeier Hansson starting Thursday railed against the Apple Card for giving him 20 times the credit limit that his wife got. The tweets, many of which contain profanity, immediately gained traction online, even attracting comment from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Hansson didn’t disclose any specific income-related information for either of them but said they filed joint tax returns and that his wife has a better credit score than he does.

…“Goldman and Apple are delegating credit assessment to a black box,” Hansson said. “It’s not a gender-discrimination intent but it is a gender-discrimination outcome.”

…Traditional lenders are upping their use of machines to decide who gets how much credit as part of a strategy to reduce costs and boost loan applications.

…This is the second such action from the regulator in recent weeks. NY DFS opened a probe against health care giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. after a study found an algorithm favored white patients over black patients.

Viral Tweet About Apple Card Leads to Goldman Sachs Probe

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National Enquirer Buried 60 Damaging Stories About Donald Trump Before Election

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Farrow told Stephen Colbert that it’s “not clear if the underlying story is accurate” in these cases, but said the payments to sources “were news” because they may have violated election law if they were made in partnership with the Trump campaign.

National Enquirer Buried 60 Damaging Stories About Donald Trump Before Election, Ronan Farrow Claims

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ProPublica obtains Trump tax records that could signal financial fraud – Business Insider

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Newly uncovered tax documents from …Donald Trump contain several discrepancies that real-estate experts said could point to financial fraud.

…Tax records for 40 Wall Street and the Trump International Hotel and Tower reportedly contained discrepancies that could raise some red flags — specifically, the numbers made the properties look more valuable to lenders and less valuable to tax authorities.

…Trump told a lender that he got twice as much rent from one building as he reported to tax authorities that year.

…Trump used a series of dubious tax schemes to shield a $400 million inheritance from the IRS.

…[apparently he] fabricated a loan to avoid paying $50 million in income taxes.

ProPublica obtains Trump tax records that could signal financial fraud – Business Insider

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Judge orders Trump to pay $2 million for misusing his foundation

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

President Donald Trump must pay a $2 million judgment for improperly using his Trump Foundation charity to further his 2016 presidential campaign, a New York state judge ruled Thursday.

…In her seven-page ruling, New York Supreme Court Justice Salliann Scarpulla wrote, “Mr. Trump’s fiduciary duty breaches included allowing his campaign to orchestrate the Fundraiser, allowing his campaign, instead of the Foundation, to direct distribution of the Funds, and using the Fundraiser and distribution of the Funds to further Mr. Trump’s political campaign.”

…The event wound up raising $2.8 million, according to the judge, some of which Trump distributed in the form of giant checks at campaign rallies before the Iowa caucuses.

Judge orders Trump to pay $2 million for misusing his foundation

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Microsoft’s 4 day workweek led to 40% boost in productivity

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Microsoft Japan closed its offices every Friday in August and found that labor productivity increased by 39.9% compared with August 2018, the company said.

…The company said it also reduced the time spent in meetings by implementing a 30-minute limit and encouraging remote communication.

…It’s not just the employees who benefited from Microsoft’s four-day-workweek experiment — Microsoft found that it helped preserve electricity and office resources as well. The number of pages printed decreased by 58.7%, while electricity consumption was down by 23.1% compared with August 2018, the company said.

Microsoft’s 4 day workweek led to 40% boost in productivity – Insider

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NYTimes apparently got pitched this story by Big Stryofoam

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

In the Sea, Not All Plastic Lasts Forever – The New York Times

So styrofoam takes hundreds of years or -at best decades- to break down instead of never breaking down. A few thoughts…

Did anyone really think they stuff wouldn’t weather over the course of hundreds of years?

So it can still last hundreds of years and supposedly that is supposed to make environmentalists feel better about using it? On what planet would this be soothing info?

What about off-gassing? So-called scientists apparently glossed over that one, didn’t they?

Anychance the fact checkers at the GRey Lady might be motivated to point out that there is no “missing” plastic. Microplastic is just harder to see.

This article stinks to high heaven with bad research, misleading and outright deceptive statements and wholesale denial of contextual facts.

The peanut gallery hopes the New York Times got paid handsomely for running this advertisement for the polystyrene industry.

Taylor Energy wants to walk away from 70,000 gallon a day spill in the Gulf

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Taylor Energy’s Mississippi Canyon site, about 19 miles off the southeast coast of Louisiana, was toppled by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and has since been releasing upwards of 70,000 gallons of crude oil a day, recent estimates show.

One of about 3,000 oil platforms in the western Gulf of Mexico, it’s dumped more oil into the Gulf than did the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon, and the impacts are still being tallied.

…”You’re seeing a lot of resiliency in the system but there’s still long-term issues with the sea grass and oysters,” said Daniel Andrews, with Captains for Clean Water.

…The company says it has done everything possible to stem the flow of oil and that it should no longer be held accountable for the leak.

Costs are extreme, and the technology needed to fix the massive leak does not yet exist, the company has argued in court. [Um, tough shit? They caused the mess and they are 100% responsible for cleaning it up.]

…The federal government says it could take 100 years for the leak to dissipate on its own.

But the Coast Guard, in recent months, has capped at least part of the leak, according to Renaud. 

“I think right now they’re (the Coast Guard) taking a moment to celebrate that they’re containing oil that’s been spilling for 14 years,” Renaud said. “At the end of the day (the work being done now) isn’t a permanent solution, so they’re going to have to drill relief wells. “

…”We have 10 years of evidence that’s there’s way more oil than they’ve been reporting for years,” Renaud said of Taylor Energy. “It’s really a runaway situation that should have been remedied a long time ago. Either they’re really confused or their science just wasn’t very good, or they’re just trying to avoid the penalty of law.”

…The offshore oil drilling industry is largely self-regulated when it comes to recording and reporting leaks.  

If a company has a leak, it must report some number to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE, which accepts the number as being a true representation of what’s occurring in the Gulf of Mexico.

This arm of the Coast Guard tracks all spills greater than 1 barrel, or 42 gallons, and reports spills larger than 50 barrels, about 2,100 gallons.

Taylor Energy wants to walk away from 30,000 gallon a day spill in the Gulf

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“There Is Definite Hanky-Panky Going On”: The Fantastically Profitable Mystery of the Trump Chaos Trades

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Traders in the Chicago pits have been watching these kinds of wagers with an increasing mixture of shock and awe since the start of the Trump presidency. They are used to rapid fluctuations in the S&P 500 index; volatility is common, of course. But the precision and timing of these trades, and the vast amount of money being made as a result of them, make the traders wonder if all this is on the level. Are the people behind these trades incredibly lucky, or do they have access to information that other people don’t have about, say, Trump’s or Beijing’s latest thinking on the trade war or any other of a number of ways that Trump is able to move the markets through his tweeting or slips of the tongue? Essentially, do they have inside information?

…There is no way for another trader, let alone an outsider such as me, to know who is making these trades. But regulators know or can find out. One longtime CME trader who has been watching with disgust says he’s never seen anything quite like these trades, not at least since al-Qaida cashed in before initiating the September 11 attacks.

…Market manipulation also yields political dividends. Perhaps the most obvious example dates to late August, when Trump, desperate to reignite trade talks with China, boasted during the G7 summit that his counterparts in Beijing had come back to the table. “We’ve gotten two calls—very, very good calls,” he told reporters. “They mean business.” The market rose more than 900 points over the next few days. …Two U.S government officials later told CNN that Trump misspoke and “conflated” comments from China’s Vice Premier Liu He with direct communication from the Chinese. According to CNN, the officials said Trump was “eager to project optimism that might boost markets.”

“There Is Definite Hanky-Panky Going On”: The Fantastically Profitable Mystery of the Trump Chaos Trades | Vanity Fair

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Boris Johnson’s Conservatives receive surge in cash from Russians – Business Insider

On By peanutgallerynhIn Central Northern Asia and The Caucasus,, Europe,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

A new investigation reveals that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has received a surge in cash from Russian donors over the past year, news that comes as his government continues to block publication of a report into Russian influence over recent elections.

Boris Johnson’s Conservatives receive surge in cash from Russians – Business Insider

Google’s acquisition of Fitbit is clearly a data play

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Privacy,Leave a comment

Google will now have information on not only the temperature of my house, to the extent I’ve got four Nest thermostats or whether or not I have a smoke alarm going off or things like that, they’ll know, in fact, how much I move on a given day, how many steps I take, things of that nature,” D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte told Yahoo Finance. “This is very interesting data for Google. And if you think about Google’s efforts, again, Amazon with Alexa and Apple with its various devices, they’re all just collecting data for consumers. But this helps round out the data set for Google, given that it gives you, again, health care-related data.

Google’s acquisition of Fitbit is clearly a data play

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