Showing posts with label Obama Foundation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama Foundation. Show all posts

Sunday, August 21, 2016

"Looters Will Be Shot"--Except for hedge fund managers, shoddy manufacturers, and owners of for-profit colleges

I passed by a low spot on Highway 16 a few days after the Great South Louisiana Flood of 2016, and I saw a house that had obviously been inundated with water.  Nailed to a tree in the front yard was a spray-painted sign: "Looters will be shot."

But of course, the sign isn't quite accurate. Some looters might get shot: the scumbags prowling flooded subdivisions looking for something to steal. It wouldn't bother me if someone nailed one of them with a Bushmaster assault rifle. That's what those rifles are for, after all.

But other looters are perfectly safe from any kind of vigilante justice.  Hedge fund managers, for example, get a special tax break for the ultra wealthy. President Obama--that hopie change guy--didn't bother to clean up that scam, which he easily could have done.

Other corporate looters run for-profit colleges. In fact, Martin Nesbitt, chairman of the Obama Foundation, is CEO of an equity fund that plans to get into the for-profit-college scam business.

In fact, the working people of America get looted all the time, whether or not they are victims of a natural disaster.  For example, I was pushing a wheelbarrow load of wet sheet rock to a trash pile yesterday, and the axle of the wheelbarrow broke. It couldn't handle the modest load that it was supposedly designed to carry.

A co-worker examined the damage and told me to throw the wheelbarrow on the trash pile along with the sheet rock, which I did. This was a new True Temper wheelbarrow! I'd say whoever bought that wheelbarrow was looted.

And today, I was reminded of another corporate looter. I took some time off from flood-damage cleanup to smoke a rack of ribs in my Cabala's electric smoker--which is a piece of shit. For one thing, Cabala didn't make the smoker; Masterbilt did. Cabala's just put its name on the thing to deceive buyers into thinking they were buying a quality product.

The thermometer on the smoker's lid (marked Masterbilt) registers temperatures up to 700 degrees, but I've never gotten the damn thing hotter than 250.  The plastic handle broke the first time I dropped the lid, and the little wooden side tray is busted. Do you think I was looted when I bought that piece of junk? You're damned right I was.

In fact, the Great South Louisiana Flood of 2016--Redneck Katrina--reminded me again and again of how much cheap crap the multinational corporate looters sell to working Americans. Thousands of tons of debris line the streets of Denham Springs, Louisiana--piles of worthless stuff. Microwave ovens, refrigerators, freezers, fake-wood furniture: all crap.

In fact, I don't think many flood victims mourn the loss of their chattel. They knew it was junk when they bought it. They know the Chinese are making more crap for us right now and that they can buy their new crap at the Denham Springs Walmart just as soon as it cleans up its own flood damage and reopens.

Even our homes are crap, sold to us by looters. The doors on new spec houses aren't made out of wood anymore; they're made from some kind of laminate. If the bottom six inches of one of these fake-wood doors is subjected to water for just 24 hours, the whole door is ruined. I know; I tossed out about 30 of them.

But at least you can save the hinges, you might think, and the door frames. But no--these cheap faux-wood doors are sold new with hinges and door frames already attached. When you throw your ruined door on the trash heap, you might as well toss in the hinges and the door frame.

So--to return to my main point--not all looters will be shot. So if you are a looter who wants to rip off your neighbor, don't steal his home generator. You might get your ear shot off.

No, do what Martin Nesbitt is doing; buy a for-profit college.

Image result for martin nesbitt and president obama


References

Blake Neff. America's Largest For-Profit College Sold to Group Led By Obama's Best Friend. Daily Caller, February 28, 2016. Available at http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/08/americas-largest-for-profit-college-sold-to-group-led-by-obamas-best-friend/

Gretchen Morgenson. Ending Tax Break For Ultrawealthy May Not Take Act of Congress. New York Times, May 6 2016. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/business/ending-tax-break-for-ultrawealthy-may-not-take-act-of-congress.html?_r=0