Smart money says there are hundreds of engineer/build firms that could have built a dozen or more Bay Bridges (real ones, not just models)- to handle ten times the traffic load in one-tenth the time. Easy.

 California is now the official model for how not to do anything correctly.

Experts in mangling bridges, budgets, prisons…boy, if you want to fuck something up, CA can do!

A colossal embarrassment, in a system where everybody participating gets paid not to care! Awesome.

Killer cop Johannes Mehserle is free on bail. His murder trial is scheduled to begin on Nov. 2. Justice seekers everywhere want to know where the fuck is the trial?

MEHSERLE MUG

CalTrans failed to estimate when the Bay Bridge would re-open, cementing its status as a legendary black hole of fiscal irresponsibility.

The defects have been known for about 50 years, along with the Doyle Drive GG bridge approach- both originally built in the 1930’s, and deemed hazards since the 1960’s. 

Five decades of planning and engineering has gobbled more than enough public funds to build another Kuala Lumpur on top of the Oakland-SF span.

In fact, Kuala Lumpur and Dubai both could have been constructed 5 times each during the decades of bureaucratic paralysis between the 60’s and 90’s.

But the term bureaucratic paralysis does not begin to descibe the pandemic diversion of tax  dollars wasted, at the high cost of public safety.

The corruption and negligence of public safety has risen directly in proportion to the rise in tax dollars overall- a direct link to the rise in population. As our country has grown richer and more populated,  so has total lack of accountability in all public sectors become daily routine.

One wonders why CalTrans even bothers to issue a statement to the press. Does anybody really need to hear that the wind blew the bridge down? Is this a joke?

The engineering marvels of Dubai and Kuala Lumpur stand as the status quo of modern building. The U.S. currently hosts modern building fiascos represented by the Oakland-SF Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge approach, Bechtel’s Fatal Big Dig, and the list goes on. These hazards should serve as a glaring signal that something is very intrinsically wrong with our existing systems.

The hazard lights are on in the U.S. Is anyone interested in shutting them off?

Bankrupted millions rejoice as recession ends.

THANK YOU AMERICA

RECESSION REALLY DEAD?

Afer being informed by the media that the recession is over, millions of bankrupted citizens rejoiced in the streets, in lieu of sharing the epiphany with their creditors.

Those who still have phones made attempts to share the wonderful news with banks, lienholders and utility providers- only to be answered by bewildered customer service reps with marginal English skills.

Roman coliseums and Egyptian pyramids stand tall after approximately two- and three thousand years. 2009 Bay Bridge repair manages to hold tight for 7 weeks, before crashing onto traffic below!

NOT QUITE RIGHT

 Nobody really knows the actual costs of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge retrofit, ostensibly begun two decades ago following the Loma Prieta earthquake. Many estimates have it at over $5 billion.   Lucky for CalTrans, C.C. Meyers, and a host of other highly accountable contributors, this figure pales in comparison to the avalanche of egregious fiscal ineptitude that has become the modus operandi of the state of California (not to mention the Fed).

Just 7 weeks ago amidst showers of media praise, high fives and slaps on the back, the span was re-opened after a three-day closure labor day weekend.

Today, commuters multiply in the terminal clusterfuck created by what is sure to be known as one of the great fiscal, engineering, and social debacles in modern history.

Miraculously, nobody was killed when the tons of poorly installed steel plummeted to traffic below.

The same can’t be said for Milena Del Valle, a 38-year old mother of three who was crushed to death in a similar avoidable tragedy in 2006.  Twenty-six mis-fastened tons of concrete killed Del Valle in Boston’s Big Dig, led by SF war-profiteers Bechtel, Inc.

CalTrans has inexplicably blamed 30mph winds for the collapse. The Beaufort Scale classifies 30 mph as a moderate breeze.

With the U.N. Summit on Climate Change coming up on December 7 in Copenhagen, it was inevitable scheduling conflicts would arise.

TASTY BBQ

INTENSE GAME

No doubt carrying a heavy workload, President Obama has precious little time for leisure activities. When he does get a moment, some of the activities he enjoys include BBQ’s and a competitive game of checkers.

California is the so-called leader of the green movement- a dubious title at best.

Nobody seems to know what is or isn’t green or how to sustain anything besides the rampant misappropriation of green dollars.

But this lack of any credible green initiative hasn’t stopped the thousands of start-ups from popping up to collect green dollars in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Evidently a phone number and a web splash page are all that’s required to funnel Fed cash into a non-working green entity- a true model of business efficiency. Once the shell company is set up, it’s off to the bank.

Perhaps ironically, just about every green start-up qualifying for ARRA funds (passed down from fed to state to muni govs)  is a training facility charging big money for trainees to learn the new green ways of the world- ways of the world which don’t exist. There’s the rub, er, some would say, fraud.

Science has identified our most glaring inefficiencies many moons ago. ARRA funds should be used to implement efficiency projects on the ground, addressing real, existing problems and correcting them. Instead these funds are being abused by our elected officials and wasted on bogus glossy literature directing well-intentioned citizens to fraudulent training institutions, created for the sole purpose of appropriating federal funds.

The same thing that happened to TARP bail out money is happening to ARRA green funding- corrupt politicians and corporations distort the truth and funnel the money away from its intended purposes, and into private accounts.

It’s no wonder this country is faltering.  From the mortgage meltdown to the health care debacle to the TARP and ARRA funding frauds- our leaders just continue to make all the wrong moves.

Take a closer look at your local ARRA-funded ventures and see whats behind the mask.  Chances are you won’t find much beyond the glossy brochure.

Contact your local district rep and let the cat out of the bag- it’s a small step to slowing the wheel turning in the wrong direction.

 TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), AKA the great bail out, has been no more effective than Obama’s famed lending guidelines, which of course will never be practiced.

In a very real sense, the US government, in partnership with US banks, artificially inflated the housing markets. Since the Fed and banks work hand in hand (the Fed now owns most banks, and always did provide cheap capital to banks) and possess all the mortgages in one form or another, they essentially own all the real estate with a mortgage attached- regardless of the property’s arbitrary value.

Whether a property is worth $1000 or $1,000,000,  this arbitrary value has never been up to the would-be homeowner.

But it certainly is up to the mortgage holder. After all, it is he- not the hapless homeowner- who will determine the property value. A homeowner might wish and guess what the property is worth, but only the Fed/Banks gets to say what it really is worth, in dollars.

As such, the Fed/Banks can say, at will,  a property value is very high on one day, or very low the next. A new coat of paint or a third story addition have no real influence on the value of a property- contrary to what the legions of Fed/Banks-sponsored ‘qualified’ real estate appraisers may indicate. The physical attributes of a property are not criteria for market influence.

The goal of the Fed/Banks is to bend the back of working America to the point just shy of breaking. A broken-back America shuts down- just like it threatened to do as fuel costs rose near $5.

The corporate republic likes to keep close tabs on America’s breaking point- it’s the key to max profits. But it’s a dicey game and not a perfect science.

It is fair to say the TARP funds never left the building. They just crossed the table, much like old friends arguing over who will pay the dinner bill. But as over 200,000 jobs continue to be lost each month, and multi-billion dollar TARP bonuses stay in corporate Washington, America’s back continues to bend.

DC Corporate apparently has much confidence in the flexibility of America’s back. It remains to be seen if the estimates are on target.

Professor Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Alan Grayson appear to be two individuals capable of thinking beyond themselves.

ELIZABETH WARREN

ALAN GRAYSON

Here are a couple of reps worthy of the title; selfless foresight and commitment to work  for the benefit of us all takes real courage.

The Exploited Times thanks Elizabeth and Alan- and pray they don’t go Gephardt on us!

American tolerance has been bending for three decades at least.  The question is, when do we snap?

ALMOST GO-TIME

Check Bob Herbert’s take @ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20herbert.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=bob%20herbert&st=cse

A handful of crooks and politicians extort all the money, while the working class breaks its back and goes broke.  What the fuck?

Kicking back on their private islands, laughing while the American working class goes down, the joke is, “What are the Americans going to do about it?”

We’ll see.