“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”– H.L. Mencken (paraphrased)
The last bastion of our beleaguered democracy is under new and unexpected assault.
A bunch of Wall Street bandidos are pushing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to allow big league betting on follytix. This ain’t no barroom pool. This monster is the zombie spawn of the 2007-08 Wall Street meltdown — derivatives!
Zounds.
That debacle sent the country into a recessionary tailspin by allowing investors to gamble on price movements of “bundles” of mortgages.
Many of those bags concealed rotten loans which went belly up. American investors lost a few trillion and many saw their life savings erased.
The stalking horse for this stampede is which party will control Congress in 2025. Individuals could bet up to a quarter million and big firms up to $100 million.
What could possibly go wrong? First and foremost, it’s pretty easy for rich guys to buy elections given the holes punched in U.S. law by a whole buncha blackguards I don’t like. (You know who they are.) This adds further distortion.
Do we really need more undercutting of election integrity?
COLD COMFORT DEPT. Unions have been touting a recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board that will order management to bargain with their workers’ union if the company has broken the law during an election.
I need to do more research and talk to some lawyers, but this is pretty much already the case. In 1993, the Carpenters Union lost an election to organize most of the unrepresented workers at the Reno Hilton (now the Grand Sierra). Hilton broke every law on the books and the union filed for a “bargaining order.”
Alas, such mandates could only be issued if 50 percent of the current workers plus one had signed cards stating they wanted a union. The union was three — count ‘em — three cards short. The chief organizer was shortly replaced.
With U.S. law stacked against workers, no organizer files for an election with less than 50 percent (or many more) signatures, even though the law requires only one in three.
The benefit of the new wrinkle seems to be making elections happen faster and stopping union busters from delaying a vote to death — often by illegally firing union advocates.
Every little bit helps but Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden supported Canadian-style card-check elections and failed to deliver. In Canada, once a majority of workers sign with the union, they get one. That’s a principal reason that one in three Canadian workers are represented and their standard of living shows it. Anti-labor laws in the U.S. have cut union ranks from about one in three after WW2 to a little over one in 10 today.
Links with the Barbwire expanded edition at NevadaLabor.com/ More later.
FAKE NEWS DEPT. Virginia City is advertising a Labor Day parade for Monday, Sept. 4. It ain’t. Don’t go. Years ago, I started complaining that it had been turned into a celebration of the Confederacy and advocated that organized labor stop participating. We did so. Now, VC has a weekend of “Civil War Days” followed by a parade sporting a disgusting number of Confederate re-enactors with a few blue coats sprinkled in.
REAL LABOR DAY. The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO and affiliated unions will again sponsor Laborfest on Monday at Reno’s Idlewild Park, 10a-4p. Music, food trucks, show-n-shine, beer garden, artisan row, kids zone — and organizing, of course. See RenoLaborfest.com/
IN MEMORIAM. Memorial service for longtime Reno attorney Gary Silverman will be held at 10:00 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 31, at Temple Emanu-El, 1031 Manzanita Lane, Reno.
Celebration of the life of my dear friend Renate Neumann (Barbwire 8-23-2023) will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 7 at Mountain View Mortuary, 425 Stoker Ave. in Reno.
MONEYBALL. Thursday, Aug. 31, is the last day to pay quarterly Washoe County property taxes without penalty. Go to washoecounty.gov/treas/ Also, if you are a sole surviving spouse, you can qualify for a small annual tax credit thereat. It can be deducted from auto registration fees this year and your 2024 property tax if you apply by June 15. (Wish I had known about it 18 years ago.)
FAKE NEWS2 DEPT. I’d love to have the PR account for whomever is selling the latest expedition to find the mythical Loch Ness Monster, especially if fees were based on number of hits online. The mess media (not a typo) are covering it like the second coming. Fine by me. People have needed escapist diversion for a long time. Fantasy fare has dominated entertainment for more than a decade.
But I wish they’d stop showing that grainy black-and-white photo of the most famous Nessie hoax. Some Scottish tricksters, probably seriously drunk, bought a dime store toy dragon, staged the photo and released it to the world in 1934. Great for tourism. One of them ‘fessed up on his deathbed.
Just about every “news” source has used that shot to illustrate the latest Nessie madness without noting that it’s a shuck. Better to spend your time watching the 1987 “Loch Ness” movie starring Ted Danson and the Muppets.
Eminent scientists long ago stated that a prehistoric plesiosaur or a large descendant thereof, could never survive on the puny food supply in the highland lake. Oh well, it’s better than dis-reality TV, speaking of which…
TUMS & ROLAIDS DEPT. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired of eight years of all Trump all the time. I’ve seen enough re-runs.
Stay safe, get vaxxed and pray for those cruelly afflicted by the cruelly small minds on this small planet, especially victims of our perpetual wars.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since August 12, 1988. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
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