Hasbro Cuts 140 U.S. Based Jobs

I don't have children, but I do have a small army of nieces and nephews. Like most middle class kids these days, they have owned a mountain of evolving toys from the time they were little babies. Far more than I ever had as middle class kid growing up, in fact. I've always kind of wondered how they could possibly have found the time to play with them all. I'm not complaining, mind you. Just an observation.

Thinking about it, I guess it makes sense that a decline in toy sales would be yet another indicator of a lingering economic malaise. Here is Reuters with the story:

Hasbro Inc (HAS.O) is cutting about 170 jobs as the second-largest U.S. toy company tries to recover from sluggish sales during the holiday season.

Eighty-two percent, or 140, of the job cuts are in the United States, according to company spokesman Wayne Charness, including "about 55" in Rhode Island where Hasbro is based.

"These moves were made to address both the under-performance in the U.S. and Canada segment, and the need for different skill sets in the company's workforce to be better aligned with a quickly evolving business," Charness said.

"The need for different skill sets...to be better aligned with a quickly evolving business?" You make TOYS, for fuck's sake. Corporate FlackSpeak at its finest.

Anyway, check out the officially stated reason for the layoffs:

The maker of Nerf foam toys and Monopoly board games suffered from weak post-Thanksgiving demand, especially for its games and puzzles, in the United States and Canada.

But...but...but...we were all told that the holiday sales were great! How can that be?

Just more of the damnable lies we insist upon telling ourselves.


Bonus: It was a LONG way down in artistic integrity from being lead singer in one of the coolest bands in the world to being a fucking judge on American Idol

It's Layoff Notice Time For Local School Districts Again

It's usually around this time of year that school districts around the country facing budget deficits start issuing layoff notices to teachers and other school employees in anticipation of some of them losing their jobs before the next school year. None this year have been as dramatic as the announcement by the Woonsocket, Rhode Island, school district, as reported by WPRI.com:

The Woonsocket School Department is considering issuing pink slips to all 700 district employees.

The school committee will discuss the possibility at a special meeting Wednesday night.

The move would give the district more flexibility to handle anticipated budget cuts.

The Woonsocket Teachers Guild plans to challenge the plan. They're urging residents of the city to stand up for the teachers, saying that the termination notices would disrupt the quality of education for their children.

"While not all educators receiving notices would actually be let go, giving termination notices to all teachers and paraprofessionals sends the wrong message to the community about the city's commitment to public education," said Teachers Guild President Jeffrey Partington in a statement.

Ummmm, actually, Mr. Partington, you and your membership may not like it, but the move is actually sending a message that you and the community desperately need to hear: business as usual as you and everyone else in this country has known it their whole lives is over. It's time to adjust to the new realities. If your membership wants to save their colleagues' jobs, everyone needs to take a pay cut. It sucks, but there really isn't much of an alternative. Even soaking the rich with much higher taxes (a move I strongly favor from a basic fairness standpoint) would only serve to kick the can on this problem down the road for a short time before it becomes inevitable anyway as state and local government revenues continue to collapse.

If it is any comfort to you, Woonsocket is hardly alone. Check out these other school layoff headlines around the country from the Daily Job Cuts website for just this month alone:

The Elk Grove Unified School District CA - 100+ Layoff Notices

Update: Long Beach Unified School Board CA - Approves 308 Layoffs

Saugus Union School District CA - 80

Paradise Unified School District CA - 31 Job Cuts on Board Meetings Agenda tonight

The Temecula Valley Unified School District CA - Vote Tuesday on 120 Layoffs

Saugus Union School District - 84 Layoff Notices

Portsmouth RI Schools - 29

East Providence RI - Layoff Total reaches 37

Lakota Local Schools Ohio - 69 Proposed Layoffs

West suburban Indian Prairie District 204 IL - Considers 100 Layoffs

Canton Central School District NY - 44 Layoffs Possible

San Lorenzo School District CA - 133 Pink Slips to Temporary Teachers

Virginia Beach Schools - Budget Cuts Could Mean Layoffs

Utica NY Schools - 150 Job Cuts Next Year, Worst Case

Philadelphia School District - 90

Paradise Schools CA - 31 Layoffs Approved

Staunton (Virginia) Schools - 42

Athens School District PA Considers Closing Three Elementary Schools

And I'm sure there will be plenty more to come during the next couple of months.


Bonus: Someday this will be the only high school left

Big Banks Charging Unemployed Debit Card Fees For Unemployment Benefits

This story really belongs in the, You Have GOT To Be Fucking KIDDING Me, category. The very same banks whose financial shenanigans crashed the economy and created massive unemployment are now being allowed to charge debit card fees on the unemployment benefits of the unfortunate souls who lost their jobs thanks to their perfidy. Here is the Worcester Telegram & Gazette with the details:

Rhonda Taylor had never been on unemployment until she was laid off from her information technology job in 2008. When she received the debit card she’d use to access her unemployment benefits from the state, she assumed it worked like any other bank card.

But after a month using the card, the North Providence resident noticed she was being charged a fee every time she checked her balance at an ATM. Every time she used her PIN to make a purchase. Every time she tried to withdraw cash. A dollar here, $1.50 there. The fees added up. Twenty dollars a month matters, she said, when you’re unemployed and relying on the state.

The fees come from JPMorgan Chase, which the state selected in 2007 to operate Rhode Island’s debit card system. The state Senate voted last week to ask Gov. Lincoln Chafee to review the fees.

“Why is my state part of a system that charges the unemployed a fee for an out-of-state bank?” Taylor asked. “Why is money that’s supposed to go to the unemployed going to a Wall Street bank?”

Like most states, Rhode Island contracts with a bank to provide unemployment benefits through a debit card. JPMorgan Chase agreed to operate the system at no cost to the state — if it could charge fees to those receiving unemployment benefits.

In many cases, JPMorgan Chase charges fees that traditional bank cards don’t have. There’s a $1.50 fee if a user withdraws cash more than once per benefit deposit, plus a fee of up to $3 for using a non-network ATM to withdraw funds. A 50-cent fee every time the user checks the balance. A dollar fee for denied transactions and a 25-cent fee for debit purchases that require a PIN.

“Anything you do you pay a fee; it’s how Morgan is making their money on it,” said Sen. William Walaska, a Warwick Democrat who is pushing for more information on the fees. “These people can’t afford these fees — obviously — because they’re unemployed. But the state pretty much says, ‘We don’t want this to cost us any money, so banks, you figure out how to make money.’ ”

JPMorgan Chase won’t say how much it collects in fees or whether it would be open to reducing them. Spokeswoman Jessica Francisco said the company doesn’t publicly discuss its fee policies.

More than 40 states use bank cards to disburse unemployment benefits and almost all charge some fees. A report last year by the National Consumer Law Center compared systems and determined that Rhode Island “has one of the more problematic fee structures.”

So we bail the fuckers out with taxpayer money and then we turn around let them prey on the jobless. At the very least, these parasites should be providing the debit cards for free. Are there ANY public officials left in this fucking country who have not been completely bought and paid for by the big banks and Wall Street? Anywhere? Can someone please alert me to an example?

And yes, I am using the word "parasites" to describe them as a deliberate fuck you to any Randian conservative assholes who might be inclined to use the term instead against the unemployed. For contrary to their twisted worldview, it is the big banks that are the OPs (Original Parasites). President Andrew Jackson knew it, which is why he issued his famous veto of the charter of the Second Bank of the United States back in 1832. Too bad that in our post-Citizens United dystopia, in which psychopathic billionaires can donate as much money as they want to boils on humanity's ass like Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and, yes, President Hopey-Changey, no one with Old Hickory's sensibilities stands any chance of getting elected to major public office ever again.


Bonus: "The planet Earth from way up there is beautiful and blue...and floating softly in a rainbow. But when you touch down things look different here"