Women pay .73cents more on average than men for laundered shirts. Why? The excuse is the press machines are made for mens shirts. This has been a well known problem and been used as an excuse for over 30 years. The dry cleaners say they hand press women’s shirts. Why haven’t they made press machines that can handle women’s shirts?
Janet Floyd, activist, wants to end the practice. Very interesting. She appeared on WNYC and explained the situation and took some interesting calls.
For women across New York City and beyond, it basically amounts to being taken to the cleaners. Women’s shirts often cost much more to launder than men’s, even if they are smaller and made of the same cloth.
Many women grudgingly accept the higher prices, much as they accept the perennial lack of pockets in their pants and the lengthier lines outside their restrooms. But not Janet Floyd, a 44-year-old mother, community volunteer and newly minted missionary for gender equality in the wash place.
Ms. Floyd’s crusade began in November, when, she said, she and her husband brought their nearly identical blue Brooks Brothers oxfords to be laundered at Best Cleaners in Chelsea. The shirts came back clean, but Ms. Floyd discovered that hers cost $8.75, his $7. read more…..
On a side note, Henrietta Hughes (the homeless woman who told Barack she needs a house and got one) was a touching story, but I have to point out the blond woman in the left corner of the screen after Barack kisses Henrietta:
Unlike fellow Conflucian “headliner” Dakinkat (see her must-read post), I am not an economist, and I do not purport to have expertise in the field. I offer this post based on the claims of Paul Krugman and Barack Obama that the fiscal crisis facing the United States and its citizens today is more comparable to the conditions of the Great Depression than any other crisis faced since then. If that is true, no wonder I find the details of whiz-kid tax evader Tim Geithner’s newly dubbed Financial Stability Act (this is NOT the TARP redux bill just passed by the Senate) personally depressing. So, by the way, does Wall Street.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner announced a vast new rescue plan for the financial sector. Stocks plunged following the unveiling of the program to use $1.5 trillion or more in public and private funds to bail out banks and financial institutions and thaw frozen credit markets. The plan would create a $500 billion fund to buy up toxic bank assets such as bad real estate loans and commit up to $1 trillion to reopen lending markets for consumer, student, small business, auto andcommercial loans.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 383 points in afternoon trading. The tech-heavy Nasdaq plummeted 63 points, and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index dropped 43 points.
Here are the highlights of the Geithner plan, according to The New York Times:
Now, read these excerpts from an overview of the Hoover administration’s approach to the Great Depression, which set in 6 to 8 years before Franklin Delano Roosevelt was first elected. Continue reading →
SEC BEATDOWN – Brought to you by NY Rep. Gary Ackerman
WE WANT OUR $$ BACK – Brought to you by OR Rep. Pete Defazio
Do you think we’ll get our money back? Do you think the SEC will do their freakin job? For some reason the hope gene has escaped me and the reality gene is dominant. So this is probably just some grandstanding but the visual outrage does provide a small amount of comfort.
I was going to end my post but I just have to add this. What good is a press that fawns like this over a man who is reading a teleprompter? A TELEPROMPTER!!!!! Just remember that four syllable word while listening to this verbal Bull$hiite. I am sorry to make you watch, but you must be reminded every now and again of the propaganda unit dispatched by the Executive Branch of the United States of America. This viewing exercise will build up the BS immune system.
Everything just seems so pre-orchestrated, sort of like this:
I started watching the presidential news conference last night but had to change channels. Obama’s head whipped from side to side so often I thought he was going to have whiplash. Left teleprompter 7 seconds, right teleprompter 5 seconds, left, right, left, right, center, right. Distracting.
When he started describing the deflation cycle as if we aren’t already living it, I switched to Dear Genevieve and spent a quiet half hour of zen inspired sophistication in a Craftsman four square. Much more soothing.
So, I had to get my news from the live blog and the MSM. As I was skimming the Politico article, I came across this blurb:
But for Americans tuning in to hear some reassuring words from their new president on the economy, what they heard instead were some dire warnings wrapped in an almost professorial explanation of the causes of the economic meltdown – and his prescription for pulling the nation out of it.
The president also rejected Republican suggestions that he came into office eager to preside over a monstrous government spending spree.
“I would love not to have to spend money right now,” Obama said. “You know, this notion that somehow I came in here just ginned up to spend $800 billion…that wasn’t how I envisioned my presidency beginning. But we have to adapt to existing circumstances,” he said.
Oh, really? The idea that Bush and his droogs were going to wreck the economy as they plundered the vault on the way out the door has been floating around the web for several years now. We figured it would be the “revenge of the movement conservatives”: spend every cent in the Treasury on war and tax cuts and force the Democrats to take all of the blame for the pain and suffering when they try to fix it. If we knew Obama was going to have to immediately spend money like there’s no tomorrow, why didn’t he? His words undermine his own argument. If the situation is so serious, and it is, and if deflation is a real risk, then spending massive amounts of money is the thing to do. If he’s truly the “post-partisan” president, then he surely knows that doing the right thing doesn’t necessarily come with a party label. But if it turns out that only Democrats have a history of spending money during a deflationary cycle to kickstart the economy, then verily I say unto Obama, “Embrace your inner Democrat!”
Sometimes the solution requires subtlety and finesse, shade of gray, diplomacy and nuance. And sometimes the solution is very clear and easy. It’s as straightforward as putting out a fire. Grab a bucket and throw some water on it. If the bucket you grab belongs to some dead Democrat from 60 years ago and it’s the only one around, are you supposed to put it down because the Villagers are sniffing that it’s not *their* kind of bucket?
People are losing their jobs, healthcare, means to feed their children and their futures. I am one of the people most likely to be caught by the AMT sometime in the future and scheduled for a tax cut. PLEASE! TAKE MY MONEY! Yeah, it sucks to have to pay more in taxes so that unemployed people can feed their kids, apply for COBRA, so that teachers have decent buildings to teach in. If it means 500,000 more people start working, I’ll eat my tax cut for a few years. As long as I have a job, I’m one of the lucky ones and it is my obligation to help out in the bucket brigade. Today I am fortunate; tomorrow it may be me.
I’m tired of the words. I’m disgusted with the stage craft and the carefully crafted images of determination. I’m enraged that the Village still thinks it can have its cake and eat it too and has no sense of morality or philanthropy. And I want Obama to stop trying to walk a fine line. It’s time to do the right thing, even if you have to act like a fricking Democrat to do it. Words have no meaning if actions fail to match. Obama needs to get out there, stop depending on Congress to sort it out and lead for a change.
Screw the Republicans and DINOs and the Reagan they rode in on.
I started watching the presidential news conference last night but had to change channels. Obama’s head whipped from side to side so often I thought he was going to have whiplash. Left teleprompter 7 seconds, right teleprompter 5 seconds, left, right, left, right, center, right. Distracting.
The Confluence 