Phoenixville Hearing Concerns Cheating Corporate Homebuilders –Pennsylvania State Senator Katie Muth (D-44) will have Home Buyer Beware as the topic of a Democrat Policy Committee Hearing, 11 a.m., May 10, at the Phoenixville Borough Building, 351 Bridge St., Phoenixville, Pa. 19460.
“This hearing will focus on critical issues such as the enforcement of existing regulations, laws, municipal and construction codes; the need for improvements with home and code enforcement inspection process and certification; the oversight authority and responsibilities of local and state government entities; examples of deceptive tactics used by corporate, multi-state homebuilders; the need for enhanced warranties and recourse for the homebuyer,” says her press release.
These are the exact matters being raised by Sean Connolly of Collegeville. Connolly has been describing the horrors of new home construction at TollBrothersFraud.com, and at public meetings including before Montgomery County Commissioners, March 21, and Phoenixville Borough Council, Feb. 13.
Good to see Senate Democrats taking an interests.
Connolly is skeptical as to how far they get. Pretty powerful folk are protecting the rich and shady builders including Gov. Josh Shapiro, he says.
Chaya Raichik Interviews Mike Grondahl, Founder of Planet Fitness — Many wonder about the logic behind American corporations squandering billions by promoting policies that not merely ignore profit but push sales away.
That’s not how capitalism is supposed to work.
So why?
Those unnterested in products or profits have built resumes, references and credentials making them appear to CEOs and boards of directors as solid hires for positions of high responsibility.
These hires while perfectly content to enjoy their high pay and perks while not interested shareholders were highly interested in sex parties of the most perverse.
Along with pats on the head from those they considered the in-crowd, who protected them from consequences.
Chaya Raichik i.e. Libs of TikTok interviewed Planet Fitness founder and former CEO Mike Grondahl and posted it on X, March 29.
Grondahl says that when he took the company public he learned that the company’s lead council, Richard Moore,– who had been a North Carolina assemblyman — was a self-admitted pedophile. Moore came via Ropes and Gray, the law firm the company used.
Grondahl brought the information to the new board.
And the board fired him.
That’s Grondahl.
Grondahl was the one fired.
Planet Fitness’ new owners fired Grondahl because he objected to a pedophile setting policy.
If Planet Fitness goes under Moore will parachute to safely as will the board members supporting them.
Their lifestyles will not be affected.
Unlike the investors, customer and employees.
Here is Chaya’s interview:
BREAKING: I spoke with former Planet Fitness CEO Mike Grondahl (@mggrond) about the recent trans bathroom controversy.
"It's in the culture. Corporate office is braindead. Find another safe place to work out"
Drexeline Sign And Back In Time — Here we are on Feb. 16, 2024, and they’re letting us know we can still shop at Fisher’s Hardware in the Drexeline Shopping Center in Upper Darby, Pa.
For that matter, how how long has it been since the supermarket there was called Drexeline, the name that preceded the Fresh Grocer which became a Shop Rite in 2013, and which reopened after reconstruction, Sept. 1?
Anthony’s and The Perfect Circle and CVS and the “30 other retail stores, restaurants and services” are also long gone.
Let’s see if we can get Upper Darby Council to give the sign an historical marker.
That was a joke.
The sign is on the north side of Route 1 just over the Springfield border.
Wells Fargo Must Die — Wells Fargo has been ordered to pay $3.7 billion for numerous crimes including wrongfully foreclosing on homes, illegally repossessing vehicles,incorrectly assessing fees and interest, and charging surprise overdraft fees.
The fines were levied by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
The CFPB went too easy. The corporation should have been sent into oblivion and its officers to jail.
The only difference between what Wells Fargo did and that of a burglary is scale. The publicly traded, Wall Street-respected, establishment-protected corporation caused far more misery and suffering than the local lowlife could ever dream.
Let Wells Fargo die.
Tradition should be turned on its head in any legal proceeding in which they are involved with the presumption of guilt the standard.
Corporations like this are why some find socialism attractive.
Elon Musk, Twitter’s new chief executive officer, and the firings he immediately called for that included H-1B visa holders, as well as the tech industry’s mass, across-the-board layoffs, raise a three-decade-old question: should the H-1B visa be eliminated, and should U.S. tech workers be put first in line for the white-collar, well-paid jobs?
Musk, who completed his $44 billion Twitter takeover last month, declared that he would end lifetime bans from his platform and tweeted that diverse viewpoints would be welcome. He has a golden opportunity not only to end censorship and restore free speech as he’s promised, but to also hire U.S. tech workers when workforce needs again grow.
Going forward, Musk would have a chance to replace the Twitter employees that he’s fired with U.S. tech workers. The firings – about half the Twitter staff, or around 3,700 employees – are allegedly a cost-cutting measure. He summarily dismissed big earners like CEO Parag Agrawal, $30 million annually; Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, $18.9 million; Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, $17 million; and General Counsel Sean Edgett, whose salary is unknown, but likely in the same range as his peers. A class action lawsuit was filed against Twitter in San Francisco federal court claiming that the employees were not given the mandatory 60-day notice prior to the layoffs.
Many of the fired Twitter workers may be in the double-whammy vortex. As H-1B employees, unless they find another job within 60 days or successfully change their immigration status, they must leave the U.S. or risk deportation. H-1B holders who are legally required to leave must depart and not overstay their visas which the federal government clearly identifies as temporary. The U.S. Immigration and Immigration Services estimates that about 8 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 employees, between 625 and 670, have H-1B visas.
Tech and social media are either laying off workers by the thousands or imposing hiring freezes. With Intel’s 20 percent slash, Snapchat’s 20 percent cut and hiring freezes at Amazon and Apple, H-1B holders are on edge. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, cut 11,000 jobs, 13 percent of its staff, after Mark Zuckerberg admitted that his so-called metaverse project was a $15 billion bomb. Meta/Facebook is in a tough spotvis-à-vis its H-1B layoffs. Per the Department of Labor classification, this means 15 percent or more of Meta’s full-time employees are H-1B nonimmigrant workers.
For more than 30 years, Silicon Valley and other employers have falsely claimed that without nonimmigrant H-1B visa employees, their businesses would suffer. Yet now, with widespread tech layoffs that include H-1B holders, admitting 85,000 international workers in 2023, the visa’s annual cap, would further hurt U.S. tech workers who are either displaced and forced to train their replacements or denied interviews. Because H-1B employees are cheaper to hire than U.S. tech graduates, the corporate elite prefer them over more skilled, more well-educated Americans.
The Wall Street Journal hosted a panel discussion that featured two advocates who favor expanding the H-1B program and one critic who urges major reforms. The advocates, David Bier, the Cato Institute’s immigration studies associate director, and Theresa Cardinal Brown, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s managing director of immigration and cross-border policy, argued that the H-1B visa cap should be increased and that their labor market presence makes America a more prosperous place.
The critic, Dr. Ron Hira, Howard University, political science associate professor and Economic Policy Institute research associate, countered that the rigged H-1B system is a transfer-of-wealth scam that makes the employers wealthy winners, and the workers, low-wage losers. Dr. Hira added that employers aren’t required to prove that a U.S. worker shortage exists before hiring an H-1B, that H-1B workers’ wages are set too low, and that the compliance system doesn’t hold employers accountable. “Guest-worker programs are supposed to fill domestic labor shortages. The H-1B program does not fill shortages,” Dr. Hira said.
The Journal debate represents the challenge that H-1B critics face. No matter how many H-1B visa holders lose their jobs, or how economically depressed the tech sector is, the demand for more visas will remain. Pro-immigration media supporters like the Journal, immigration advocacy groups, lawyers, corporate America and the powerful Chamber of Commerce will incessantly lobby Congress for more, more, more H-1B visas.
Ray Marshall, President Jimmy Carter’s Labor Secretary and University of Texas Professor Emeritus, gave a no-frills summary of the H-1B that its advocates should heed: “One of the best con jobs ever done on the American public and political systems…H-1B pays below market rate. If you’ve got H-1B workers, you don’t have to do training or pay good wages.” Musk has an opportunity to set an example for Meta and others to follow: hire U.S. tech workers.
Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Russia Ruble Rule Heralds Hard Times — Russia is demanding that it’s oil and natural gas be purchased with rubles and not dollars or euros, and they are serious.
We’ll have to think more about what we eat and where we eat and what we buy and where we vacation.
Really you don’t have to blow $8,700 for a week at pervo-run Disney World, when it will be far more memorable — and cheaper — to rent a cabin on a lake and teach your kids to fish.
Moderna CEO Deletes Twitter Account — Stephane Bancel, the CEO of Moderna, has deleted his Twitter account dumped about $230 million in stock over the last year.
Groupon Selling Nike, Which Means Nike Is Not Selling — Groupon, the website that lets merchants move underselling merchandise, is offering Nike products. Just do it? Just sayin.
We will not do it, for what it’s worth. Nike uses slave labor. Nike — and Coca Cola for that matter — support slavery.
