In the New York Times Cornel West unleashes a searing denunciation of the US and the Obama administration. In summary, a catastrophe! Great to read this in a major newspaper… I fear, however, that we are a long way from the revolution that West and King would want to see. We can but do our small part, and live in hope….
A full moon rises over the Hamptons as the crocs come out to play. By Lynn Parramore, August 22, 2011, Re-posted from AlterNet
While the world economy trembles and their fellow Americans face blown-up 401Ks, foreclosure threats, and fruitless job searches, financiers are embracing our current feed-the-rich/screw-the-rest mentality with renewed zest.
The NYT reports that last Saturday night, in the fabled NYC frolicking ground of Southampton, billionaire financier Leon D. Black threw himself a jaw-droppingly expensive 60th birthday bash. Two hundred well-heeled guests reclined on cushionsSatyricon-style nibbling seared fois gras as Sir Elton John — earning a cool million bucks — sang ‘Crocodile Rock.’ Joining this Reptilian Cotillion were Martha Stewart and fashion designer Vera Wang, who partied alongside some of Wall Street’s most notorious denizens, including junk-bond pioneer Michael Milken, Blackstone’s buyout king Stephen A. Schwarzman (who became a symbol of greed when he threw his own $3 million b-day bash back in bubblicious 2007), and Lloyd “God’s Work” Blankfein of Goldman Sachs.
image source: AlterNet
CIO!: One Solution to these suicides and to the worsening U.S. economy is for the federal government to Forgive All Student Loan Debt! Rather than continuing to throw (away) money at Wall Street, the U.S. government should help Main Street to see real results.
By C. Cryn Johannsen
All Education Matters
In July of 2008, Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a piece entitled, “Suicide Spreads as One Solution to the Debt Crisis.” The article touched upon the housing crash, and Ehrenreich highlighted several cases in which people took their lives when they knew they were losing their homes.
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Government officials rewarded imprudent institutions with stupefying amounts of free money. Even so, we are still in economically stormy seas. Doesn’t that indicate that it’s time to try a different tack?
By Gretchen Morgenson
The New York Times
FOR the last three years we have been told repeatedly by government officials that funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to large and teetering banks during the credit crisis was necessary to save the financial system, and beneficial to Main Street.
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By Janell Ross
HUFFINGTON POST
The challenges poor and homeless Americans often face accessing clean drinking water and restroom facilities violate international human rights standards, according to a report issued by a United Nations investigator this month.
Catarina de Albuquerque, a U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Water and Sanitation, visited the United States in late February at the invitation of the U.S. government. Continue reading
With a nod to Third Voice (for those who remember it) … but without the cool interface
CIO! = burgundy (a step up from red)
GDP: U.S. Economy Grows Only 1 Percent In Spring, Increasing Recession Fears
by Christopher S. Rugaber
HUFFINGTON POST
WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy grew at a meager 1 percent annual pace this spring, a slower rate than previously estimated. The downward revision will likely increase fears that the economy is at risk of another recession. (For the majority of Americans, that recession has never ended … anything worse than the current state, is a depression)
Fewer exports and weaker growth in business stockpiles led the Commerce Department to lower its estimate for the April-June quarter from its previous rate of 1.3 percent growth. That means the economy expanded only 0.7 percent in the first six months of the year.
All they (Perry’s administration) had to do was convince retirees to let UBS buy life insurance policies on them. When the retirees died, those policies would pay out benefits to Wall Street speculators, and the state, supposedly, would get paid for arranging the bets. The families of the deceased former teachers would get nothing.
By Jason Cherkis and Zach Carter
HUFFINGTON POST
WASHINGTON — Two weeks before Thanksgiving in 2003, top officials from Texas Governor Rick Perry’s office pitched an unusual offer to the state’s retired teachers: Let’s get into the death business.
Perry’s budget director, Mike Morrissey, laid out a pitch that was both ambitious and risky, according to notes summarizing the meeting provided to The Huffington Post.
According to the notes, which were authenticated by a meeting participant, the Perry administration wanted to help Wall Street investors gamble on how long retired Texas teachers would live. Perry was promising the state big money in exchange for helping Swiss banking giant UBS set up a business of teacher death speculation.
We could never post enough articles on this topic …
By Loren Berlin
Daily Finance
Last week, Warren Buffett wrote an incredible opinion piece in The New York Times asking the federal government to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, himself included. “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,” he argued. “It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”
Buffett’s editorial sent economists and politicians into a frenzy as they debated the merits and implications of his request. Underlying the chatter is an important question: Does our country benefit, financially, from taxing our wealthiest citizens?
According to Bruce Bartlett, who’s held senior policy roles in both Ronald Reagan’s and George H. W. Bush’s administrations, as well as on the staffs of Reps. Ron Paul and Jack Kemp, “in 2008, those in the top 1 percent of the income distribution, with incomes over $380,000, had an effective tax rate of 23.3 percent. In 1986, a year when the real gross domestic product grew a healthy 3.5 percent, their effective tax rate was 33.1 percent. It has been much lower every year since.”
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YOU: doing more with less.
CORPORATE PROFITS: up 22 percent.
By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery
Mother Jones
Also read harrowing first-person tales of overwork and 12 charts on just how much is being demanded of American workers.
On a bright spring day in a wisteria-bedecked courtyard full of earnest, if half-drunk, conference attendees, we were commiserating with a fellow journalist about all the jobs we knew of that were going unfilled, being absorbed or handled “on the side.” It was tough for all concerned, but necessary—you know, doing more with less.
“Ah,” he said, “the speedup.”
His old-school phrase gave form to something we’d been noticing with increasing apprehension—and it extended far beyond journalism. We’d hear from creative professionals in what seemed to be dream jobs who were crumbling under ever-expanding to-do lists; from bus drivers, hospital technicians, construction workers, doctors, and lawyers who shame-facedly whispered that no matter how hard they tried to keep up with the extra hours and extra tasks, they just couldn’t hold it together. (And don’t even ask about family time.)
Webster’s defines speedup as “an employer’s demand for accelerated output without increased pay,” and it used to be a household word. Bosses would speed up the line to fill a big order, to goose profits, or to punish a restive workforce. Workers recognized it, unions (remember those?) watched for and negotiated over it—and, if necessary, walked out over it.
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