CIO HEROES!!
Edward Snowden!
Edward Snowden is an American hero who has significantly raised public awareness about the United States' government's threat to global freedom by using extreme and illegal measures of surveillance.
Corporate Profits Hit New Record, U.S. Workers Still Struggling
By Peter S. Goodman
HUFFINGTON POST
Happy days are back! During the summer months, corporations logged their biggest profits since the government started counting way back in the age of Elvis, and the economy expanded at a slightly faster pace than previously thought. Surely, when Caterpillar and Morgan Stanley are swimming in lucre, life must be getting more wonderful for everyone.
Alas, no. Word that American businesses sucked in profits at an annualized pace of $1.66 trillion between July and September is certainly better than the alternative. Ditto, the wholly expected news that the economy grew faster than an initially reported 2 percent annual rate, reaching a still modest 2.5 percent. But none of this has translated into the sort of job growth that will be required to cut into an unemployment rate stuck at 9.6 percent. Worse, there is little reason to suspect it will anytime soon.
We have been hearing for so long now that, once companies start making real money, they will feel the urge to expand. Then, they will hire lots of people, and we can stop worrying and resume shopping. Yet so far–this most recent quarter included–all we have gotten is an extended lesson in the modern workings of a stubbornly lean job market and a display of what now stands as American management’s core competency: How to rack up profits and reward shareholders while keeping the cubicles empty.
Posted in CAPITALISM, ECONOMY, EMPLOYMENT, GOVERNMENT, POLICY
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Wall Street Excess Is Back
Wall Street bankers hiring a dwarf for an over-the-top bachelor party in Miami. Nieman Marcus selling out its 100 limited-edition $75,000 Camaros in three minutes. Socialites dropping $40,000 on a custom cellphone at a jewelry store in Chicago. An investment analyst at Goldman Sachs who hired hip-hop queen Lil’ Kim to perform for 1,000 guests at his annual Halloween party last month.
What is this — 2006?
Though the unemployment rate remains near 10 percent with millions of Americans about to run out of their jobless benefits, one in five Americans are using food stamps to buy groceries and small businesses are being forced to slash their work forces to stay alive, Wall Street’s top bankers and wealthy investors are spending to excess, indulging their every whim.
Consumer spending amounts to more than two-thirds of the American economy, so this return to frivolity at the top is– at least in theory–supposed to trickle down to less fortunate areas of life. But trickle down is one of those phrases that has yet to break out of the conceptual realm. Despite the mad rush back to the steakhouses, the high-end department stores and the jewelers, very few ordinary people seem to have gotten any work as a result.
Posted in CAPITALISM, CONSUMERISM, RESOURCES
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Cornel West: The Obama and Bush Administrations – Very Little Concern For The Poor
Posted in CAPITALISM, DEMOCRACY, GOVERNMENT, POLICY, RESOURCES
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What Good Is Wall Street?
Much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless.
by John Cassidy
THE NEW YORKER
A few months ago, I came across an announcement that Citigroup, the parent company of Citibank, was to be honored, along with its chief executive, Vikram Pandit, for “Advancing the Field of Asset Building in America.” This seemed akin to, say, saluting BP for services to the environment or praising Facebook for its commitment to privacy. During the past decade, Citi has become synonymous with financial misjudgment, reckless lending, and gargantuan losses: what might be termed asset denuding rather than asset building. In late 2008, the sprawling firm might well have collapsed but for a government bailout. Even today the U.S. taxpayer is Citigroup’s largest shareholder.
Posted in CAPITALISM, ECONOMY, GOVERNMENT, POLICY
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The Billionaires Want More, More, More
By Senator Bernie Sanders
HUFFINGTON POST
The billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more.
In 2007, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States made 23.5 percent of all income — more than the bottom 50 percent. Not enough! The percentage of income going to the top 1 percent nearly tripled since the mid-1970s. Not enough! Eighty percent of all new income earned from 1980 to 2005 has gone to the top 1 percent. Not enough! The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Not enough! The Wall Street executives with their obscene compensation packages now earn more than they did before we bailed them out. Not enough! With the middle class collapsing and the rich getting much richer, the United States now has, by far, the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth. Not enough!
The very rich want more, more and more and they are prepared to dismantle the existing political and social order to get it. During the last campaign, as a result of the (Republican) Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, billionaires were able to pour hundreds of millions of dollars of secret money into the campaign — helping to elect dozens of members of Congress. Now, having made their investment, they want their congressional employees to produce.
Posted in CAPITALISM, ECONOMY, GOVERNMENT, POLICY, RESOURCES
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