Planning
for Development: On
capitalist economic and political terrorism,
the visible hand of capitalist markets and criminal minds
|
(From The Yale Review, VOLUME XXII (1932-1933), Summer 1933), p.
755-759. As
reproduced by Panarchy
National Self-Sufficiency - by John Maynard Keynes - (1933)
..."The decadent international but individualistic capitalism, in the hands of
which we found ourselves after the War, is not a success. It is not
intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous - and it
doesn't deliver the goods. In short, we dislike it and we are beginning to
despise it. But when we wonder what to put in its place, we are extremely
perplexed."...
Read also "John
Maynard Keynes: a vision for the future or a ghost from the past?.- by
Richard Ebeling - June 8, 2012
|
From RT - July 2013
Depleted uranium used by US forces blamed for birth defects and cancer in Iraq
The US military’s use of depleted uranium in Iraq has led to a sharp increase in
Leukemia and birth defects in the city of Najaf – and panicked residents are fearing
for their health. Cancer is now more common than the flu, a local doctor tells RT.
The city of Najaf saw one of the most severe military actions during the 2003
invasion. RT traveled to the area, quickly learning that every residential
street in several neighborhoods has seen multiple cases of families whose
children are ill, as well as families who have lost children, and families
who have many relatives suffering from cancer.
Speaking on the rooftop of her house instead of her laboratory, Dr. Sundus
Nsaif says the city has seen a “dramatic rise” in cancer and
birth defects since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Nsaif said the
alternative location was chosen because there is an active push by
the government not to talk about the issue, perhaps in an effort
not to embarrass coalition forces.
Dutch report
'United States of Amnesia': No accountability for ‘grievous errors’ in Iraq
Ten years after the US invasion of Iraq, the humanitarian situation in the country is bleak.
Critics say the hugely unpopular occupation of Iraq, and the lack of accountability for the
officials responsible, has irreparably damaged America’s image.
On March 20, 2003,
the United States – in defiance of the United Nations, which had weapons inspectors
on the ground in Iraq – opened a military offensive against the Arab Republic on
the premise that the Baathist government of Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons
of mass destruction.
One decade later, the global community is aware
that the intelligence claims of Iraqi WMDs were patently false at least – and
a blatant fabrication at worst – but this knowledge has done nothing to erase
the damage of the conflict.
|
From The Economist - July 7th 2012 | from the print edition
 The LIBOR affair - Banksters
How Britain’s rate-fixing scandal might spread—and what to do about it
“SINCE we have not more power of knowing the future than
any other men, we have made many mistakes (who has not during the past
five years?), but our mistakes have been errors of judgment and not of
principle.” So reflected J.P. Morgan junior in 1933, in the middle of a
financial crisis. Today's bankers can draw no such comfort from their
behaviour. The attempts to rig LIBOR (the London inter-bank offered
rate), a benchmark interest rate, not only betray a culture of casual
dishonesty; they set the stage for lawsuits and more regulation right
the way round the globe. This could well be global finance's “tobacco
moment”.
How much equality
would you like?
From The Economist - Aug 14th 2012
"AMERICANS want to live in a much more equal country
(they just don't realise it)".
So says Dan Ariely, who, along with Mike Norton, found
that Americans ridiculously underestimate the amount of inequality in
their country. In reality, American society is staggeringly unequal:
the top 20% hold 84% of the wealth, while the bottom 40% have just
0.3%. But according to Mr Ariely, Americans, whether liberal or
conservative, rich or poor, prefer a wealth distribution that is more
egalitarian than Sweden’s.
Buttonwood
The golden rules of
banking
They make the rules, and get the gold
From The Economist - July 14th 2012
Bankers get such generous payoffs because it is in their
contracts and airtight contracts are needed to attract the best people.
But is this right? The BBC just appointed a director-general on a
salary that is one-third less than that of the previous incumbent. Even
so, there was no shortage of qualified applicants for the post. Back to
the first rule: in banking, the laws of supply and demand do not apply.
|
From The
Globalist - August 09, 2012
From Iraq to LIBOR:
Excessive Risk-Taking and Democratic Accountability
Stephan Richter
The United States and the United Kingdom, the two countries
that have long dominated global affairs, are also always keen to
portray themselves as the world's two oldest continuous democracies.
That claim gives off the impression that the main purpose of politics
in those nations is to serve the people.
The continuous slide of the United States and Britain into financialist
democracies does not serve the very idea of democracy very well.
However, that reference to democracy, and hence to proper
accountability structures, both personally and institutionally,
increasingly looks like a mere cover-up. Criminal prosecutions, in
particular, have been extremely scarce, despite the gravity and
regularity of systemic malfeasance in the financial industry
From the BBC News - 16
August 2012
Libor scandal: Seven
banks face US questioning
Seven banks, including HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland, are
to be questioned in the US for alleged manipulation of the Libor
inter-bank lending rate.
Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and UBS have also received
subpoenas from the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut.
Last month, Barclays was fined £290m by UK and US regulators for
rigging Libor. US regulators said they were investigating potential
involvement by other banks in the Barclays scandal.
From CNN - 26
July 2012
'Land grabs' - the new
scramble for Africa
Robyn Curnow
It is being dubbed by some as the “Second Scramble for
Africa” - millions of acres of land being snapped up by companies from
Asia and the Middle East. The land rush was in part spurred by the food
and financial crisis of 2008, when corporations, investment funds and
governments began to re-focus their attention on agriculture as a
profitable commodity. Massingir Agro-Industrial is a South African and
Mozambican company that has been given the use of 30,000 hectares of
land in Massingir, western Mozambique, by the country’s government.
Backed by European investors, once feasibility studies are complete,
the company will begin planting sugar cane to produce sugar - 80% of
which will be exported to Europe.
Under the deal, local villagers will not be relocated. Some land will
be left for the villagers but the vast majority of it will be off
limits.
From
Foreign Policy - 27 April 2011
How Goldman Sachs Created the
Food Crisis
Don't blame American appetites, rising oil prices, or genetically
modified crops for rising food prices. Wall Street's at fault for the
spiraling cost of food.
Frederick Kaufman
Demand and supply certainly matter. But there's another
reason why food across the world has become so expensive: Wall Street
greed.
It took the brilliant minds of Goldman Sachs to realize the simple
truth that nothing is more valuable than our daily bread. And where
there's value, there's money to be made. In 1991, Goldman bankers, led
by their prescient president Gary Cohn, came up with a new kind of
investment product, a derivative that tracked 24 raw materials, from
precious metals and energy to coffee, cocoa, cattle, corn, hogs, soy,
and wheat. They weighted the investment value of each element, blended
and commingled the parts into sums, then reduced what had been a
complicated collection of real things into a mathematical formula that
could be expressed as a single manifestation, to be known henceforth as
the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI).
From Foreign
Policy - May/June 2011
Hungry Planet: The New
Geopolitics of Food
Lester R. Brown
Welcome to FP's first-ever food issue in which we travel
across this hungry planet of ours at a time when skyrocketing prices
are dictating politics from the Middle East to Madagascar. The special
section, which travels from the yuppies who've appropriated the miracle
food of the Incas to a darkened kitchen in Baghdad where women battered
by war came together to celebrate life, explores the food wars of the
21st century, debunks the conventional wisdom about hunger and poverty,
shows us 10 ways we really are what we eat, and asks leading experts to
predict the future of food.
|
From The Economist - 21 April 2012
Kim selection - The new
boss of the World Bank has a tough job. The manner of his appointment
has made it tougher
FOR the past decade, two big trends have been reshaping
development. One is the growth of new sources of aid and loans, notably
middle-income countries such as China, private capital flows and
charitable organisations such as the Gates Foundation. This is
undermining the dominance of Western institutions. The other is a new
way of thinking about development, which focuses less on national plans
and more on the rights of individuals and specific groups.
|
U.S. Politicians Vote
Against Science
April 12, 2011
For the rulers of the
world’s most powerful country, science is just a matter of opinion ...
On April 6, three members of the U.S. House of Representatives proposed
this amendment to a bill under discussion:
"Congress accepts the scientific findings of the Environmental
Protection Agency that climate changes is occurring, is caused largely
by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and
welfare."
The amendment did not propose any action— it simply allowed members of
the House to state whether or not they agree with the overwhelming
scientific evidence.
The amendment was defeated 240 to 184.
Scary…
From Climate and Capitalism
|
From John Pilger - 2007
As published by truththeory.org
The War on Democracy
The War on Democracy – U.S. Forigin
Policy in the Latin America is John Pilger’s documentary made in 2007.
He travels throughout Latin America and the United States, to
investigate the relationship between the two. Recent US foreign policy
towards South & Central America has been destructive, at best, and
this mainstream UK tv documentary film exposes the truth behind
Washington’s actions, whilst blowing apart some of the myths within the
so-called War On Terror at the same time. This film uses archive
footage to support its claim that democracy has been wiped out in
country after country in Latin America since the 1950s, with
testimonies from many of those involved and affected. Venezuelan
president, Hugo Chavez, is one of those interviewed.
|
From John Pilger - 1992
War by other means
John Pilger examines the policy of
First World banks agreeing loans with Third World countries, which are
then unable to meet the cripling interest charges. An interesting
documentary, that relativizes helps provided by northern hemisphere to
African continent. John Pilger questions whether poor countries will
ever develop while burdened with massive debts to the West. John Pilger
travels to many third world countries to investigate the devastating
results of loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund
(IMF). This film shows how many wars today are not carried out at the
barrel of a gun, but by the monetary policies of global banking
institutions. Instead of bombs, it has been discovered that debt is a
far more powerful weapon to control and maintain the power of global
economic interests. It turns out that the “structural-adjustment”
policies of neo-liberal economics are even more deadly than nerve gas
and many other weapons of war. This documentary backs up many of the
claims made by John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit
Man.
|
From the Institute for Policy Research & Development
Repression, Human Rights, and US Training of
Military Forces from the South
By Ruth Joanna Blakeley,
Department of Politics, University of Bristol, October 2006
In order to understand whether US training of military forces
from the South has resulted in the use of repression or improvements in
human rights, we need to situate the training within the broader
context of US foreign policy objectives and strategies.
The main aims of US foreign policy are to maintain its dominant global
position and to ensure control of resources and markets in the South.
These objectives are being pursued through an emerging, US led
transnational state, using the instruments of legitimation at least as
much as repression.
This contrasts with the Cold War, during which US foreign policy
strategy towards the South emphasised repression. US training of
military forces from the South during the Cold War played a key role in
a US-led network of terror, through which many states in the South were
connected to the US and each other by cooperation between their
militaries, police and intelligence services. The training was
dominated by a particular form of counterinsurgency instruction which
advocated repression of groups that might potentially threaten US
control of Southern economies and assets. This contributed to
widespread human rights violations, particularly in Latin America.
Following the end of the Cold War, reliance on the network of terror
diminished, and it was subsumed within the emergent transnational
state. In line with this shift in US foreign policy strategy in the
South, some aspects of the training began to be characterised by the
promotion of legitimation. In the wake of 9/11, the US has intensified
both its legitimation efforts and its use of repression, and the
training continues to play a significant role in the service of US
foreign policy objectives.
|
Capitalist Economic
Terrorism
Workers worldwide must wake up to how capitalist terrorists
are literally destroying them day in and day out. It's often difficult
for Americans to believe that their rulers are as ruthless and pitiless
as they really are--and hence clearly deserve the name terrorists. It
may help to see one of the cabal terrorists in action, in this instance
Marie Jana Korbelová, aka Madeliene Albright, 64th American Secretary
of State in response to a question about 1990s U.S. economic sanctions
against Iraq and the human consequences:
Question: "We have heard that half a million children have died. I
mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is
the price worth it?"
Reply: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the
price is worth it."
Albright is no more barbarous in her behavior and
attitudes than any other of her cabal fellow terrorists. Financial
terrorism such as imposing economic sanctions against a state the junta
chooses is one of their favorite tactics--regardless of human
consequences.
Often, people are able to comprehend current
events when they see that they're in essence a repeat of earlier
occurrences. In this essay, we'll explore the identical features of the
1929 economic crash and the 2008 capitalist terrorist attack on the
world economy.
Both in 1929 and again now, people find it
difficult to understand that seemingly accidental events--like economic
crashes--are in reality planned and orchestrated by totally
unscrupulous persons with immense power.
"The streets and people of New York are devastated for the second time
in a decade. This time, the culprits behind the wrecked lives and
ruined livelihoods are not foreign extremists, but homegrown. And
rather than receive appropriate retribution, the perpetrators receive
billions of government dollars for their demolition job."
Tom
Engelhardt, "Economic
dirty bomb goes off in New York,"
March 26, 2009, Tomdispatch
|
The Center for Public Integrity
The mission of the Center for Public Integrity is to produce
original investigative journalism about significant public issues to
make institutional power more transparent and accountable. To pursue
its mission, the Center:
Generates high-quality, accessible investigative reports, databases,
and contextual analysis on issues of public importance.
Disseminates work to journalists, policymakers, scholars, and citizens
using a combination of digital, electronic, and print media.
Educates, engages, and empowers citizens with the tools and skills they
need to hold governments and other institutions accountable.
Organizes and supports investigative journalists around the world who
apply the Center’s values, mission, and standards to cross-border
projects.
Remains independent by building a strong and sustainable financial base
of support, including a community of committed individuals and
foundations.
The
business of war - 2002
Making a Killing: The Business of War
Privatizing Combat, the New World Order
Marketing the New 'Dogs of War'
Greasing the Skids of Corruption
The Curious Bonds of Oil Diplomacy
Conflict Diamonds are Forever
The Adventure Capitalist
The Influence Peddlers
The Field Marshal
Drugs, Diamonds and Deadly Cargoes
The Merchant of Death
|
Wikileaks
Mirrors
"Could become as important a journalistic tool as the
Freedom of Information Act." - Time Magazine
WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization
dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. We
provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for independent sources
around the world to leak information to our journalists. We publish
material of ethical, political and historical significance while
keeping the identity of our sources anonymous, thus providing a
universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored injustices.
WikiLeaks relies on its supporters in order to
stay strong. Please keep us at the forefront of anti-censorship and support us
today. You can also read more about WikiLeaks,
our mission and objectives.
|
BBC NEWS
Planet Under Pressure
A six-part
BBC News Online series looking at some of the most pressing
environmental issues facing the human race today. By Alex Kirby BBC
News Online environment correspondent
Introduction
Part
1: Species under threat
Part
2: World water crisis
Part
3: Energy crisis
Part
4: Feeding the world
Part
5: Climate change
Part
6: Fighting pollution
--
Why
the Sun seems to be "dimming"
Horizon:
Global Dimming
|
Project Censored's Media Freedom
International
Media Democracy in Action
Project
Censored’s objective include the training of students in media
literacy, First Amendment issues, and the advocacy for, and protection
of, free press rights in the United States and around the world.
Project Censored has trained over 1,500 students in investigative
research in the past three decades.
Project Censored was founded by Dr. Carl Jensen in 1976, and is a media
research program working in cooperation with numerous independent media
groups in the US. Through a partnership of faculty, students, and the
community, Project Censored conducts research on important news stories
that are underreported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored by the US
corporate media. Each year, Project Censored publishes a ranking of the
top 25 most censored nationally important news stories in the yearbook,
Censored: Media Democracy in Action, which is released every October 1,
what Molly Ivins dubbed Media Accountability Day.
Between 700 and 1000 stories are submitted to Project Censored each
year from journalists, scholars, librarians, and concerned citizens
around the world. With the help of faculty, students, and community
members across the US and increasingly around the world, Project
Censored reviews story submissions for coverage, content, reliability
of sources and national significance. The university community selects
25 stories to submit to the Project Censored panel of judges who then
rank them in order of importance. Current or previous national judges
include: Noam Chomsky, Susan Faludi, George Gerbner, Sut Jhally,
Frances Moore Lappe, Michael Parenti, Herbert I. Schiller, Barbara
Seaman, Erna Smith, Mike Wallace and Howard Zinn. All 25 stories are
featured in the yearbook, Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News.
Dr. Peter Phillips, president of the Media Freedom Foundation
(nonprofit that oversees Project Censored), recently stepped down as
the second director of the Project after 14 years, turning it over to
Prof. Mickey Huff who now works as new director of PC in concert with
MFF and college affiliates in producing the annual censored book as
well as posting Validated Independent News year round.
BBC World
Service Global Poll - November 9, 2009
Wide
Dissatisfaction with Capitalism -- Twenty Years after Fall of Berlin
Wall
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC
World Service global poll finds that dissatisfaction with free market
capitalism is widespread, with an average of only 11% across 27
countries saying that it works well and that greater regulation is not
a good idea.
In only two countries do more than one in five feel that capitalism
works well as it stands--the US (25%) and Pakistan (21%).
The most common view is that free market capitalism has problems that
can be addressed through regulation and reform--a view held by an
average of 51% of more than 29,000 people polled by GlobeScan/PIPA.
Countercurrents.org
Educate! Organize! Agitate!. Support Indy Media
Countercurrents.org came online on 27th March 2002. It is founded and
edited by Binu Mathew. It is financed fully by volantary reader
subscription. In the truest spirit of independent internet journalism,
we believe that whatever news, views and analysis given out from
countercurrents should be independent in the truest sense of the word
and free of biases. That's why we dont seek corporate or institutional
sponsors; no banner advertising; no pop-up ads; no selling or renting
of our mailing lists and no foundation donations.
www.countercurrents.org is an alternative news site. "We bring out what
the mainstream media fails to tell you, or hides from you. These are
the things that really matter. The things which may determine the fate
of planet earth! The future of our children! In a word, the survival of
the species!"
Countercurrents.org stands for peace and justice. Our sympathies are
with all those who are engaged in struggles for economic, political,
social, cultural, gender, environmental justice and more....
This is a non profit and educational initiative.
Americas Program
The Americas
Policy Program was started as an initiative of the International
Relations Center, founded in 1979 as a small but dynamic nonprofit
policy studies center whose overarching goal was to help forge a new
global affairs agenda for the U.S. government and people—one that would
make the United States a more responsible global leader and partner.
Although the IRC no longer exists, we carry on this work in much the
same way—producing policy reports, issue briefs, political commentary,
and popular education materials offering essential information and
credible, forward-looking policy analysis. Through these materials, we
seek to educate policymakers, influence public debates regarding the
U.S. role in global affairs, change public opinion, inform activists,
and foster strategic dialogue among progressives across the globe on
key issues like economic globalization, sustainable development, and
peace and security. In 2007 we transitioned to become a fiscally
sponsored program of the Center for International Policy based in
Washington, DC.
The Americas Policy Program’s mission is to advance “a new world of
citizen action, analysis, and policy options.” We promote informed
critiques and new policy frameworks to address pressing environmental,
security, economic, and social problems that undermine human
development and cooperative international relations in the Western
Hemisphere.
A project of the Institute for Policy
Studies
Foreign Policy In Focus
Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) is
a “Think Tank Without Walls” connecting the research and action of more
than 600 scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the United
States a more responsible global partner. It is a project of the
Institute for Policy Studies.
FPIF provides timely analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international
affairs and recommends policy alternatives. We believe U.S. security
and world stability are best advanced through a commitment to peace,
justice and environmental protection as well as economic, political,
and social rights. We advocate that diplomatic solutions, global
cooperation, and grassroots participation guide foreign policy. For a
more detailed explanation of our foreign policy vision, please consult
Just Security, our framework document.
From the Institute for Policy
Studies
Right Web
Exposing the architecture of power that's changing our world
Tracking militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy
Right Web is a
program of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) that assesses the
work of prominent organizations and individuals—both in and out of
government—who promote militarist U.S. foreign and defense policies,
with a special focus on the “war on terror” and the Middle East. Right
Web aims to foster informed public debate about these policies with
feature articles and profiles of individuals and organizations that
examine political discourses and institutional allegiances over time.
George W. Bush Files
Gloves Off
(bare-fisted political economy)
L. Haugaard: Textbook Repression: US training manuals
declassified
U.S. Army Training Manuals used
at the School of the Americas
MRZine
-
Monthly
Review:
Africa - Asia - Empire & The new imperialism
- Europe - Feminism/Women - Food & Hunger - Globalization - Iraq & U.S. imperialism - Labor/Working-class - Latin America & Caribbean - Marxist ecology - Media/Communications - The war on terrorism & The new police state
- U.S. politics/economy - Social/Political theory
New Left Review
ZNet
Multinational Monitor
Counterpunch
Socialism
& Democracy
Global Policy Forum
Cultural Logic
Andre Gunder Frank website
The official Noam Chomsky website
-
The
Noam Chomsky Archive
The Consortium for Independent
Journalism
Imperial Bush
W's war on
the environment
By Sam Parry - April 12, 2001
George W.
Bush’s new budget reads like a battle plan against the world’s
environment, with Bush adding a bizarre twist: holding Alaska’s Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge as a kind of hostage.
IPENet:
International
Political Economy Network
Prensa Latina
On June 16,
1959, only six months after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the
first news with the PL abbreviation circulated out of Havana into the
world. Prensa Latina News Agency was thus born amid the revolutionary
effervescence of those days, with the intention of reporting on what
was really happening in Cuba, to give the world a vision of Latin
America different to those offered by big media monopolies of the time.
In the 21st century
Half a century after its foundation, Prensa Latina has a solid, modern
structure allowing it to successfully insert itself in the complex,
competitive world of international news agencies.
A team of editors, writers, reporters, photographers, as well as
correspondents and stringers worldwide contribute to PL news services,
supported by highly qualified technicians and engineers who make
possible that PL messages on the most diverse issues reach the world.
Over 400 dispatches comprise the world news service PL transmits each
day in Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, Russian and Turkish.
The films and journalism of John
Pilger
Welcome to
the new John Pilger website, a remarkable resource and historical
record and now arguably the most comprehensive online collection of the
work of a leading journalist. For the first time, the majority of John
Pilger's 58 films for television and cinema can be viewed online. New
features include a video and article search, a newsletter, social media
tools and an RSS feed. The site's relaunch has been made possible by
the University of Lincoln, which is preparing a complete digital
archive of John Pilger's work.
|
Climate and Capitalism
Ecosocialism or Barbarism: There is no third way
CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM is an online
journal focusing on capitalism, climate change, and the ecosocialist
alternative. It has three goals:
- To provide news and analysis to inform, educate and develop the green
left;
- To contribute to building an international movement against
capitalist destruction of the environment and for ecosocialism;
To encourage and facilitate collaboration and exchanges of views among
socialists and ecology activists.
The opinions expressed in individual articles are not necessarily those
of the editor.
|
From
Business Insider
Finally, A Rich
American Destroys The Fiction That Rich People Create The Jobs
Henry Blodget - December 2011
In the war of rhetoric that has developed in Washington
as both sides blame each other for our economic mess, one argument has
been repeated so often that many people now regard it as fact:
Rich people create the jobs.
Specifically, entrepreneurs and investors, when incented by low taxes,
build companies and create millions of jobs.
And these entrepreneurs and investors, therefore, the argument goes,
can solve our nation's huge unemployment problem — if only we cut taxes
and regulations so they can be incented to build more companies and
create more jobs.
No, Entrepreneurs Like
Steve Jobs Do Not "Create Jobs" By Inventing Products Like The iPhone
Henry Blodget - December 2011
A
billionaire named Nick Hanauer recently wrote an
editorial for Bloomberg in which he destroyed
the argument that the jobs in America are created by rich entrepreneurs
and investors. In our current "class war" climate, this argument
has been repeated so often that it's now regarded as fact. And it is
frequently and passionately invoked to defend the idea that we should
make further tax cuts for rich people — so rich people can have an
incentive to create more jobs.
CHARTS: Here's What
The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...
Henry Blodget - October 2011
...yes, they have very
legitimate gripes.
And if America cannot figure out a way to address these gripes, the
country will likely become increasingly "de-stabilized, " as
sociologists might say. And in that scenario, the current protests will
likely be only the beginning.
The problem in a nutshell is this: Inequality in this country has hit a
level that has been seen only once in the nation's history, and
unemployment has reached a level that has been seen only once since the
Great Depression. And, at the same time, corporate profits are at a
record high.
In other words, in the never-ending tug-of-war between "labor" and
"capital," there has rarely—if ever—been a time when "capital" was so
clearly winning
Mitt Romney Supporters
Appear To Be Delusional About A Key Reason For His 13% Tax Rate
Henry Blodget - August 2012
You can't write about tax rates these
days without getting shelled by those who feel their favorite
Presidential candidate is being attacked by whatever you say.
That's too bad, because it hinders the ability to have a reasoned
discussion about taxes, which is a discussion this country desperately
needs to have.
15 Mind-Blowing Facts
About Wealth And Inequality In America
Gus Lubin - November 2010
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting
poorer. Cliché, sure, but it's more true than at any time since the
Gilded Age.
While politicians gloat about our "recovery," our poor are getting
poorer, our average wages are still falling behind inflation, and
social mobility is at an all-time low.
But, yes, if you're in that top 1%, life in America is grand...
http://www.businessinsider.com/maps-of-extreme-income-segregation-in-us-cities-2012-8?op=1
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-bankers-shorting-facebooks-stock-2012-8
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