As the planet’s economy keeps stumbling, the phrase “worst recession since the Great Depression” has become the new “global war on terror” — a term whose overuse has rendered it both meaningless and acronym-worthy. And just like that previously ubiquitous phrase, references to the WRSTGD are almost always followed by flimsy and contradictory explanations. Republicans [...]
Year over year, productivity growth was at its highest level in over 50 years last quarter, pushing corporate profits to record highs and helping the economy grow. But a huge group of people are being left out of the party. Millions of workers who have already been unemployed for months, if not years, will most [...]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0a6jyuxm1s[/youtube] “These guys on Wall Street, they don’t render any services at all. They don’t help the economy any except their own employees, their own little family.” — protester Paul Akers “Wall Street has taken so much money from the American people and haven’t given anything back, and it’s absolutely absurd.” — Jim Brown, operating [...]
“Our lives and our livelihoods are all bound together,” he said. “We are one country! When greed runs amok on Wall Street it means lost jobs and shut stores on Main Street. We need to go back to basics where good jobs, not bad debts drive our growth, an economy where Wall Street is the [...]
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
About 40% of freelancers had trouble getting paid in 2009, according to a survey released in mid-April by the New York-based Freelancers Union, a 135,000-member organization for independent contractors across the country in fields such as media, technology, and advertising. It was the first year the group asked the question on its member survey. And [...]
One evening last month, the mayor of Detroit, Dave Bing, took to the podium at a downtown theater. The occasion was the state of the city address, and despite the mayor’s best effort to project optimism, the truths facing America’s 11th largest city are grim. The budget deficit is at least $85 million. The police [...]
The new push, which the White House is scheduled to announce Friday, takes direct aim at the major cause of the current wave of foreclosures: the spike in unemployment. While the initial mortgage crisis that erupted three years ago resulted from millions of risky home loans that went bad, more-recent defaults reflect the country’s economic [...]
Imagine, for a moment, if Pentagon officials, supposedly toiling in our name, actually condescended to ask us for our thoughts. What do we think about global military strategy, garrisoning the planet, the ways in which our forces are structured, and how, where, and for what they should be deployed abroad? Sound crazy? Here in the U.S.A. [...]
Filed in Essays, News Blurbs
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Also tagged Afghanistan War, Contractors, DOD, Economy, Homeless, Homeless Veterans, Homelessness, Housing, Iraq War, Jobs, Military, Military Spending, Pentagon, Poverty, VA, Veterans, Veterans Administration
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One day, Obama is saying he will sign no health care bill without a government-run “public option”; the next, he all but drops it. One day, he is bashing the “shameful” bonuses for “fat-cat bankers” at bailed-out firms, the next he is serving dinner to corporate titans at the White House and saying he does [...]
(Xinhua) Updated: 2010-03-12 16:52 BEIJING – China’s Information Office of the State Council published a report titled “The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009” here Friday. Following is the full text: The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2009 on March 11, 2010, posing [...]
Filed in Documents, News Blurbs, Notable
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Also tagged AIDs, Arms Trafficking, BATF, Censorship, Child Labor, China, CIA, Civil Rights, Crime, Cuba, Cuban Embargo, Detainees, Discrimination, DOJ, ECHELON, Education, Environment, Equal Pay, Espionage, FBI, FISA, Freedom of Press, Freedom of Speech, Hate Crimes, Healthcare, Hegemony, Homeless, Homelessness, Human Rights, Hunger, Hypocrisy, Imperialism, Internet, Labor, Military, Minorities, Murder, NSA, Oppression, Overseas Military Installations, Patriot Act, Poverty, Prisoners, Prisons, Racism, Rape, Rendition, Surveillance, Torture, US Human Rights Record 2009, Veterans, Walmart, Wiretapping, Women
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
“You know,” DeLay said, “there is an argument to be made that these extensions of these unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs.” When CNN’s Candy Crowley described his argument as “a hard sell” to the public, DeLay replied, “It’s the truth.” Crowley followed up, asking, “People are unemployed because they want to be?” [...]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPx_-OF86qU[/youtube] Obama must now prime the pump to get us out of a multi-pronged mess left over from the Bush crowd and seven years of Republican control. Republicans chose to look the other way and ignore the financial chicanery going on right in front of them, while the income gap between the very wealthy and [...]
Filed in Essays, News Blurbs
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Also tagged Al Franken, Banking, Capitalism, Debt, Deficit, Economy, Financial Sector, Free Market, Jobs, Middle Class, Obstructionism, Reform, Regulation, Republicans, Safety Net, Trickle Down
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Saturday, February 13, 2010
For people who cannot afford rent, a car is the last rung of dignity and sanity above the despair of the streets. A home on wheels is a classic American affair, from the wagon train to the RV. Now, for some formerly upwardly mobile Americans, the economic storm has turned the backseat or the rear [...]
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Despite pleas from nearly two dozen people to ax or postpone action on an ordinance to prohibit camping on public property, the Colorado Springs City Council voted 8-1 Tuesday to approve it. “Doing nothing is not an option,” Councilwoman Jan Martin said after listening to more than four hours of comments from a parade of [...]
Thursday, February 11, 2010
So why isn’t this called The Great Depression II? The data, which are for the fourth quarter, come from a new study (.pdf) by Andrew Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada and Sheila Palma at Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies. The researchers conclude that “what has been missing from the public debate over the labor market [...]
From the BLS: The unemployment rate fell from 10.0 to 9.7 percent in January, and nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged (-20,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment fell in construction and in transportation and warehousing, while temporary help services and retail trade added jobs. Image via Calculated Risk This graph shows [...]
Thursday, February 4, 2010
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz7oguguIZE[/youtube] Let me be clear: Our world has changed, utterly. The old Michigan economy is gone. Anyone who believed that Michigan would just naturally rebound without making deep and lasting change had a rendezvous with reality in 2009. The year that just ended was a dividing line — the finale of what Time magazine has [...]
Thursday, February 4, 2010
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwcKwGS7OSQ[/youtube] The Washington Post‘s Steven Pearlstein tells me on MSNBC that the American people shouldn’t expect Washington to be able to do anything about jobs because it’s the result of “imbalances” that have to be “worked out” and it’s going to take time and people just need to be patient and take their medicine. (Mrs. Alan [...]
RICHARD TRUMKA: Well, I’ll give you an example. Nancy Pelosi in the House said, “We will put a 5.6 percent tax surcharge on any income over $1 million. Just money over $1 million.” And that would have produced $400 billion. Enough to pay for four million jobs. BILL MOYERS: Your message is very clear. Tax the rich. [...]
Saturday, January 30, 2010
New unemployment figures are out and unfortunately it shows a significant increase for Upper Michigan. In December, the U.P. unemployment rate was 14.5 percent; that’s up from 12.9 percent in November. All 15 Upper Michigan counties posted jobless rate increases. Most of the increases were seasonal with job losses in tourism and construction. But Ontonagon [...]
The key number, per the Wall Street Journal: “In all of 2009, GDP fell 2.4 percent, the biggest drop for an entire year since 10.9 percent in 1946.” At the close of the worst year for the U.S. economy in more than six decades, Americans are cautious and scared. Without an improvement in the labor [...]
With the power elite consumed with its incessant, discordant fiddling over health care, the economic plight of ordinary Americans, from the middle class to the very poor, got pathetically short shrift. And there is no evidence, even now, that leaders of either party fully grasp the depth of the crisis, which began long before the [...]
The risk that deteriorating government finances could push economies into full-fledged debt crises tops a list of threats facing the world in 2010, according to a report by the World Economic Forum. Major world economies have responded to the financial crisis with stimulus packages and by underwriting private debt obligations, causing deficits to balloon. This [...]
For the first time since the Great Depression, the United States experienced zero job growth in a decade. Zero. And zero is actually worse than it sounds since none of the preceding six decades registered job growth of less than 20 percent. By comparison, the 1970s, which are often bemoaned as a time of economic [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Bill Clinton, Corporatism, Deregulation, Economy, Free Trade, George HW Bush, George W Bush, NAFTA, Poverty, Reagonomics, Ronald Reagan, Taxes
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Saturday, January 16, 2010
What’s the return on investment here? The White House reported Wednesday that the $5 billion in stimulus funds spent to promote clean energy has created 51,700 jobs nationwide. Clearly most of the $90 billion in the stimulus package for clean energy has yet to be spent, according to the second quarterly report to Congress on the Recovery Act’s impact by the [...]
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