-
High ResolutionAlmost.
(Source: questionall, via tinfoilandtea)
-
Mega Manufacturer Caterpillar Demands Concessions From Workers After Boosting CEO Pay By 60 Percent | ThinkProgress
Workers at an Illinois plant for the mega manufacturer Caterpillar have been on strike for a month after rejecting a concession-heavy contract proposed by the company. Yesterday, workers overwhelmingly rejected a second Caterpillar offer, by a vote of 504-116.
According to union officials, the contract “provided no raises, eliminated the defined benefits pension program, weakened seniority rights and required machinists to pay higher contributions for health care.” All of this, at a time when the company is making record profits. In fact, Fortune Magazine recently said the company is “crushing it” when it comes to profitability.
At the same time that it is refusing to give its workers a fair raise, the company saw fit to increase its CEOs pay by 60 percent
(Source: sarahlee310, via theamericanbear)
-
"Unless you run a financial institution whose business model is built on cheating consumers, or making risky bets that could damage the whole economy, you have nothing to fear from Wall Street reform."
- President Obama, in his weekly address, calling for stricter reform after J.P. Morgan’s multi-billion dollar loss. (via liberalsarecool)(via thereisnogod)
-
-
High Resolution -
High ResolutionBain in the ass.
-
"FDR was right: ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ More so than any terror threat, it is the fear mongering about national security that presents the greatest danger to our Republic’s future. No ‘home of the brave’ would be brow-beaten by fears of ‘giving rights to terrorists’ into resigning its own rights, inviting repression upon itself by allowing government powers long used to define authoritarianism. Welcome to the U.S. House of Representatives! Is it too generous to say that democracy in America hangs by a thread?"
-Shahid Buttar, Congress cans the Constitution, as Chicago police abduct activists
(via theamericanbear)The failures of Congress, or for that matter the (to quote…ahem…Sarah Palin) “lamestream press” to pay any heed to these myriad [transpartisan] voices [of dissent against the NDAA] suggests a process problem even beyond military detention. If our elected leaders are beholden to executive power and hellbent on eroding the judiciary’s (and their own) ability to check future abuses, does it even matter what We the People do?
It’s a bit like watching a Republic fall apart at the seams, in slow motion.
(via theamericanbear)
-
"
It is astounding how significantly one idea can shape a society and its policies. Consider this one.
If taxes on the rich go up, job creation will go down.
This idea is an article of faith for Republicans and seldom challenged by Democrats and has shaped much of today’s economic landscape.
But sometimes the ideas that we know to be true are dead wrong. For thousands of years people were sure that earth was at the center of the universe. It’s not, and an astronomer who still believed that it was, would do some lousy astronomy.
In the same way, a policy maker who believed that the rich and businesses are “job creators” and therefore should not be taxed, would make equally bad policy.
I have started or helped start, dozens of businesses and initially hired lots of people. But if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would all have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated.
That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is a “circle of life” like feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand and hiring. In this sense, an ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than a capitalist like me.
" -
They’ve abandoned ship a while ago now.
(Source: thatintrovert, via political-cartoons)
-
Billionaire Venture Capitalist Gave a TED Talk Saying Rich People Don’t Create Jobs - and TED Is Refusing To Post It
As the war over income inequality wages on, super-rich Seattle entrepreneur Nick Hanauer has been raising the hackles of his fellow 1-percenters, espousing the contrarian argument that rich people don’t actually create jobs.
The position is controversial — so much so that TED is refusing to post a talk that Hanauer gave on the subject.
National Journal reports today that TED officials decided not to put Hanauer’s March 1 speech up online after deeming his remarks “too politically controversial” for the site.
In an email obtained by the National Journal, TED curator Chris Anderson told his colleagues that Hanauer’s speech “probably ranks as one of the most politically controversial talks we’ve ever run, and we need to be really careful when” to post it. He added: “Next week ain’t right. Confidentially, we already have Melinda Gates on contraception going out. Sorry for the mixed messages on this.”
TED regularly posts speeches about sensitive political issues, including global warming and contraception, so it’s not clear why Hanauer’s talk would be singled out for censorship.
My take on this is that they have some investors somewhere that don’t like or are threatened by the content of this particular talk. -
We give prison sentences for smoking marijuana, but not for billion-dollar fraud
Five facts that put America to shame - #4
About half of our world-leading prison population is in jail for non-violent drug offenses. Americans have also been arrested for handing out free food in a park. Mothers in Ohio and Connecticut were jailed for enrolling their kids in out-of-district schools. As of 2003 in California there were 344 individuals serving sentences of 25 years or more for shoplifting as a third offense, in many cases after two non-violent offenses.
How does the market deal with this steady tide of petty crime? It strives for more. The new trend of private prisons is dependent on maintaining a sizable prison population to guarantee profits, with no incentive for rehabilitation.
As the number of inmates has surged, the people who devastated countless American lives “get out of jail free.” The savings and loan fraud cost the nation between $300 billion and $500 billion, about 100 times more than the total cost of burglaries in 2010. The financial system bailout has already cost the country $3 trillion. Goldman Sachs packaged bad debt, sold it under a different name, persuaded ratings services to label it AAA, and then bet against their own financial creation by selling it short. Other firms accused of fraud and insider trading were Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Countrywide Financial, and Wells Fargo. The New York Times reported in 2008 that the Justice Department had postponed the bribery or fraud prosecutions of over 50 corporations, choosing instead to enter into agreements involving fines and ‘monitoring’ periods. -
"It is not the Congress that regulates Wall Street. It’s Wall Street that regulates the U.S. Congress."
- Senator Bernie Sanders, VT (via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity)(Source: saveplanetearth, via vinegarwilliams)
-
High ResolutionInsider tells why Anonymous ‘might well be the most powerful organization on Earth’
Christopher Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, sits atop a hillside in an undisclosed location in Canada, watching a reporter and photographer make their way along a narrow path to join him, away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.
It’s been a few weeks of encrypted emails back and forth, working out the security protocol to follow for interviewing Doyon, one of the brains behind Anonymous, now a fugitive from the FBI.
Q: As strictly an online army of hackers, how powerful is Anonymous?
A: Anonymous is kind of like the big buff kid in school who had really bad self-esteem then all of a sudden one day he punched someone in the face and went, “Holy s— I’m really strong!” Scientology (one of Anonymous’s first targets) was the punch in the face where Anonymous began to realize how incredibly powerful they are. There’s a really good argument at this point that we might well be the most powerful organization on Earth. The entire world right now is run by information. Our entire world is being controlled and operated by tiny invisible 1s and 0s that are flashing through the air and flashing through the wires around us. So if that’s what controls our world, ask yourself who controls the 1s and the 0s? It’s the geeks and computer hackers of the world.
Full Q&A(via vinegarwilliams)
-
Isarithmic History of the Two-Party Vote
A time-lapse animation of the shifting red/blue divide in American politics, covering 1920-2008. We’ve been all over the board from all blue to all red. It’s amazing how quickly drastic changes can occur especially on the heals of major events.
-
Cornel West and Tavis Smiley Rightfully Scare Us
The heart of Smiley and West’s message is simple and profound: the United States is far more economically divided than most people want to acknowledge,and this chasm will destroy our nation. They make their case in their book by using vast amounts of very robust data from credible sources, like the Pew Research Center. (Indeed, this is the same data that drives the work we do at EARN to help low income workers save and invest to foster prosperity.)
There are some of you who will quickly dismiss Smiley, West, and their message. You may dismiss them because you don’t like their politics, or don’t like them as people. You make this dismissal at your own peril, and the peril of our nation. Irrespective of how you view Tavis Smiley or Cornel West, their passionate call to the American public to face the hard facts, is rooted in data that transcends politics or ideology.
In fact, the Smiley-West cautionary message is backed by groundbreaking research from economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, in their new book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. Acemoglu and Robinson conducted expansive research to understand why some nations fail while others prosper. While much of the conventional wisdom among economists on the issue involves natural resources or cultural traits, Acemoglu and Robinson found that it is open political institutions that allow for shared power, and collective decision making about economic opportunity that drive prosperity.
This thesis cuts straight to the heart of what Smiley and West warn us is coming. Tens of millions of Americans toil endlessly, but never find their efforts rewarded with economic security. Increasingly, these hard working people will be disenfranchised and disengaged from the political process, and have less say in how economic opportunity is fostered and distributed. This is precisely the dynamic that Acemoglu and Robinson found at the heart of poverty, corruption, and human beings at their worst. We’re moving down a dangerous path as a nation. Listening carefully to what West and Smiley have to say, however, is a good step back in the right direction.
(Source: azspot, via mohandasgandhi)
Divine Irony
is a rich archive of religious delusions, scientific truths and political implications run by a liberal atheist science enthusiast.
"Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."
-George Carlin
“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed”.
-Albert Einstein
