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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
July 25, 2013
from In These Times:
Thank You, Strike Again
How low-wage service workers are changing the face of labor.
BY David Moberg
[font size="1"]At the height of the December 2012 shopping season, 21 low-wage workers and supporters blocked traffic on the Magnificent Mile, Chicago's premier retail strip, demanding fair wages. (Courtesy of the WOCC)[/font]
As a worker at The Protein Bar, a quick-service eatery in Chicago’s glitzy North Michigan Avenue shopping district, Amie Crawford is very important to America’s unions: Even though she doesn’t belong to one, she may be a harbinger of new life for the labor movement at a time when even friends are preparing its obituary.
Last year, Crawford joined the “Fight for 15” campaign, a labor and community-supported project that aims to improve conditions for workers in Chicago’s central business districts. The campaign demands a $15 minimum wage and the right to form unions without interference from management.
Crawford recruited other fast food and retail workers to join neighborhood marches and helped form a workers’ association, Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago. On April 24, she and several hundred workers from about 30 businesses went on strike, cheered on by community groups like Arise Chicago, a faith-based worker center. The next day, members of these groups accompanied the strikers back to their jobs to shield them from potential retaliation. Crawford, empowered by the Chicago strike, volunteered a few days later to join Fight for 15 strikers in Milwaukee, one of seven cities where the campaign has taken hold, along with Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Detroit, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
These strikes have been the defining tactic of a new movement of low-wage service workers that has gained momentum in 2013. Small groups of workers have launched sudden strikes against big chains such as Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, as well as small employers such as car washes, laundries and taxi companies. In many cases, only a minority of employees were involved, sometimes from multiple workplaces. The strikes have typically been sudden and short, lasting just long enough to broadcast their message. A few campaigns have won union recognition; more have won small victories like a pay raise or a scheduling change. But taken together, the campaigns have surprised experts like Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University, who says she could not have imagined such an upsurge even two years ago. .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15235/thank_you_strike_again/
How low-wage service workers are changing the face of labor
from In These Times:
Thank You, Strike Again
How low-wage service workers are changing the face of labor.
BY David Moberg
[font size="1"]At the height of the December 2012 shopping season, 21 low-wage workers and supporters blocked traffic on the Magnificent Mile, Chicago's premier retail strip, demanding fair wages. (Courtesy of the WOCC)[/font]
As a worker at The Protein Bar, a quick-service eatery in Chicago’s glitzy North Michigan Avenue shopping district, Amie Crawford is very important to America’s unions: Even though she doesn’t belong to one, she may be a harbinger of new life for the labor movement at a time when even friends are preparing its obituary.
Last year, Crawford joined the “Fight for 15” campaign, a labor and community-supported project that aims to improve conditions for workers in Chicago’s central business districts. The campaign demands a $15 minimum wage and the right to form unions without interference from management.
Crawford recruited other fast food and retail workers to join neighborhood marches and helped form a workers’ association, Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago. On April 24, she and several hundred workers from about 30 businesses went on strike, cheered on by community groups like Arise Chicago, a faith-based worker center. The next day, members of these groups accompanied the strikers back to their jobs to shield them from potential retaliation. Crawford, empowered by the Chicago strike, volunteered a few days later to join Fight for 15 strikers in Milwaukee, one of seven cities where the campaign has taken hold, along with Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Detroit, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
These strikes have been the defining tactic of a new movement of low-wage service workers that has gained momentum in 2013. Small groups of workers have launched sudden strikes against big chains such as Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, as well as small employers such as car washes, laundries and taxi companies. In many cases, only a minority of employees were involved, sometimes from multiple workplaces. The strikes have typically been sudden and short, lasting just long enough to broadcast their message. A few campaigns have won union recognition; more have won small victories like a pay raise or a scheduling change. But taken together, the campaigns have surprised experts like Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University, who says she could not have imagined such an upsurge even two years ago. .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15235/thank_you_strike_again/
July 25, 2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/dick-cheney-vp_n_3651867.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
On This Day In 2000, George W. Bush Decided Dick Cheney Would Make A Good VP
On this day in 2000, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush announced former Wyoming congressman and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney would be his running mate. Bush announced Cheney as the vice presidential candidate during a rally in Austin, Texas.
"Early this morning, I called and asked him to join me in renewing America's purpose together," Bush said. "So I'm proud to announce that Dick Cheney, a man of great integrity, sound judgment and experience, is my choice to be the next vice president of the United States."
On this f**ked up day in history........
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/dick-cheney-vp_n_3651867.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
On This Day In 2000, George W. Bush Decided Dick Cheney Would Make A Good VP
On this day in 2000, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush announced former Wyoming congressman and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney would be his running mate. Bush announced Cheney as the vice presidential candidate during a rally in Austin, Texas.
"Early this morning, I called and asked him to join me in renewing America's purpose together," Bush said. "So I'm proud to announce that Dick Cheney, a man of great integrity, sound judgment and experience, is my choice to be the next vice president of the United States."
July 25, 2013
Arctic Methane Melt ‘Could Cost $60 Trillion’
Posted on Jul 25, 2013
By Tim Radford, Climate News Network
LONDON—The true cost of an ice-free Arctic summer could be counted in lives lost, communities flooded and economies ruined, three scientists warn.
Methane in the submarine permafrost could be released on such a scale that the cost to the world’s economy could reach $60 trillion. The value of the entire world economy in 2012 was $70 trillion.
Gail Whiteman is at the school of management at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Peter Wadhams is a professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge and Peter Hope is at the Judge Business School in Cambridge.
All three argue, in the journal Nature, that while businesses consider the benefits of Arctic warming in terms of shorter sea routes and easier access to fossil fuel reserves, the potentially catastrophic consequences are being ignored. .........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/arctic_methane_melt_could_cost_60_trillion_20130725/
Arctic Methane Melt ‘Could Cost $60 Trillion’
Arctic Methane Melt ‘Could Cost $60 Trillion’
Posted on Jul 25, 2013
By Tim Radford, Climate News Network
LONDON—The true cost of an ice-free Arctic summer could be counted in lives lost, communities flooded and economies ruined, three scientists warn.
Methane in the submarine permafrost could be released on such a scale that the cost to the world’s economy could reach $60 trillion. The value of the entire world economy in 2012 was $70 trillion.
Gail Whiteman is at the school of management at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Peter Wadhams is a professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge and Peter Hope is at the Judge Business School in Cambridge.
All three argue, in the journal Nature, that while businesses consider the benefits of Arctic warming in terms of shorter sea routes and easier access to fossil fuel reserves, the potentially catastrophic consequences are being ignored. .........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/arctic_methane_melt_could_cost_60_trillion_20130725/
July 25, 2013
(ESPN) Facing the threat of a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball for alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs, Alex Rodriguez has decided to take his private battle with the New York Yankees public.
In a media blitz, Rodriguez's representatives, including a doctor who disputed the Yankees' interpretation of an MRI showing that Rodriguez had a quad strain, began supplying details to support Rodriguez's belief that the Yankees and MLB were conspiring to keep the $275 million third baseman off the field.
Dr. Michael Gross, an orthopedic surgeon with Hackensack University Medical Center, spoke with ESPN New York and other media outlets to assert that his reading of the MRI showed no damage to Rodriguez's quad that should keep him off the field.
It was later learned, however that Gross did not examine Rodriguez. .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/9505893/alex-rodriguez-reps-think-new-york-yankees-mlb-conspiring-slugger
Sources: A-Rod thinks Yankees against him
(ESPN) Facing the threat of a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball for alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs, Alex Rodriguez has decided to take his private battle with the New York Yankees public.
In a media blitz, Rodriguez's representatives, including a doctor who disputed the Yankees' interpretation of an MRI showing that Rodriguez had a quad strain, began supplying details to support Rodriguez's belief that the Yankees and MLB were conspiring to keep the $275 million third baseman off the field.
Dr. Michael Gross, an orthopedic surgeon with Hackensack University Medical Center, spoke with ESPN New York and other media outlets to assert that his reading of the MRI showed no damage to Rodriguez's quad that should keep him off the field.
It was later learned, however that Gross did not examine Rodriguez. .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/9505893/alex-rodriguez-reps-think-new-york-yankees-mlb-conspiring-slugger
July 25, 2013
A little more than a year after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks. The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country's founders being slave owners.
According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."
"The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn't existed, to everybody -- not all equally instantly -- and it was their progress that we need to look at," Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.
During the news conference more than two dozen Tea Party activists handed out material that said, "Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government." .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/tea-party-tennessee-textbooks-slavery_n_1224157.html
Tea Party Groups In Tennessee Demand Textbooks Overlook U.S. Founder's Slave-Owning History
A little more than a year after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks. The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country's founders being slave owners.
According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."
"The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn't existed, to everybody -- not all equally instantly -- and it was their progress that we need to look at," Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.
During the news conference more than two dozen Tea Party activists handed out material that said, "Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government." .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/tea-party-tennessee-textbooks-slavery_n_1224157.html
July 25, 2013
The U.S. government is forecast to generate $185 billion in profit over the next decade from students and their families under an overhaul of the federal student loan program endorsed by the White House and approved by the Senate on Wednesday.
The profit figure, if annually averaged through 2023, would place the U.S. student loan program among the 20 most profitable public companies in the world, according to Fortune magazine’s annual list of the world’s 500 biggest companies. The bipartisan Senate bill would increase the government’s profit off student borrowers by more than $700 million compared with existing law, the Congressional Budget Office said.
“Students, in essence, are subsidizing the government,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said that the profit estimate was “unjustifiable” and that the Senate measure “exacerbates the problem.”
“Why are we piling on another $715 million of debt onto the backs of our students?” Boxer asked. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/obama-student-loan-profit_n_3648747.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037
Senate Approves Questionable Student Loan Deal
The U.S. government is forecast to generate $185 billion in profit over the next decade from students and their families under an overhaul of the federal student loan program endorsed by the White House and approved by the Senate on Wednesday.
The profit figure, if annually averaged through 2023, would place the U.S. student loan program among the 20 most profitable public companies in the world, according to Fortune magazine’s annual list of the world’s 500 biggest companies. The bipartisan Senate bill would increase the government’s profit off student borrowers by more than $700 million compared with existing law, the Congressional Budget Office said.
“Students, in essence, are subsidizing the government,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said that the profit estimate was “unjustifiable” and that the Senate measure “exacerbates the problem.”
“Why are we piling on another $715 million of debt onto the backs of our students?” Boxer asked. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/obama-student-loan-profit_n_3648747.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037
July 25, 2013
Collateral Damage: QE3 and the Shadow Banking System
Wednesday, 24 July 2013 00:00
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt | News Analysis
Rather than expanding the money supply, quantitative easing (QE) has actually caused it to shrink by sucking up the collateral needed by the shadow banking system to create credit. The “failure” of QE has prompted the Bank for International Settlements to urge the Fed to shirk its mandate to pursue full employment, but the sort of QE that could fulfill that mandate has not yet been tried.
Ben Bernanke’s May 29th speech signaling the beginning of the end of QE3 provoked a “taper tantrum” that wiped about $3 trillion from global equity markets – this from the mere suggestion that the Fed would moderate its pace of asset purchases, and that if the economy continues to improve, it might stop QE3 altogether by mid-2014. The Fed is currently buying $85 billion in US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities per month.
The Fed Chairman then went into damage control mode, assuring investors that the central bank would “continue to implement highly accommodative monetary policy” (meaning interest rates would not change) and that tapering was contingent on conditions that look unlikely this year. The only thing now likely to be tapered in 2013 is the Fed’s growth forecast.
It is a neoliberal maxim that “the market is always right,” but as former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz demonstrated, the maxim only holds when the market has perfect information. The market may be misinformed about QE, what it achieves, and what harm it can do. Getting more purchasing power into the economy could work; but QE as currently practiced may be having the opposite effect. ..........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/17755-collateral-damage-qe3-and-the-shadow-banking-system
Collateral Damage: QE3 and the Shadow Banking System
Collateral Damage: QE3 and the Shadow Banking System
Wednesday, 24 July 2013 00:00
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt | News Analysis
Rather than expanding the money supply, quantitative easing (QE) has actually caused it to shrink by sucking up the collateral needed by the shadow banking system to create credit. The “failure” of QE has prompted the Bank for International Settlements to urge the Fed to shirk its mandate to pursue full employment, but the sort of QE that could fulfill that mandate has not yet been tried.
Ben Bernanke’s May 29th speech signaling the beginning of the end of QE3 provoked a “taper tantrum” that wiped about $3 trillion from global equity markets – this from the mere suggestion that the Fed would moderate its pace of asset purchases, and that if the economy continues to improve, it might stop QE3 altogether by mid-2014. The Fed is currently buying $85 billion in US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities per month.
The Fed Chairman then went into damage control mode, assuring investors that the central bank would “continue to implement highly accommodative monetary policy” (meaning interest rates would not change) and that tapering was contingent on conditions that look unlikely this year. The only thing now likely to be tapered in 2013 is the Fed’s growth forecast.
It is a neoliberal maxim that “the market is always right,” but as former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz demonstrated, the maxim only holds when the market has perfect information. The market may be misinformed about QE, what it achieves, and what harm it can do. Getting more purchasing power into the economy could work; but QE as currently practiced may be having the opposite effect. ..........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/17755-collateral-damage-qe3-and-the-shadow-banking-system
July 25, 2013
Collateral Damage: QE3 and the Shadow Banking System
Wednesday, 24 July 2013 00:00
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt | News Analysis
Rather than expanding the money supply, quantitative easing (QE) has actually caused it to shrink by sucking up the collateral needed by the shadow banking system to create credit. The “failure” of QE has prompted the Bank for International Settlements to urge the Fed to shirk its mandate to pursue full employment, but the sort of QE that could fulfill that mandate has not yet been tried.
Ben Bernanke’s May 29th speech signaling the beginning of the end of QE3 provoked a “taper tantrum” that wiped about $3 trillion from global equity markets – this from the mere suggestion that the Fed would moderate its pace of asset purchases, and that if the economy continues to improve, it might stop QE3 altogether by mid-2014. The Fed is currently buying $85 billion in US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities per month.
The Fed Chairman then went into damage control mode, assuring investors that the central bank would “continue to implement highly accommodative monetary policy” (meaning interest rates would not change) and that tapering was contingent on conditions that look unlikely this year. The only thing now likely to be tapered in 2013 is the Fed’s growth forecast.
It is a neoliberal maxim that “the market is always right,” but as former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz demonstrated, the maxim only holds when the market has perfect information. The market may be misinformed about QE, what it achieves, and what harm it can do. Getting more purchasing power into the economy could work; but QE as currently practiced may be having the opposite effect. ..........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/17755-collateral-damage-qe3-and-the-shadow-banking-system
Collateral Damage: QE3 and the Shadow Banking System
Collateral Damage: QE3 and the Shadow Banking System
Wednesday, 24 July 2013 00:00
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt | News Analysis
Rather than expanding the money supply, quantitative easing (QE) has actually caused it to shrink by sucking up the collateral needed by the shadow banking system to create credit. The “failure” of QE has prompted the Bank for International Settlements to urge the Fed to shirk its mandate to pursue full employment, but the sort of QE that could fulfill that mandate has not yet been tried.
Ben Bernanke’s May 29th speech signaling the beginning of the end of QE3 provoked a “taper tantrum” that wiped about $3 trillion from global equity markets – this from the mere suggestion that the Fed would moderate its pace of asset purchases, and that if the economy continues to improve, it might stop QE3 altogether by mid-2014. The Fed is currently buying $85 billion in US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities per month.
The Fed Chairman then went into damage control mode, assuring investors that the central bank would “continue to implement highly accommodative monetary policy” (meaning interest rates would not change) and that tapering was contingent on conditions that look unlikely this year. The only thing now likely to be tapered in 2013 is the Fed’s growth forecast.
It is a neoliberal maxim that “the market is always right,” but as former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz demonstrated, the maxim only holds when the market has perfect information. The market may be misinformed about QE, what it achieves, and what harm it can do. Getting more purchasing power into the economy could work; but QE as currently practiced may be having the opposite effect. ..........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/17755-collateral-damage-qe3-and-the-shadow-banking-system
July 25, 2013
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/weiner_texts_again_20130724/
Weiner Texts Again (cartoon)
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/weiner_texts_again_20130724/
July 24, 2013
Listen: http://rdwolff.com/content/economic-update-economics-and-religion
by Richard Wolff.
Published on July 20, 2013
Updates on Fiat labor struggles in Italy, stagnating real wages in US, capitalist corruption (US, China, Russia), "eminent domain" helps homeowners against foreclosure. Interview with Dr. Obery Hendricks, Jr., professor of religion and biblical studies: how the bible contradicts conservatives' interpretations. Responses to listeners on workers coops forming in Italy, how workers coops can manage growth, and US capitalists substituting stock for cash in paying workers.
Richard Wolff: Economic Update: Economics and Religion (audio link)
Listen: http://rdwolff.com/content/economic-update-economics-and-religion
by Richard Wolff.
Published on July 20, 2013
Updates on Fiat labor struggles in Italy, stagnating real wages in US, capitalist corruption (US, China, Russia), "eminent domain" helps homeowners against foreclosure. Interview with Dr. Obery Hendricks, Jr., professor of religion and biblical studies: how the bible contradicts conservatives' interpretations. Responses to listeners on workers coops forming in Italy, how workers coops can manage growth, and US capitalists substituting stock for cash in paying workers.
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