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What can we expect Congress to do about America's staggeringly top-heavy concentration of income and wealth over the next two years? Absolutely nothing.
There's a way to counter their success, but it means liberals must get comfortable talking about the spiritual
People say Washington is broken and on the decline, that government no longer works for them — only for the rich and powerful.
The Social Security Administration has just released wage statistics for 2013, and the numbers are startling. Last year, 50 percent of all American workers made less than $28,031, and 39 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000. If you worked a full-time job at $10 an hour all year long with two weeks off, you would make $20,000. So the fact that 39 percent of all workers made less than that amount is rather telling. This is more evidence of the declining quality of the jobs in this country. In many homes in America today, both parents are working multiple jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. Our paychecks are stagnant while the cost of living just continues to soar. And the jobs that are being added to the economy pay a lot less than the jobs lost in the last recession. In fact, it has been estimated that the jobs that have been created since the last recession pay an average of 23 percent less than the jobs that were lost. We are witnessing the slow-motion destruction of the middle class, and very few of our leaders seem to care.
The Obama administration's calamitous policy of abandoning U.S. control of Internet domain names is being handled by none other than his controversial Chicago crony, Penny Pritzker. Pritzker, the Hyatt billionaire and subprime mortgage lender who withdrew her name from consideration for Secretary of Commerce in 2008 only to be confirmed in 2012, was also a major Obama donor and bundler during his presidential campaigns.
Lawrence Lessig’s Republic Lost documents the corrosive effect of money on our political process. Lessig persuasively makes the case that we are witnessing the loss of our republican form of government, as politicians increasingly represent those who fund their campaigns, rather than our citizens.
Given the recent critiques of New York and its proposed framework for bitcoin businesses, many of the law’s opponents are no doubt hoping the state and its regulators will alter the bill during its now extended comment period.
The Obama administration has expanded the national terrorist watchlist system by approving broad guidelines over who can be targeted. A leaked copy of the secret government guidebook reveals that to be deemed a "terrorist" target, "irrefutable evidence or concrete facts are not necessary." Both "known" and "suspected" suspects are tracked, and terrorism is so broadly defined that it includes people accused of damaging property belonging to the government or financial institutions. Other factors that can justify inclusion on the watchlist include postings on social media or having a relative already deemed a terrorist. We are joined by investigative reporters Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux of The Intercept. Last week they published the secret U.S. document along with their new article, "The Secret Government Rulebook for Labeling You a Terrorist."
The 90-minute film film features Bill Moyers, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee and the subject's late husband and fellow radical, James Boggs.
I hadn’t realized when I was growing up in Gary, Indiana, an industrial town on the southern shore of Lake Michigan plagued by discrimination, poverty and bouts of high unemployment, that I was living in the golden era of capitalism. It was a company town, named after the chairman of the board of U.S. Steel. It had the world’s largest integrated steel mill and a progressive school system designed to turn Gary into a melting pot fed by migrants from all over Europe. But by the time I was born in 1943, cracks in the pot were already appearing. To break strikes—to ensure that workers did not fully share in the productivity gains being driven by modern technology—the big steel companies brought African-American workers up from the South who lived in impoverished, separate neighborhoods.
Imagine a future where fulfilled employees are fueled by a collective mission and corporations led by the strength of visionary leaders who respect their teams.
The number of US commuters who ride a bicycle to work rose by 60% over the last decade, the Census has reported.
The general elections of most countries with parliamentary systems have largely functioned in the same way. They have had some regular alternation between two parties, one ostensibly left-of-center and one ostensibly right-of-center. In these systems, there has been little difference between the two main parties in terms of foreign policy and only a limited set of differences on internal politics, centering on issues of taxation and social welfare.
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Shareable connected with Sam Smith and Laura Scher, directors of the project, to discuss the importance of giving ideas a place to grow, how our education system has made us passive observers rather than proactive doers, and how being held accountable to your vision is incredibly empowering. Their responses are collaborative.
Cash mobs are a great way to boost local business and bring community together while you’re at it. The idea is simple: a group of people flood a store and pledge to buy stuff. Think flash mob but instead of dancing, you’re spending money to help give back to the local economy.
For the new worker-owners of the Island Employee Cooperative, the transformation into a co-op will create profound changes in their lives.
Pia Mancini and her colleagues want to upgrade democracy in Argentina and beyond. Through their open-source mobile platform they want to bring citizens inside the legislative process, and run candidates who will listen to what they say.
Article - U.S. Government Slides Toward Sharing Economy and Changing Zeitgeist - By John Hendrie - Boy, that is a title mouthful and very curious. But, the move is right on the horizon, when you start to follow the money, actually the costs.
As we were reminded again just this week, you can be pulled into the National Security Agency’s database quietly and quickly, and the consequences can be long and enduring. Through ICREACH, a Google-style search engine created for the intelligence community, the NSA provides data on private communications to 23 government agencies. More than 1,000 analysts had access to that information.
Transition Towns empower residents to produce and consume more of life's essentials where they live, all while minimizing their reliance on fossil fuels.
The most democratic structure, one that could potentially transform the economy from profiteering greed to meeting everyone's needs, is the worker-ownership cooperative.
People before Profit—the slogan for production cooperatives—is an option even in the United States. Within the past decade, three forms of worker-owned and/or managed types of organizing work places are now functioning. The most democratic structure, one that could potentially transform the economy from profiteering greed to meeting everyone’s needs, is the worker-ownership cooperative.
The political climate in the United States has gotten increasingly unfriendly toward the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG). Since 1990s, Democrats and Republicans have agreed that any politically viable approach to poverty must involve forcing the poor to work. But it is not only cash assistance to the poor that is nonviable in the current political climate. It is not only progressive social policy. Left or right, it seems to be that the government lacks the ability to employ any ambitious strategy.
In Hagerstown, Ind., high school students will be making their own burgers from scratch — raising cattle to supply cheaper food for their cafeteria.
Right to farm being stripped from Americans: Michigan to criminalize small family farms with chickens, goats, honey bees and more
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