News August 2015

From the week of August 24th to August 30th, 2015

1. Bill Maher: The Sharing Economy  (video 5:13)
2. The Secret for Stellar Banking Profits
3. Great news: The Labor Ruling McDonald’s Has Been Dreading Just Became A Reality
4. Remembering Katrina:New Orleans After Katrina: Inequality Soars as Poor Continue to Be Left Behind in City’s “Recovery”
5. Greek election confusion raises fresh fears over ability to pay debt
6. China Falters, and the Global Economy Is Forced to Adapt
7. Mass Incarceration USA: Ending It, and What Started It Long but excellent podcast (48 minutes)
8. The triumph of Occupy Wall Street

From the week of August 17th to August 23rd, 2015

1. More Americans See Themselves as “Haves” Than “Have-Nots”
2. I often can’t afford groceries because of volatile work schedules at Gap
3. The Next Time Someone Complains About Fast Food Workers Making $15/Hr, Show Them This
4. AMAZON
   • Here’s why I won’t be buying anything from Amazon again
   • Why the New York Times’s Amazon story is so controversial
5. A Regulator’s Deal With Promontory Skirts a Big Problem
6. Facing Money Gap, Hillary Clinton Slowly Warms to ‘Super PAC’ Gifts
7. Greece
   • Alexis Tsipras: a resignation that rolls the dice
   • Greece crisis: Syriza rebels form new party

From the week of August 10th to August 16th, 2015

BLOG ‘readings’:

• A World Without Work. We discussed this topic on Sunday and plan to blog on the subject.
• The End of Work (pdf, 372 pages)
• The Zero Marginal Cost Society (1:23:45  youTube)
• Gift Economy
• To Build Community, an Economy of Gifts
• Why We Work so Much
• USA, Land of Limitations
• Star Trek Economy

New and Noteworthy

1. The Anti-Capitalist Greek Left Says No to Austerity and Bailout
   • Part 2
2. Belatedly posting: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Letter to My Son”.
   • “Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage.”
3. This is how protesters plan to take on the Fed
4. Hillary Helps a Bank—and Then It Funnels Millions to the Clintons
   • Original WSJ article: UBS Deal Shows Clinton’s Complicated Ties (sorry about pay wall)
5. Amnesty’s Decision to Decriminalize Sex Work/ What side are you on?
   • Amnesty Is Finally on the Right Side of Sex Work Struggle
   • Amnesty is about to make sex trafficking easier, worldwide
   • Hiring A Sex Worker Is Not ‘Buying’ A Person
6. What Strippers can Teach Über
7. Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace
8. UN Faces Scrutiny Over Unpaid Intern Who Slept in a Tent in Geneva

From the week of August 3rd to August 9th, 2015

1. Protest U: Occupy Summer School in the New Yorker
2. Puerto Rico Defaults.
   1. Puerto Rico’s Economic “Death Spiral” Tied to Legacy of Colonialism
   2. As they cannot declare bankruptcy, the process will be disorderly but lets hope the hedge funds, 1% and other irresponsible lenders absorb most of the losses.
3. Banker actually convicted and sent to jail
   1. But not his bosses
   2. Or any senior mega-bank executives despite extensive and continued wrong-doing including
      • Deceiving customers and charging for services you are not performing
      • Massive and willful negligence (or worse) resulting in homeowners, some of whom didn’t owe them any money, being thrown out of their homes illegally.
      • Money-laundering to drug cartels and terrorists
        • Continuing to do so after promising, yet again, to stop
        • Proving incompetent to prevent it
      • Massive securities fraud
      • Lying to regulators
      • Lying to shareholders
      • Cheating local governments
      • Manipulating markets
      • More fraud
      • Other crimes, too numerous to compile
4. Wealthy oligarchy of donors is dominating 2016 election
   1. So, we shouldn’t be surprised when “trade deals” undermine efforts to stop climate change and enrich fossil fuel companies and other multinationals
5. Voting Rights Act turns 50. Is it an anniversary or a memorial?
   1. Perhaps still breathing but on life support
   2. Excellent, though long, podcast on the subject. “A central question remains unanswered ‘Are African-Americans citizens of the United States?’ That central question, these many years later, is still valid” (Opening 1:12 are music)
6. The Uber-ization of Activism Mobilizing people to protect corporations.

From the week of July 26th to August 2nd, 2015

Activism Opportunities

1. Revolution Books needs your help
2. Join Occupy the SEC in urging Obama to appoint a progressive SEC commissioner. As reported previously, Obama nominated an SEC commissioner who was so pathetic and compromised that (after Sen. Warren and others complained) he was withdrawn. Let’s urge Obama to come up with someone who is not horrible.

News and noteworthy

1. Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers & close schools to pay us back
2. Rebuttal to the Nails Rebuttal
3. Rebuttal to The NYRB’s Article on NYT Nail Salon Series
4. Drawing A Line From The Chinese Stock Market To Your Wallet
5. For Profit Prison & Kids:
   • “Deplorable”: Federal Judge Condemns For-Profit Texas Detention Centers for Immigrant Families
   • Whistleblower Exposes Torture and Child Abuse
   • Judge Orders Release of Immigrant Children and Mothers
     
6. Poll Driven Spin Doctors in the Age of Big Money Elections
7. Fix the Fed
8. Restructuring Capitalism:
   David Brooks says we are heading to a debate about capitalism. Let’s have it
   “People and Planet First”: On the Moral Authority of Climate Justice and a New Economy by Naomi Klein
9. Zephyr Teachout on Getting Big Money Out of Politics in 2016
10. US, others making a big push to finish TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement) — which they will then try to ram through Congress.
11. The Roosevelt Institute issues a report which defines “financialization.”