News December 2014

From the week of December 21th to December 27th

Happy holidays and peace in the coming year!

  1. With luck, a new blog post will show up here
    Ghosts of Bailouts Past, Bailouts Present and Bailouts Yet to Come
  2. Is Racial Justice Possible in America?
  3. Economic Policy Myths of 2014
  4. New York State bans fracking A small step forward
  5. But we have a long way to go. To Save the Planet, We Need to Leave Fossil Fuels in the Ground—but Oil Companies Have Other Plans
  6. What it means to change the world
  7. The secret Uber economy is wealth inequality Uber+Piketty = 2014
  8. How liberalism infects movement building … and for comparison BlackoutCollect Shutdown OPD
  9. Police….No Control
  10. The price of private prison and a related story of a private UK prison
  11. Unions: a Union free future? and Police Union bullying NYC
  12. If Apple were a worker cooperative, each employee would earn at least $403k

From the week of December 14th to December 20th

  1. If you missed Sunday’s presentation by former Alternative Banking member Hannah Appel and Laura Hanna about their work with Strike Debt & the Debt Collective, you can find our more at those web sites and this video with Tavis Smiley
  2. Elizabeth Warren gave a great speech calling out Citigroup and the general issue of the political power of mega corporations. It’s just 10 minutes and very worth listening to.  In case the link stops working, it is on You Tube as Remarks by Senator Warren on Citigroup and its bailout provision
    The links between Citigroup and Government run deep.
    The derivatives rule isn’t the only bad stuff in the budget.
    – Elizabeth Warren allies march outside Citi: ‘Break big banks’ reported by CNN and ABC …. and supported by kids
  3. Another (better) article on scam of selling public housing (thanks Julia)
  4. The 6-Step Process to Dispose of the Poor                                                  
    Ferguson’s way to close the budget gap          
    Profiting from poverty
  5. Why Germany has it so much better than the US …high-wage, unionized economy
  6. State looks to pull 1,000 employees out of Public Employees Federation… the Union had endorsed Zephyr Teachout…
  7. U.S. Wealth Gap Hits Record High. Reported by PEW Research Center and Huffington Post. Alas, we hit new records every year, but it is still worth noting — and doing something to reverse it. What about a guaranteed basic income?
  8. Drug War: a Pretense to Expand Transnational Capitalism Southward
  9. Who Benefits When Walmart Funds the Food Movement?
  10. US Declares Bank and Auto Bailouts Over and ProfitableThey are wrong on both counts. Until we write an updated rebuttal, Chapter 2 of Occupy Finance will do.
  11. McDonald’s Is Charged With Punishing Workers

From the week of December 7th to December 13th

  1. We are very excited that former Alternative Banking member Hannah Appel and Laura Hanna will be joining us this Sunday to discuss their work with Strike Debt & the Debt Collective. You can get a preview here
  2. You’re Likely to Be a Lot Poorer Than You Were a Few Years Ago—And It’s All By Design by Les Leopold (past and maybe future Alternative Banking Speaker)
  3. NYCHA to Sell Stake in Public Housing to Private Developers. Rumor has it that Tamir will discuss this and similar travesties at Alternative Banking in January.
  4. Strong Voice in ‘Fight for 15’ Fast-Food Wage Campaign
  5. How Wall Street Bent Steel Not to over-glamorize the past, but companies once cared about their employees, customers, community and were not all about ‘shareholder value”.
  6. When Corporations Sue Governments. We expect there will be a push for dramatic expansion of corporate power with Fast Track and TPP in January.
  7. U.S. Lowers One Hurdle to Obtaining a Mortgage. This is good for realtors, not so clear they are doing home buyers any favors.
  8. While Dodd-Frank was woefully inadequate, it did do some good things. There is an effort to sneak through the rollback of that and defund the CFTC.
    1. Note that the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) is supposed to be overseeing the multi-trillion dollar swaps market. Its current budget already makes this impossible but Congress is working to reduce it further (see above). When they inevitably fail, it will of course be the CFTCs fault.
  9. Product of Mexico: Hardship on Mexico’s farms, a bounty for US tables. Thanks Natasha
  10. What I’ve Learned from Two Years Collecting Data on Police Killings A fascinating story I just discovered Thanks, Cathy
    1. Cop Mistakes Pill Bottle for Gun and Another Black Man Dies Press coverage of these atrocities seems to be improving. I guess that’s progress of a sort.
  11. Report from the Fortune Society Thanks Tamir

From the week of November 30th to December 6th

  1. Unsteady Incomes Keep Millions of Workers Behind on Bills
  2. Ferguson fallout: what it takes to turn street protests into real progress
  3. NFL player quits to farm and feed hungry people
  4. American Education Is Leaving Our Youth With a Debt Sentence
  5. Economic Anthropologist Hannah Appel on Tavis Smiley    Hannah Appel will be speaking at Alternative Banking on 12/14
  6. Billionaires’ Park
  7. Unsteady Incomes Keep Millions Behind on Bills
  8. Study Finds Violations of Wage Law in New York and California
  9. Poverty, Incarceration and Criminal Justice Debt (from Bill Moyers.com)

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