News June 2015

From the week of June 21 to June 27, 2015

0. Google eavesdropping tool installed without permission
   • Update: in response to public outcry, Google revised their software.

Alternative Banking Speaker on Sunday at 2 on
How Companies Use Our Data to Empty Our Wallets

1. Institutional discrimination, past and present
   1. Historian Says Don’t ‘Sanitize’ How Our Government Created Ghettos
      • In case you are thinking “this is bad but happened before I was born”, please note:
        • The effects are very persistent. Home ownership was an important way people accumulated wealth in the past 50 years
        • While explicit discrimination is less common now, more subtle forms are still with us.
   2. US Army subjects Blacks to horrific experiments during WW II
2. Greece approaches the brink. Are they going to stay firm?
   • Here is the Greek government’s proposal
   • Update on Greece and here
3. John Oliver explains how bail system punishes poor people without trial. it would be funny if it weren’t so sad and disturbing.
   • Brooklyn bail fund can help —
   • But, the problem could and should be fixed, not patched..
   • Washington, DC has reformed their bail system.
   • NYC can, too
   • Cuomo could help
4. What would Gandhi do? SC Gov. Nikki Haley wants to take down the confederate battle flag but says the law needs to be changed, first. There are laws it is immoral to obey. This is one.
   1. By the way, previously, Gov. Haley said flag was OK because her bosses—corporate CEOs—didn’t mind it. Rare openness about who is running the country.
5. “Fast Track” is on its way to passage. Defeat for labor, environmentalists and democracy
   • Is the TPP Unconstitutional?
6. How to meet housing needs. Proposal from UK may be helpful in NY.
7. Let’s be thankful for small victories: Supreme Court lets 1968 fair housing law stand — maybe even strengthens it and, with more fanfare, does the same for Obamacare
8. John Stewart comment about our response (or lack thereof) to Charleston killings.
9. Crony Capitalism Watch:
   • Tea Party gets one correct. Will they kill the Export-Import Bank? This is not a fight of right v left. It is crony capitalists v taxpayers. And, remarkably enough, the crony capitalists are losing—for now, at least.
     • I’m not betting on it staying that way because, as the Fast Track vote showed, the cronies control most of the pols.
   • And, would be nice if the Tea Party went after bigger fish, like the oil and gas subsidies But, the Koch brothers wouldn’t like that.
10. New Study Debunks Myth That Exorbitant CEO Pay Results from “Talent”, you’ll be shocked to learn it’s higher than ever and not merited.
11. “The government has a legal duty to protect its people against the threat of climate change” — and a Dutch court recognized that fact.

From the week of June 14 to June 20, 2015

0. Please check out “moodle” for Occupy Summer School course on activism.
   • You can “log in as guest” to see it.
   • Be sure to check out the slide show of Gwenn’s amazing photos of Occupy.
1. Outrage in Charleston— This IS America!
2. TPP effort wounded but not dead. People need to keep fighting House Sends Trade Bill Back to Senate in Bid to Outflank Foes
3. Pope calls for action on climate change. Blames ‘ecological crisis’ on the indifference of the powerful
4. YES MEN take a more light-hearted approach to protesting climate change
5. A new white privilege? the privilege of choosing your race.
6. In a rich society, why don”t we protect children from basic threats to their health?
7. Greece refusing to do the impossible
   • Europe asks the impossible of Greece
   • Mathbabe argues for default
   • Video of Greek Finance minister (his speech is in English and begins 12:45 into video)
8. Save the US Post Office before it’s too late
9. Robert Reich’s 10 “Ways to Save the Economy” is “End Mass Incarceration”
   • Check out his short, snappy, videos
   • This is a good idea but should be argued based on moral grounds, not economic
   • Check out Reich’s other ideas, too:
     • Fight for $15
     • Help Working Families
     • Expand Social Security
     • Tame Wall Street
     • Reinvent Education
     • End Corporate Welfare
     • Strengthen Unions
     • Raise the Estate Tax
     • Make Polluters Pay
     • End Mass Incarceration
     • Expand Medicare
     • Get Money Out of Politics

From the week of June 7 to June 13, 2015

1. Progress but not victory on fraudulent student loans
   1. After much pressure from the Debt Collective and Corinthian student debt strike
   2. The Dept. of Education, finally, agreed to forgive the students’ debt
   3. But, as the Debt Collective points out, it should have been a blanket action, rather than requiring each student to file paperwork
   4. One bright spot: this is a policy change, not just an exception for Corinthian students
2. Even slower progress — G7 countries reluctantly set weak climate goals
3. By now, millions of people have seen a police officer pull his gun on a group of teenagers attending a pool party in McKinney, Texas. A police officer’s actions made some WaPo reporters wonder: Didn’t the McKinney, Texas, police officer know he was being recorded? The bigger question here (and perhaps one of the most interesting questions of the next decade or so) is whether knowing you’re being filmed all the time will alter your behavior; and if it does, will it be for the better or worse?
4. “They are price-gouging because they can. They are marking up the prices because no one is telling them they can’t.” That’s Johns Hopkins professor Gerard Anderson explaining a report on 50 hospitals that charged uninsured patients more than 10 times the cost of care. No one wants too much regulation, but this is what happens to patients when the free market meets a prostate exam.
5. Podcast: Another vision of an alternative to global crony capitalism  How a businesswoman considers her workers, her local community, her customers and prospers.
6. Students and moral outrage
   • Should we all “think like assholes”?
   • If not, how do we avoid inequality when bankers are doing so?
   • It turns out there is a test that claims to assess “How Machiavellian are you?”
     • Are people who rank highly on this scale:
       • Financially successful?
       • Happy?
       • Is there a difference?
     • if you were running a bank, would you want employees who rank highly on this scale?
7. Criminalizing poverty “About 85% of the people in Rikers have not been convicted of any offense”
   1. Poor, accused and punished by bail system
   2. Video: The burden of bail
   3. Society is choosing to do this, the justice system could be more just
   4. And, it goes both ways — we imprison for people for being poor , and we financially exploit those convicted.
8. The poor make better financial decisions than the wealthy
   1. Except, that financial stress leads to bad decisions

From the week of May 31 to June 6, 2015

1. At the Left Forum, we discussed the failings of GDP
   1. It doesn’t measure what we care about
   2. And does it badly
   3. Here are some alternatives:
      1. UN Human Development Index  — US ranks 28th, behind Hungary and Greece, when adjusted for inequality
      2. Social Progress Index  — US ranks 16. Pulled up by a good ranking in “Opportunity” — which makes you wonder how they measure opportunity
   4. See our new page.
2. A Grim Choice for Addicts: Relapse or Be Homeless An investigation shows how “three-quarter” homes profit off the poor and desperate in New York City.
3. Real Estate Laws
   1. Feud Over Real Estate Tax Break Cuomo defending unions, taxpayers v de Blasio — what is the world coming to?
   2. How New York’s Complex Rent Laws May Change — and Soon
4. Thousands dead, few prosecuted Among the thousands of fatal shootings at the hands of police since 2005, only 54 officers have been charged, a Post analysis found. Most were cleared or acquitted in the cases that have been resolved.
5. The Vicious Cycle of High Inequality. Why we would all be better off with less inequality, but why the current political/economic approach will lead us to more inequality.
6. Cultural norms keeping rich “well-bred” white males on top
   1. Guess Who Doesn’t Fit In at Work
   2. Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs
7. SEC Chief Is Latest Target for Elizabeth Warren’s Ire
8. Inequality Troubles Americans Across Party Lines