News September 2015

From the week of September 21st to September 27th, 2015

0. IndyKids, A free paper for kids, by kids
1. John Oliver on Public Defenders, Another example of how poor are deprived of justice. I know, it is nothing new but this one is funny as well as sad.
2. Amen for the socialist pope? Let’s debate
   • Native Groups Protest Pope Francis’ Canonization of Junípero Serra over Role in California Genocide
   • Clinton Foundation snubbed by the pope, Elton John, Janet Yellen
3. And what do we think about Jeremy Corbyn. New head of British Labor Party?
4. Free market at work
   • Autos. VW falsifies emissions tests
   • Drugs (the legal ones)
     • That Guy Who Is Price-Gouging AIDS Patients Also Did It to Kids with Kidney Disease
     • UN consultants jailed for bribes over drugs supplied to ‘starving Africans’
   • Google (not being evil?)
     • Google ‘charges for YouTube ads viewed by bots’
     • Competitors Accuse Google of Using Search to Diminish Apps
   • Oil Companies
   • Banks
     • JP Morgan crimes and penalties. Note: list is undoubtedly incomplete as it only included crimes our justice system has bothered to pursue
   • Will Department of Justice follow through on promise to prosecute executives? They certainly have lots of opportunities to do so.
5. Climate change
   • Economic impacts of climate change
   • What Germany learned from its war on coal
6. LA to declare homelessness a state of emergency
7. Good context on refugee crisis in less than 10 minutes.
   • Resettle Syrian Refugees in US. Ask Obama to do something meaningful.
8. Rise Up October. Stand up against police brutality
9. End of Work/ New Models:  Techno-social platform for sustainable models and value generation in commons-based peer production in the Future Internet

From the week of September 14th to September 20th, 2015

1. How Segregation Destroys Black Wealth, thanks Ale
2. Related to Nikos’s talk:Greek Truth Committee on Public Debt
3. Occupy Radio: SPLC tackles private probation industry One of the many ways “justice” is unjust if you are poor
4. What we talk about when we talk about finance.
5. New Orleans profits from fining and jailing poor defendants.
6. Been a long time since this Altbanker posted. Am going to post a series of podcasts from over the last few months.  The following two are on the subject of the history of capitalism:
   1. The History of Cotton.  This is a podcast from Counterpoint (available also on Beyond Pod).  The book itself “The History of Cotton” has recently won all kinds of awards, and is basically a history of Capitalism seen through the development of the cotton industry.
   2. The New Books network provides a great way to get 45-minute intros into academic texts on all kinds of stuff.  This one, a history of the slaving port of Benguela in what is now Angola, was particularly interesting: An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World
7. Why do kindergarten teachers pay more taxes than hedge fund managers?

From the week of September 7th to September 13th, 2015

1. Desperate Journeys: Al Jazeera coverage of refugee crisis
2. Desperate circumstances: Living on $2 a day in America
   • Interview of Kathryn Edin: Author of $2 a day: Living on almost nothing in America
   • How poor are America’s poorest? Life is complex and so defining exactly how poor people are is not easy. But, however it is done, there are a distressing number of Americans in frighteningly desperate circumstances.
3. Oil giants derail California bill to reduce gasoline use by 50%
4. Citi’s Chief Economist Says China Is ‘Financially Out of Control’
5. The Government Might Finally Get Tough on Wall Street Fraud Let’s hope so but, if so, we wonder what took them so long.
6. Why tax havens will be at the heart of the next financial crisis
   • How Wall Street captured Washington’s effort to rein in banks
   • U.S. banks moved billions of dollars in trades beyond Washington’s reach
     • AFR Statement: No More Dodd-Frank Exemptions for Cross-Border Derivatives Trades
7. As a Boom Fades, Brazilians Wonder How It All Went Wrong
   • Petrobras Oil Scandal Leaves Brazilians Lamenting a Lost Dream
8. James Blake Arrest Puts Police Tactics in Harsh Glare It wasn’t as bad as many other incidents, but this is a famous black man.
9. New Data Gives Clearer Picture of Student Debt.

From the week of August 31st to September 6th, 2015

1. Remembering New Orleans Lower Ninth Ward and Hurricane Katrina
2. Migrant Chaos Mounts While Divided Europe Stumbles for Response
3. Image of a Small, Still Boy Brings a Global Crisis Into Focus