Category Archives: Social values

Who Owns the Post Office?

This article describes how the creation of a misguided corporatized governance structure and undermining of public-interest-related objectives undermined the Post Office. The very fact that offices are being shuttered in rural areas that depend on the Post Office as a local anchor, leading to the death of communities, shows how far the modern Post Office deviates from its founders’ objectives.

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Guest Post, Politics, Privatization, Social values on March 20, 2015 by Yves Smith.

Bill Black: What Does it Take to Get Fired from the SEC?

Why the SEC should demand the resignation of examination chief Andrew Bowden after he fawned over private equity, an industry he oversees.

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Guest Post, Private equity, Regulations and regulators, Social values on March 19, 2015 by Yves Smith.

The Big Dick School of American Patriotism, and What We Make of It

How America’s patriotism has been converted, or perhaps more accurately, perverted, into a war culture.

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Guest Post, Politics, Social policy, Social values on March 18, 2015 by Yves Smith.

Obama Gives Another Greatest Speech Ever, This Time In Selma

Omissions and evasions in Obama’s Selma speech.

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Politics, Social policy, Social values on March 8, 2015 by Lambert Strether.

Are Pilots Deserting Washington’s Drone War?

A potential fatal flaw arises in the Pentagon’s plans to create a killing force that didn’t involve messy, unpopular casualties and deaths. Drone operators are quitting faster than new ones can be trained. Killing is apparently not cost free; many drone pilots appear to suffer from a new form of mental disorder.

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Social policy, Social values on March 6, 2015 by Yves Smith.

Bill Black: Question to Our Bank CEOs Who Are Criminals: “Have You No Sense of Decency”?

Lambert here: I couldn’t make up my mind whether there was any redundancy in the headline or not.

This entry was posted in Banking industry, Guest Post, Social values on March 5, 2015 by Lambert Strether.

Matt Stoller: The Broader Net Neutrality Narrative

How the net neutrality fight created a new coalition of industrial interests and a new, sophisticated political consciousness.

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Politics, Regulations and regulators, Social policy, Social values, Technology and innovation on March 2, 2015 by Yves Smith.

New York’s Benjamin Lawksy and the SEC’s Kara Stein and Luis Aguilar Push for Tougher Sanctions Against Bank Executives

More regulators are getting serious about finding ways to hold individual bank executives responsible for misconduct.

This entry was posted in Banking industry, Corporate governance, Investment banks, Regulations and regulators, Social values on March 2, 2015 by Yves Smith.

Austerity Kills: Economic Distress Seen as Culprit in Sharp Rise in Suicide Rate Among Middle Aged

I’m surprised, but perhaps I shouldn’t be, that a recent study hasn’t gotten the attention it warrants. It points to a direct connection between the impact of the crisis and a marked increase in suicide rates among the middle aged.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Forced Into Historic Runoff

This Real News Network interview describes why the coming mayoral runoff in Chicago is in many ways a referendum on failed neoliberal policies, such as privatizing schools. The very fact that this race is taking place at all reveals an unexpectedly large degree of popular discontent with misrule by what passes for our elites

This entry was posted in Income disparity, Politics, Privatization, Social policy, Social values, The destruction of the middle class on February 27, 2015 by Yves Smith.

The Alternative in Greece

Let us begin with what should be indisputable: the Eurogroup agreement that the Greek government was dragged into on Friday amounts to a headlong retreat.

The School Closure Playbook – How Billionaires Exploit Poor Children in Chicago

A hard-hitting overview of who is behind the taxpayer looting program known as “corporate school reform” and the mechanics of how it operates.

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Politics, Social policy, Social values, The destruction of the middle class on February 26, 2015 by Yves Smith.

Mathew D. Rose: Greece – Dead Man Walking

Rose focuses on an issue that reader Swedish Lex and other have pointed out: the heavy-handed actions of Germany in the tempestuous negotiations between the Eurozone and Greece have wound up being a major own goal.

But the bigger issue that Rose raises is that last week’s ugly negotiations, in combination with the fiasco in Ukraine, is exposing Germany as a lousy hegemon, which he argues is producing a political crisis in Germany and fracture lines in Europe.

Gaius Publius: Tobacco Deaths, TPP and the “Trade” Courts

Obama’s pending trade deals, the TransPacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, have few fans at Naked Capitalism. But we are always looking for ways for like-minded readers to to alert friends and colleagues to the dangers of the proposed pacts and hopefully take action against them. This post gives concrete, accessible examples of some of the uses made of investor-state dispute settlement panels, which Gaius calls trade courts (even though they are actually secret arbitration panels) by Big Tobacco.

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Globalization, Guest Post, Links, Politics, Social values, TPP on February 24, 2015 by Yves Smith.