Yves here. Chris Hedges opens a new series on Real News Network by discussing how dire our current situation is, particularly from an ecological perspective, and the reluctance to acknowledge it and take corrective measures.
Read more...The poor have to endure not just the indignity of struggling to survive, but also from having to listen to pious lectures on how they really can proper on their meager incomes.
Read more...Yves here. Last week, we used a the latest release of an every-other-year report by Transparency International on corruption to discuss the need to come up with more granular descriptions of the many forms it takes. This post on a major bribery scandal in Spain will hopefully elicit reader comment on the common forms of corruption in the EU and how they’ve changed over time.
Read more...Econ4, a group of heterodox economists, has released a short video and a statement on the “new economy” which they define as more sustainable and equitable forms of organizing “productive” activity and the resources that support them.
Read more...Sadly, we’ve entered into a world where the word “corruption” has become inadequate to describe the many and varied practices of profitable abuse by the powerful and connected of their inferiors. Like the popular (and sadly apocryphal) accounts Inuit with their numerous words for “snow,” we need more refined and granular terminology to describe various types of corruption. Hugh uses “kleptocracy” but that’s a name for a system of governance, not particular behaviors within that system.
Read more...Yves here. Because the European slow-motion train wreck is turning out to be particularly slow, it’s almost become background noise in the US, almost a lesser version of the now two lost decades in Japan. But what is happing in Europe is less benign and less likely to be able to continue anywhere near that long.
Read more...The Guardian presented this video by Human Rights organisation Reprieve and Bafta award-winning director Asif Kapadia, US actor and rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def), which is based on leaked military documents describing the standard operating procedures for these force-feedings.
Read more...In a new article at the Prospect, Harold Meyerson tells us that unions are getting higher marks than they did a few years ago:
Read more...By Andrew Dittmer, who recently finished his PhD in mathematics at Harvard and is currently continuing work on his thesis topic. He also taught mathematics at a local elementary school. Andrew enjoys explaining the recent history of the financial sector to a popular audience
Although the incident occurred several days ago, the responses among French readers were so extraordinary that they merit further attention. For many, the incident represented an unmistakable turning point:
There is a certain concept of the world that is disappearing definitively.
And so I have selected a representative sample of these responses, both from Le Figaro (center right) and Le Monde (center left), and formed them into a conversation:
Read more...This Real News Network report discusses two human rights violations against Palestinian children that were first publicized by an Israeli organization and have since been investigated by the UN: abusive confinement and prosecution, and using them as human shields.
Read more...Higher education used to be free for millions of Americans. A transaction tax on the financial houses could help make it free again
Read more...If you think Independence Day came to be a national holiday as an organic expression of pride in our successful rebellion against England, you need to think twice.
Read more...Average national income is a notoriously imperfect measure of the average person’s well-being.
Read more...Clearly the stories of Nelson Mandela and Edward Snowden are very different, but there are some parallels that almost no one in the media is willing to acknowledge.
Read more...Inquality.org, which is a portal for news and data about income inequality, has published a particularly well-presented paper, The Political History of American Inequality, by Colin Gordon, a professor of history at the University of Iowa who has focused on 20th century American public policy and political economy. I’ve sampled it, and it’s clear and engagingly written and has great interactive chart porn,
Read more...