Category Archives: Social values

Lynn Parramore: Class of 2013 – All Dressed Up and No Place to Work

A weak job market, killer student loans and a crappy economy mean continued struggle for America’s college grads.

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Income disparity, Social policy, Social values, The destruction of the middle class on June 11, 2013 by Yves Smith.

NYT Gives Damning-With-Faintest-Praise-Possible Profile of Glenn Greenwald After Surveillance Scoops

The Grey Lady roused itself to profile Glenn Greenwald after his blockbuster stories of the last two days: the first on a secret court order now in effect for Verizon to provide the NSA on all telephone records in its systems, the second on the PRISM program, which has given the NSA direct access to servers of information giants including Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, since 2007. But the piece is mean-spirited, underplaying Greenwald’s credentials and coming too close for comfort to character sniping.

This entry was posted in Media watch, Politics, Social values on June 7, 2013 by Yves Smith.

Why Isn’t Elizabeth Warren Attacking the Student Debt Problem Head On?

It’s puzzling to see Elizabeth Warren pull her punches on a pressing issue for middle class families, that of student debt.

This entry was posted in Politics, Social policy, Social values, Student loans on June 4, 2013 by Yves Smith.

WSJ Bemoans Rise in Rationality, Um, Decline in Entrepreneurial Risk-Taking

It’s hard to know where to begin with a story up at the Wall Street Journal, Risk-Averse Culture Infects U.S. Workers, Entrepreneurs.

Lynn Parramore: Guess What? Fewer Americans Call Themselves Economic Conservatives

New Gallup polls shows that economic conservatism is down, social liberalism is up.

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Politics, Social values, The destruction of the middle class on June 3, 2013 by Yves Smith.

Joe Firestone: Sorry Folks, Austerity’s Not Dead Yet!

By Joe Firestone, Ph.D., Managing Director, CEO of the Knowledge Management Consortium International (KMCI), and Director of KMCI’s CKIM Certificate program. He has taught political science as the graduate and undergraduate level and blogs regularly at Corrente, Firedoglake and Daily Kos as letsgetitdone. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives

More Market State In Action: Consumers Treated Differently Under the Law Than Businesses

You thought corporate personhood was a bad thing? Think twice. You should be so lucky as to be a corporate person. They don’t just get treated like you and me, they are increasingly being treated better than you and me.

This entry was posted in Legal, Politics, Real estate, Social policy, Social values, The destruction of the middle class on May 31, 2013 by Yves Smith.

Barbara Parramore Speaks About Her Arrest in “Moral Monday Protests” Against Republican Railroading of Extreme Right-Wing Agenda in North Carolina

Yves here. NC intern Jessica Ferrer interviewed 80 year old Barbara Parramore, who was one of 57 arrested in North Carolina on May 20 as part of what has become weekly protests at the state General Assembly called “Moral Mondays”.

This entry was posted in Legal, Politics, Social policy, Social values, The destruction of the middle class on May 30, 2013 by Yves Smith.

Nathan Tankus: New York City Public Libraries Attack Alert – Privatizing Prized Locations and Cutting Budget by 35%

By Nathan Tankus, a student and research assistant at the University of Ottawa. You can follow him on Twitter at @NathanTankus

Now that pubic libraries have “done their jobs” (in FIRE sector terms) they can do one more thing for finance and real estate: be killed for private sector fun and profit.

Don Quijones: The Financial Takeover Of “Our” Newspapers

“In a newspaper like El País it is no longer possible to criticize the main Spanish banks. And you have to be very careful when talking about the Government, in case it gets angry: its benevolence is needed in order to avoid bankruptcy.”

The above words are from Enríc González, one of Spain’s most respected journalists. With more and more media groups struggling to make ends meet in this new age of Internet journalism and plummeting advertising revenues, one can’t help but wonder just how many other newspapers will soon fall into the clutches of the big banks and corporations.

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Hedge funds, Media watch, Politics, Social values on May 28, 2013 by Yves Smith.

Lynn Parramore: ‘Greed Is Good’ – Top 7 Most Piggish Commencement Speeches

Get out the barf bag! Here a few choice orations from some of the world’s most illustrious jerks.

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Guest Post, Social values, The destruction of the middle class on May 28, 2013 by Yves Smith.

Your Humble Blogger Speaks on the Melissa Harris-Perry Show About Apple’s Senate Hearing, Corporate Tax Avoidance

We appeared on the Melissa Harris-Perry show on Saturday to participate in a discussion of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing on Apple’s astonishingly low tax payments.

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Politics, Social values, Taxes on May 27, 2013 by Yves Smith.

Your Humble Blogger Appears on RT’s Truthseeker

We discuss how outsourcing and offshoring are more about transferring income from low-level workers to middle and senior level managers than cost savings.

This entry was posted in Globalization, Social policy, Social values, The destruction of the middle class on May 24, 2013 by Yves Smith.

Are Germans Poorer than Other Europeans?

Yves here There’s been a great deal of consternation over a report that found that the median Spanish and Italian households are more than three times as wealthy as the median German household. This report says that these differences aren’t what they seem to be.

This entry was posted in Free markets and their discontents, Globalization, Guest Post, Politics, Social values on May 15, 2013 by Yves Smith.