How can we take it back?

[Kgal]

Remember, Remember, The Fifth of November...
Civil Disobedience Through Peaceful Protest.
See You On November 5th, 2014 On The Streets ALL OVER THE WORLD!

At first I was doubtful that sign was actually on the wall of a building seemingly in China? Tailand? Somewhere over there in Asia? Then I looked and it does seem to be genuinely up somewhere in real life.
I suppose it could be in an asian sector of a western nation. Where did you find this?

Will you buy a mask?

 

[Skarekrow]

At first I was doubtful that sign was actually on the wall of a building seemingly in China? Tailand? Somewhere over there in Asia? Then I looked and it does seem to be genuinely up somewhere in real life.
I suppose it could be in an asian sector of a western nation. Where did you find this?

Will you buy a mask?

I think this is actually on a building in San Francisco….and I wouldn’t be very anonymous if I told about my activities planned that night…lol.

 

[Kgal]

I think this is actually on a building in San Francisco….and I wouldn’t be very anonymous if I told about my activities planned that night…lol.

Bahahahahahahaha.....:lol:

Well played! :kiss:

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Lark]

I wonder what people know of the fifth of november to be honest besides its featuring in V for Vendetta which was vaguely anti-authoritarian, the graphic novel was only a marginal improvement upon the film and a little clearer that it was a revenge saga story, supposedly an updating of the Count of Monte Cristo story set in Orwell's 1984 striped of the socialist/IngSoc trappings of an earlier time.

Which I think brings anyone really interested in examing oppression and the prospects for social change which sees it contained or rolled back to some wider points.

The history of the UK is a good one, the attempts by the authorities to endorse a progressive or enlightened agenda, while remaining the authorities, being scuppered, and scuppered seriously badly, by populist protesting tendencies is writ large there. Consider that King James, while securing a catholic succession as a personal legacy, was attempting to have religious toleration/freedom of personal/private conscience as practiced by Quakers in Pennsylvanian colonies, at the time that widespread protestant sentiments permitted the whole country to be plunged into war and seized as a pawn in a greater game being played between the Dutch William of Holland and Louis of France, conspiracy theories about the jeopardy all protestants were in used to rouse forces in the sectarian struggle which has legacies and consequences right up the present day.

Every possible move forward is usually quickly and easily exploited by someone for the worse.

There needs to be greater and greater consideration of history and how any power or popular sovereignty was first lost before anyone can really know how it can be taken back.

Although I know the idea that traditions and the past matter is a bit conservative and all.

 

[Skarekrow]

I wonder what people know of the fifth of november to be honest besides its featuring in V for Vendetta which was vaguely anti-authoritarian, the graphic novel was only a marginal improvement upon the film and a little clearer that it was a revenge saga story, supposedly an updating of the Count of Monte Cristo story set in Orwell's 1984 striped of the socialist/IngSoc trappings of an earlier time.

Which I think brings anyone really interested in examing oppression and the prospects for social change which sees it contained or rolled back to some wider points.

The history of the UK is a good one, the attempts by the authorities to endorse a progressive or enlightened agenda, while remaining the authorities, being scuppered, and scuppered seriously badly, by populist protesting tendencies is writ large there. Consider that King James, while securing a catholic succession as a personal legacy, was attempting to have religious toleration/freedom of personal/private conscience as practiced by Quakers in Pennsylvanian colonies, at the time that widespread protestant sentiments permitted the whole country to be plunged into war and seized as a pawn in a greater game being played between the Dutch William of Holland and Louis of France, conspiracy theories about the jeopardy all protestants were in used to rouse forces in the sectarian struggle which has legacies and consequences right up the present day.

Every possible move forward is usually quickly and easily exploited by someone for the worse.

There needs to be greater and greater consideration of history and how any power or popular sovereignty was first lost before anyone can really know how it can be taken back.

Although I know the idea that traditions and the past matter is a bit conservative and all.

I think there are a lot of people who have a pretty damn good idea of who has taken over and why…it is only obvious.
Look who is holding Argentina hostage with loans right now. Look who has subsequently dismantled public programs for the public good like affordable education in favor of privatization in the name of profits…it continues down the line…it has always been the same player.

 

[Skarekrow]

The following are 30 stats to show to anyone that does not believe the middle class is being destroyed...

1. In 2007, the average household in the top 5 percent had 16.5 times as much wealth as the average household overall. But now the average household in the top 5 percent has 24 times as much wealth as the average household overall.

2. According to a study recently discussed in the New York Times, the "typical American household" is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.

3. One out of every seven Americans rely on food banks at this point.

4. One out of every four military families needs help putting enough food on the table.

5. 79 percent of the people that use food banks purchase "inexpensive, unhealthy food just to have enough to feed their families".

6. One out of every three adults in the United States has an unpaid debt that is "in collections".

7. Only 48 percent of all Americans can immediately come up with $400 in emergency cash without borrowing it or selling something.

8. The price of food continues to rise much faster than the paychecks of most middle class families. For example, the average price of ground beef has just hit a brand new all-time record high of $3.884 a pound.

9. According to one recent study, 40 percent of all households in the United States are experiencing financial stress right now.

10. The overall homeownership rate has fallen to the lowest level since 1995.

11. The homeownership rate for Americans under the age of 35 is at an all-time low.

12. According to one recent survey, 52 percent of all Americans cannot even afford the house that they are living in right now.

13. The average age of vehicles on America’s roads has hit an all-time high of 11.4 years.

14. Last year, one out of every four auto loans in the United States was made to someone with subprime credit.

15. Amazingly, one out of every six men in their prime working years (25 to 54) do not have a job at this point.

16. One recent study found that 47 percent of unemployed Americans have “completely given up” looking for a job.

17. 36 percent of Americans do not have a single penny saved for retirement.

18. According to one survey, 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

19. More than half of all working Americans make less than $30,000 a year in wages.

20. Only four of the twenty fastest growing occupations in America require a Bachelor’s degree or better.

21. In America today, one out of every ten jobs is filled by a temp agency.

22. Due to a lack of decent jobs, half of all college graduates are still relying on their parents financially when they are two years out of school.

23. Median household income in the United States is about 7 percent lower than it was in the year 2000 after adjusting for inflation.

24. Approximately one out of every four part-time workers in America is living below the poverty line.

25. It is hard to believe, but more than one out of every five children in the United States is living in poverty in 2014.

26. According to one study, there are 49 million Americans that are dealing with food insecurity.

27. Ten years ago, the number of women in the U.S. that had jobs outnumbered the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps by more than a 2 to 1 margin. But now the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps actually exceeds the number of women that have jobs.

28. If the middle class was actually thriving, we wouldn’t have more than a million public school children that are homeless.

29. If you can believe it, Americans received more than 2 trillion dollars in benefits from the federal government last year alone.

30. In terms of median wealth per adult, the United States is now in just 19th place in the world.

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Skarekrow]

America's Poor Have Never Been Deeper In Debt


Ever since the Lehman bankruptcy, one of the main reasons given by the perpetual apologists about why i) the so-called "recovery" has been the worst in US history and ii) the Fed has been "forced" to conduct 6 years of wealth transferring policies, boosting the stock market to all time highs and creating a record wealth split in US society between the super rich and everyone else (one that surpasses even that seen during the roaring 20s) is that the US consumer, scarred by the economic crash, has been rushing to deleverage and dump as much debt as possible.
There are two problems with that story:

• First, as we first pointed out in 2012, US households are not deleveraging, they are defaulting, a huge difference which goes to motive and intent, and shows that instead of actively paying down debt households are instead loading up on as much debt as they can, which at some point they simply stop servicing (for a detailed analysis of this disturbing trend, read our series on thestudent loan bubble).
• Second, when it comes to the poorest quartile of US society, some 14 million people, it is dead wrong. In fact, as the Fed's triennial Survey of Consumer Finances, released last week showed, America's poorest have never been more in debt!

As usual, the full story is one of nuances. As Bloomberg reports, as a result of the first point - mass defaults - US household debt has indeed declined on an average basis. Indeed, average debt burden for all families stood at about 105% of pretax income in 2013, down from about 125% in 2010 and the lowest level since the 2001 survey.

Of course, since economists are unable to grasp the difference between default and deleveraging, one look at the chart above gives them reason for hope. As Bloomberg summarizes:

The improved finances, along with more recent signs that consumers are feeling comfortable about borrowing again, has given some economists cause for optimism: The more progress households make in getting out from under their debts, the logic goes, the greater the chances that renewed spending will boost growth.
​

In reality, the "improved finances", namely those tens of trillions in financial assets that have been artificially reflated courtesy of the Fed's monetary policies, have benefited the tiniest sliver of US society - about 1% or less depending on whose calculations one uses. Everyone else, the bulk of US society, was forced to simply stop paying down their credit card and thus "delever."
But for a good perspective of what the part of society that is at the opposite end of the 1%, namely those 14 million or so Americans who comprise the poorest quartile of households, look no further than the chart below, which shows just what Americans are really doing up until that point where default does equal "deleveraging", even if it means loss of access to all credit for a period of several years:

From Bloomberg: "The poorest quartile of families is the only group that owes more than it owns.Thanks to declines in the value of assets, the group's average leverage ratio -- debt as a percent of assets -- increased to 137.5 percent in 2013, the highest on record since the survey started in 1989."
And there you have it - not only is America not actively delveraging, on the contrary, it is loading up on as much debt as it possibly can (or banks will allow it judging by the decline in mortgage-type debt, driven mostly by supply constraints and qualification factors) until the band snaps and in a perverse circle of illogic, releveraging becomes default becomes deleveraging.
Bloomberg has some ideas here, including commenting on the one observations we have been making since 2011: the relentless rise in installment debt, i.e., student and car loans:

There are various possible explanations for the poorest families' financial predicament. Incomes have declined, making debt burdens look worse. Some previously wealthier people probably migrated into the group as the value of their homes fell below what they owed on mortgages. More ominous is a steady increase in installment debt, a category that includes both student and auto loans -- areas that have recently seen a lot of questionable lending to lower-income borrowers.

​

Bloomberg's conclusion:

Whatever the drivers, the data suggest that the 2008 crisis and subsequent economic malaise have left a troubling legacy: A group of the poorest families, numbering roughly 14 million, whose precarious finances make them vulnerable to shocks and limit their ability to contribute to future growth. That's hardly a strong foundation for a healthy recovery.
​

But mass "deleveraging" is good, they said. It means tons of pent up releveraging and recovery, they said...
While the lying is understandable - after all confidence must be rebuilt at all costs - what is worse is that the Fed believes it can withdraw from QEasing because it is convinced that US society as a whole is able to take on more debt, when in reality a record number of Americans are locked out of the debt market (due to recent or imminent defaults) for years. As a result the Fed's entire logic for pulling out of the market is based on an epically flawed assumption. Which is why, as we explained back in late 2013, we give the Fed a few months of POMO-ess shock and awe for the S&P500 mixed with fears of what a rate hike will do to the market, pardon economy, before the Untaper and the reZIRP fully enter the financial lexicon.
Finally, while we have shown this chart in the past, here it is again. It really does explain everything.

 

[Skarekrow]

Robert Reich Calls Out Harvard Business School for Its Role in Widening Inequality
The top educator of American CEOs needs to rethink what it is teaching.

No institution is more responsible for educating the CEOs of American corporations than Harvard Business School — inculcating in them a set of ideas and principles that have resulted in a pay gap between CEOs and ordinary workers that’s gone from 20-to-1 fifty years ago to almost 300-to-1 today.

A survey, released on September 6, of 1,947 Harvard Business School alumni showed them far more hopeful about the future competitiveness of American firms than about the future of American workers.

As the authors of the survey conclude, such a divergence is unsustainable.
Without a large and growing middle class, Americans won’t have the purchasing power to keep U.S. corporations profitable, and global demand won’t fill the gap.

Moreover, the widening gap eventually will lead to political and social instability.
As the authors put it, “any leader with a long view understands that business has a profound stake in the prosperity of the average American.”

Unfortunately, the authors neglected to include a discussion about how Harvard Business School should change what it teaches future CEOs with regard to this “profound stake.”
HBS has made some changes over the years in response to earlier crises, but has not gone nearly far enough with courses that critically examine the goals of the modern corporation and the role that top executives play in achieving them.

A half-century ago, CEOs typically managed companies for the benefit of all their stakeholders — not just shareholders, but also their employees, communities, and the nation as a whole.

“The job of management,” proclaimed Frank Abrams, chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey, in a 1951 address, “is to maintain an equitable and working balance among the claims of the various directly affected interest groups … stockholders, employees, customers, and the public at large. Business managers are gaining professional status partly because they see in their work the basic responsibilities [to the public] that other professional men have long recognized as theirs.”

This view was a common view among chief executives of the time. Fortune magazine urged CEOs to become “industrial statesmen.” And to a large extent, that’s what they became.

For thirty years after World War II, as American corporations prospered, so did the American middle class.
Wages rose and benefits increased. American companies and American citizens achieved a virtuous cycle of higher profits accompanied by more and better jobs.

But starting in the late 1970s, a new vision of the corporation and the role of CEOs emerged — prodded by corporate “raiders,” hostile takeovers, junk bonds, and leveraged buyouts.

Shareholders began to predominate over other stakeholders. And CEOs began to view their primary role as driving up share prices. To do this, they had to cut costs — especially payrolls, which constituted their largest expense.

Corporate statesmen were replaced by something more like corporate butchers, with their nearly exclusive focus being to “cut out the fat” and “cut to the bone.”
In consequence, the compensation packages of CEOs and other top executives soared, as did share prices.

But ordinary workers lost jobs and wages, and many communities were abandoned. Almost all the gains from growth went to the top.
The results were touted as being “efficient,” because resources were theoretically shifted to “higher and better uses,” to use the dry language of economics.

But the human costs of this transformation have been substantial, and the efficiency benefits have not been widely shared. Most workers today are no better off than they were thirty years ago, adjusted for inflation.
Most are less economically secure.

So it would seem worthwhile for the faculty and students of Harvard Business School, as well as those at every other major business school in America, to assess this transformation, and ask whether maximizing shareholder value — a convenient goal now that so many CEOs are paid with stock options — continues to be the proper goal for the modern corporation.

Can an enterprise be truly successful in a society becoming ever more divided between a few highly successful people at the top and a far larger number who are not thriving?

For years, some of the nation’s most talented young people have flocked to Harvard Business School and other elite graduate schools of business in order to take up positions at the top rungs of American corporations, or on Wall Street, or management consulting.

Their educations represent a substantial social investment; and their intellectual and creative capacities, a precious national and global resource.

But given that so few in our society — or even in other advanced nations — have shared in the benefits of what our largest corporations and Wall Street entities have achieved, it must be asked whether the social return on such an investment has been worth it, and whether these graduates are making the most of their capacities in terms of their potential for improving human well-being.

These questions also merit careful examination at Harvard and other elite universities.

If the answer is not a resounding yes, perhaps we should ask whether these investments and talents should be directed toward “higher and better” uses.
[This essay originally appeared in the Harvard Business Review’s blog.]

Robert B. Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He also served on President Obama's transition advisory board. His latest book is "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future." His homepage is www.robertreich.org.

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Skarekrow]

Cuba Provides Health Care to Everyone Instead of Spending Trillions on War

(Photo: Huji)


There is a great deal that could be said about what is wrong with our health care system, but I would rather discuss what is right about Cuba’s health care program, from medical training to medical treatment.

During the Affordable Health Care debate, many people were asking why the president and Congress didn’t simply expand Medicare to everyone in the United States.

Instead, there is a movement in DC to cut Medicare benefits.

To expand on the theme of my last BuzzFlash commentary, wars for oil, the reason they want to cut Medicare funding is because the US government spends not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars on weapons, wars, and surveillance.

But in Cuba, it’s different. In Cuba, people are more important than profits. Instead of investing in bombs, Cuba invests in:
1) education, including medical training; and
2) decent housing and food for all Cubans: although Cuba is a poor country, no one is starving and no one is homeless.

By contrast, in the US, there is a strong connection between poverty and medical need. Cuba’s commitment to health care is seen as a human right, not as a privilege for only those who can afford it.

My question is: Why doesn't America take care of its people like that?

Good question.
Try asking the president and congressional members.
If they’re honest they’ll tell you that it’s more important to build weapons and to drop bombs on “enemies” than it is to care for those in the US.

The Cuban government understands that decent health care includes good diets, good housing, education and employment.
Quality health care in Cuba begins with a superior medical training program, which leads to the question: Why are US students trying to enroll in Cuba’s Medical Schools?

The average cost of medical school loans for four years in the US range from $170,000 to $400,000 dollars of debt.
So the minute they graduate, young doctors are immediately under pressure to pay off thousands of dollars in loans.

By contrast, Cuba has allowed students from many countries to study medicine at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) at no cost.
The competition has increased in the last years, reducing availability to only ten U.S. students a year.

The only condition is that after six years of training at ELAM, graduating doctors bring the model of primary and preventive health care to distressed communities that need it the most. Contrast that caring attitude to congressional Republicans who can’t wait to slash food stamps for poor US families.

In fairness, the US does offer merit-based and military scholarships but they’re extremely limited to a small percentage of medical students.

I’m talking about priorities: a single federal check to an arms dealer in the amount of $10 billion dollars could easily pay for the first four years of nearly all the 2013 medical school applicants combined.

As to the question of whether or not Cuba’s training is as good as US medical schools: the majority of American students that graduated from Cuba’s ELAMpassed US medical exams with flying colors, and went on to intern at U.S. hospitals.

Most people believe that Cuba’s medical facilities are antiquated models from the 1950s.

Although it’s true that Cuba’s hospitals may not have all the latest technologically advanced equipment, Cuban medical education is equal to that of the US in medical procedures. Moreover, Cuba’s hospitals may not be new, but they are immaculately clean.

A study in the current issue of the Journal of Patient Safety claims that between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to US hospitals for care suffer some type of preventable harm in the hospital that contributes to their death.

That would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in the nation.

Cuban medical care is highly advanced. Surgeons at the Ameijeiras BrothersHospital have performed numerous heart transplants in the past decade. Researchers have done pioneering vaccine research for meningitis C and cholera.

Cuba has lower infant and adult mortality rates than the US, and it has a life expectancy nearly equal to ours, if not better.

In addition to establishing well-staffed clinics that serve the Cuban population, doctors are not pressured into evaluating a patient under a 15-minute schedule. The doctor will get to know the patient’s habits for a fuller understanding of his or her health condition.

Clinics are thoroughly integrated into Cuban communities, in part, because they blend Western techniques with “natural and traditional medicine.

In order to understand what is meant by “preventative care” you have to understand that Cubans live very simply because of the US embargo against Cuba.

I should stop here and explain what Cuba was like before the Revolution. People in the US are not supposed to know that in 1959 US corporations controlled more than 80 percent of Cuba’s mines, cattle ranches, utilities, and oil refineries, 50 percent of the railroads, and 40 percent of the sugar industry.

United Fruit controlled a million acres of Cuba’s land.
As a result of US corporate ownership for the few, the majority of Cubans suffered from extreme conditions of poverty.

In some ways the embargo has been a curse, in other ways, it’s been a blessing.
For example, Cuba was forced to become quite creative in establishing organic ways of growing food.

Contrary to the United States’ mass food markets of GMO foods, citizens of Cuba grow their own gardens at home with government support, and/or they buy at farmers’ markets that offer organically grown fruits and vegetables.

This has reduced obesity in Cuba, a problem that plagues US children.

In the US, abusive exploitations are produced from a profit-only, privatized medical system that traps patients into an unending greedy wheel of drug companies, insurers, doctors, HMOs, and hospitals–all looking for a way to keep the profits spinning at the expense of compassionate, intelligent and pragmatic health care.

Bombs both destroy and create new angry “enemies”that then renews the cycle of US military intervention: that’s what the US government is good at doing at the cost of providing health care to everyone regardless of income, while Cuba invests in health care, education and proper housing for their citizens.
---

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Skarekrow]

Welcome To The Oligarchy — US Leads The Developed World In Low Wage Jobs


In an apparent attempt to advise investors on how they can take advantage of America’s transformation into a neo-feudal oligarchy in a 50-page research report, Morgan Stanley has put together some very interesting charts.. We will be sharing many of them in the next few days but none is more telling and depressing than the one that shows how the U.S. leads the developed world in the share of low wage jobs...



Of course, this shouldn’t come as any surprise to readers. I have covered the death of America’s middle-class for many years now, most notably in the post from last summer: How Does America’s Middle Class Rank Globally? #27.
As the middle-class has been destroyed, and the poor placated temporarily by various government benefits, the oligarchy has had free reign to thieve and expand its wealth at a dizzying pace. The Federal Reserve fueled stock market has been a key tool in the process of keeping the 1% silent, as the chart below demonstrates:


While I can’t say the above is surprising, it certainly seems to confirm my prior contention that the stock market is merely: Food Stamps for the 1%.
U.S. policy is all about keeping the 99.9% quiet and distracted, while the oligarchs strip-mine the nation. Unfortunately, that strategy is working... for now!

 

[Kgal]

Welcome To The Oligarchy – US Leads The Developed World In Low Wage Jobs


In an apparent attempt to advise investors on how they can take advantage of America’s transformation into a neo-feudal oligarchy in a 50-page research report, Morgan Stanley has put together some very interesting charts.. We will be sharing many of them in the next few days but none is more telling and depressing than the one that shows how the U.S. leads the developed world in the share of low wage jobs...



Of course, this shouldn’t come as any surprise to readers. I have covered the death of America’s middle-class for many years now, most notably in the post from last summer: How Does America’s Middle Class Rank Globally? #27.
As the middle-class has been destroyed, and the poor placated temporarily by various government benefits, the oligarchy has had free reign to thieve and expand its wealth at a dizzying pace. The Federal Reserve fueled stock market has been a key tool in the process of keeping the 1% silent, as the chart below demonstrates:


While I can’t say the above is surprising, it certainly seems to confirm my prior contention that the stock market is merely: Food Stamps for the 1%.
U.S. policy is all about keeping the 99.9% quiet and distracted, while the oligarchs strip-mine the nation. Unfortunately, that strategy is working... for now!

How can I get the link to this story?

 

[Skarekrow]

How can I get the link to this story?

Here you go!
Sorry, I usually link it...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-23/welcome-oligarchy-–-us-leads-developed-world-low-wage-jobs

 

[Kgal]

Here you go!
Sorry, I usually link it...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-23/welcome-oligarchy-–-us-leads-developed-world-low-wage-jobs

Oh...you don't have to apologize. You normally post links and by now I trust everything you share. But I want to put this out where others not on the forum can see....and it would be easier if I had a link. You're a dear to post it here. :love:

 

[Skarekrow]

Minimum wage was tied to inflation from the 30's until 1983 when Reagan and republicans repealed parts of the minimum wage act.
Also the Sherman Act that kept the media from being conglomerated and the Fairness Doctrine which allowed people like Rupert Murdoch to create FOX.
All the laws and regulations that created the first middle class in history were repealed to once again allow corporations to screw people over and create and shore up dynasties like the Koch brothers.

Edit: I actually support the $15 minimum wage.

 

[Skarekrow]

Just a friendly reminder...

Remember, Remember, The Fifth of November...

Civil Disobedience Through Peaceful Protest.

See You On November 5th, 2014 On The Streets ALL OVER THE WORLD!​