Awareness | Debate | Action

July 2009 Blog Posts (7)

Economic Hodgepodge - The Plight of 70% of American Families

Following my July 26th article, "Income and Net Worth Inequality" a commenter indicated he was in pursuit of additional information. I promised him that I would review my files and send him what I could find. I did. He suggested it be submitted as article for a wider audience. This is it, with only a slight modification.

For the record, the data used for the earlier article indicates seventy percent of American families earn less than $75,200.

"The two greatest obstacles… Continue

Added by Harold Hellickson on July 31, 2009 at 7:39am — No Comments

The Company Store or Theft by Any Means

The Company Store or Theft by Any Means

That the rich have prospered from the labor of others is not news. Neither are the varied strategies by which the rich have continued to grow income and wealth inequality. What would be news is that the directional trend of income and wealth inequality were reversed. But will it? If so, how?

Pre-unionization, the Company Store assured owners of textile companies, coal mines, and others, plus those employing temporary farm labor that… Continue

Added by Harold Hellickson on July 23, 2009 at 1:00pm — No Comments

The Quiet Coup

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless… Continue

Added by Cromag on July 16, 2009 at 1:04am — 1 Comment

Insured, but Bankrupted by Health Crises

By REED ABELSON - July 1, 2009 - NY Times

Health insurance is supposed to offer protection — both medically and financially. But as it turns out, an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured.

And so, even as Washington tries to cover the tens of millions of Americans without medical insurance, many health policy experts say simply giving everyone an insurance card… Continue

Added by Cromag on July 15, 2009 at 9:00pm — No Comments

America's Great Health Care in Despair

When powerful corporations with legal and eternal person-hood write the laws of a great nation, you get a shameful hypocrisy, incapable of fulfilling a Hippocratic oath. Which leads me to ask; why doesn't the corporation with person-hood have to take a Hippocratic oath? Our system of government is a hollow shell of its principled past.

Why can the rest of the world's powerful nations take care of all of their citizens health-care, but the USA can't?

If you are a US… Continue

Added by Cromag on July 11, 2009 at 5:00pm — 4 Comments

Big Bankers Mounting Sneak Attack on Consumers

Have you received your thank-you note? I'm still waiting for mine.

More than a year into the Wall Street bailout, I've yet to get any sort of "thank you" from even a single one of the big banks that you and I propped up with $12 trillion in direct giveaways, indirect giveaways, government guarantees and sweetheart loans. You'd think their mommas would've taught them better. But I've begun to think that waiting on a simple gesture of banker gratitude is like waiting on Donald Trump to… Continue

Added by Cromag on July 10, 2009 at 11:00pm — 1 Comment

Monsanto's History of Eco-Poisoning & Un-Accountability (PCB, DDT)

This is a modern tale about how everything is connected to everything else in the environment. It begins in 1929 when the Monsanto Corporation started selling PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). PCBs are oily liquids that are very stable (they don't change their characteristics) even when they get hot, and they don't conduct electricity but they do conduct heat. Therefore, they make good insulators in electrical transformers and capacitors. They have also been used as hydraulic fluid, and in… Continue

Added by Cromag on July 10, 2009 at 2:30pm — No Comments