PERRspectives: Health Insurance "Coverage Gap" Coming to a Red State Near You

PERRspectives: Health Insurance "Coverage Gap" Coming to a Red State Near You
"The resulting Republican body count is staggering. Thanks to the GOP's rejection of Medicaid expansion, 1.3 million people in Texas, 1 million in Florida, 534,000 in Georgia and 267,000 in Missouri will be ensnared in the coverage gap.

Here's why."

The Burrito Chain That Pays Entry-Level Workers $10 An Hour And Wants To Pay More

The Burrito Chain That Pays Entry-Level Workers $10 An Hour And Wants To Pay More: One restaurant that pays higher wages in order to make more profits.

Fast Food Workers Strike Across America

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Dedicated To Detroit

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Chronicling The Decline Of American Manufacturing

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NYC Mayor Race's National Implications

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Massive Nationwide Walkout By Fast-Food Workers Signals Growing Backlash Against Low-Wage Employers | Alternet

Massive Nationwide Walkout By Fast-Food Workers Signals Growing Backlash Against Low-Wage Employers | Alternet
"Thousands of fast-food workers in 60 cities from coast to coast walked off their jobs Thursday in an escalating nationwide protest. Strikers are seeking raises to $15 an hour, paid sick leave and the right to unionize America’s second-biggest employer, the restaurant industry, which is predictingits 2013 profits will “reach a record high of $660.5 billion"."

The Largest Fast-Food Strike To Date

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Banks Make Record Profits In Second Quarter

Banks Make Record Profits In Second Quarter:
"Banks marked another record profit period in the second quarter, clearing $42.2 billion after expenses in the three months from April to June. The figure is the latest confirmation that the financial industry has bounced back far faster than the rest of the economy."

Faced With Budget Cuts, 99.5 Percent Of Teachers Spend Their Own Money On Supplies

Faced With Budget Cuts, 99.5 Percent Of Teachers Spend Their Own Money On Supplies: Last year, virtually every teacher in America spent an average of $485 on school supplies like books, furniture, printer ink, and copy paper.

Banker Who Used Bailout Cash To Buy Luxury Condo Faces One Year In Prison

Banker Who Used Bailout Cash To Buy Luxury Condo Faces One Year In Prison: Tuesday's guilty plea is cold comfort for millions of homeowners.

The Other NRA: How the Insidiously Powerful Restaurant Lobby Makes Sure Fast-Food Workers Get Poverty Wages and Have to Work While Sick | Alternet

The Other NRA: How the Insidiously Powerful Restaurant Lobby Makes Sure Fast-Food Workers Get Poverty Wages and Have to Work While Sick | Alternet
"Fast-food workers feed their families on a pittance while the big corporations resist fair pay and sick leave."

Fast Food Workers Fight For Living Wage

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Speaker Boehner Vows Fight On Debt Limit

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A Dream Deferred: Minimum Wage Higher in 1963 Than It Is Today

A Dream Deferred: Minimum Wage Higher in 1963 Than It Is Today
"The minimum wage is lower today than it was in 1963."

Why Do 6 Bags Of Salt Water Cost You $546

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Hypnotized by Ayn Rand and Reaganomics, Republicans Have Completely Lost Touch with Economic Reality | Alternet

Hypnotized by Ayn Rand and Reaganomics, Republicans Have Completely Lost Touch with Economic Reality | Alternet
"The GOP doesn't understand how the economy works or the concerns of middle-class families."

Pinching Pensions to Keep Wall Street Fat and Happy

Pinching Pensions to Keep Wall Street Fat and Happy
"So there is a clear lesson on morality in modern America. Contracts are sacred when respecting them works to the benefit of the rich and powerful. Contracts that imply obligations to workers, like pension commitments, are a joke. Got that?"

5 Wildly Offensive Comments and Actions by Rich Jerks | Alternet

5 Wildly Offensive Comments and Actions by Rich Jerks | Alternet
"Zuckerberg's new super-PAC prospectus reminds us he's ready to "move fast and break things," democracy included"

6 Filthy Facts About the Rich | Alternet

6 Filthy Facts About the Rich | Alternet
"Out of all developed and undeveloped countries with at least a quarter-million adults, the U.S. has the 4th-highest degree of  wealth inequality in the world, trailing only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon."

The Leveraged Buyout of America | Common Dreams

The Leveraged Buyout of America | Common Dreams
"Giant banks are buying up our country’s infrastructure – the power and supply chains that are vital to the economy. Aren’t there rules against that?"

We'd All Be Much Wealthier If We Acted Like a Society—Instead We Prop Up the Private Wealth of a Small Number of Elites | Alternet

We'd All Be Much Wealthier If We Acted Like a Society—Instead We Prop Up the Private Wealth of a Small Number of Elites | Alternet
"Privatize" means "Pay for it yourself." The practical consequence of this in an economy whose wealth and income are now more concentrated than at any time in the past 90 years is to make high-quality public goods available to fewer and fewer.'

This week in the War on Workers: Fending off the ALEC of the construction industry in California

www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/24/1233139/-This-week-in-the-War-on-Workers-Fending-off-the-ALEC-of-the-construction-industry-in-California
"California law requires that locally funded construction projects over $1,000 pay the prevailing wage. That is, public money doesn't go to drive down wages for construction workers throughout the region. The Associated Builders and Contractors, AKA the ALEC of the construction industry, doesn't like this so much. So it's been turning its attention to charter cities, which can make their own laws, trying to get cities to adopt charters and to eliminate the prevailing wage. This push employs some ridiculous myths, like the claim that cities can save 20 percent on their construction costs by eliminating the prevailing wage—the teeny tiny problem with that claim being that labor costs make up only 22 percent of construction costs in California."

Thousands Gather For March On Washington 50th Anniversary

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Rep. Lewis: The Vote Is Precious, It Is Sacred

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Schultz: 'Fight For Diversity, Understand Its Strength'

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Thousands Converge in DC for New March on Washington | Common Dreams

Thousands Converge in DC for New March on Washington | Common Dreams
"Thousands gathered in the cool morning at Washington DC's national mall hours ahead of a planned new 'March on Washington' that marks the 50 year anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech."

Plutocrats' New Pitch: Let Us Rob You Now So You Can Plan Ahead for Poverty | Alternet

Plutocrats' New Pitch: Let Us Rob You Now So You Can Plan Ahead for Poverty | Alternet
"Pete Peterson & Co. kindly want to take your Social Security away to prevent you from imagining a dignified future."

A Well-Educated Workforce Is Key to State Prosperity | Economic Policy Institute

A Well-Educated Workforce Is Key to State Prosperity | Economic Policy Institute
"What can state governments do to boost the economic well-being of their people? That is the central question of state economic policy. Incomes and wages can increase across an economy when productivity—production per capita—increases. States have many tools in their arsenal to increase productivity, including investments in public infrastructure, in technological innovation at public universities and other institutions, and in workers through the education and training systems. But many states have been retreating from their responsibility to ensure state economic growth that benefits all residents in favor of a short-sighted approach to economic development. In these states, the focus is on luring employers from other states with strategies that do not lead to rising incomes because they do not make the workforce more productive. Even worse, the focus drains resources from the most important, proven, path to increasing productivity: investments in education."

Three Good Reasons To Liquidate Our Empire | Common Dreams

Three Good Reasons To Liquidate Our Empire | Common Dreams
"We are like the British at the end of World War II: desperately trying to shore up an empire that we never needed and can no longer afford, using methods that often resemble those of failed empires of the past -- including the Axis powers of World War II and the former Soviet Union. There is an important lesson for us in the British decision, starting in 1945, to liquidate their empire relatively voluntarily, rather than being forced to do so by defeat in war, as were Japan and Germany, or by debilitating colonial conflicts, as were the French and Dutch. We should follow the British example."

Ousted Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon Launching Ohio Land Grab

Ousted Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon Launching Ohio Land Grab
"Aubrey McClendon's penchant for "land grab" as a business model made the recently-ousted Chesapeake Energy CEO infamous - and he's at it again for his new start-up hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") company in Ohio's Utica Shale basin. It's a formation he once hailed as the "biggest thing to hit Ohio since the plow."

Under Securities and Exchange Commission investigation for sketchy business practices, McClendon departed Chesapeake with a severance package including $35 million, access to the company's private jets through 2016 and a 2.5% *return on ownership stake in* every well Chesapeake fracks through June 2014.

Since then, he launched three new start-ups: McClendon Energy Partners, American Energy Partners andArcadia Capital LLC."

Raising The Minimum Wage Is A Political Goldmine

Raising The Minimum Wage Is A Political Goldmine: An issue that is hugely popular, fits perfectly into the progressive agenda, appeals to the white working class, and splits the Republican party.

Legal Costs For Biggest Banks Pale In Comparison To Profits, Harm Of Crisis

Legal Costs For Biggest Banks Pale In Comparison To Profits, Harm Of Crisis:
"Major financial companies have instructed their employees to lie to homeowners, manipulated markets for electricity, oil, metals, and currencies at the expense of consumers, and exhibited ethics that one survey labeled a “ticking economic timebomb.” But it’s cost them far less in legal fees than it won them in profits."

Stop the CEO March on Washington

Stop the CEO March on Washington
"Fix the Debt, a group of powerful CEOs lobbying for permanent tax cuts for the trillions of dollars they’ve stashed offshore, and for cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security."

Anti-Austerity Campaign Demands Shutdown of Corporate Tax Dodging | Common Dreams

Anti-Austerity Campaign Demands Shutdown of Corporate Tax Dodging | Common Dreams
"people like Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles have continued to drum up anxiety around the federal deficit, despite the fact that the deficit has actually shrunk in recent months."

Koch Front Group Catfishes Millennials With Misleading Social Media Campaign To Save Food Trucks

Koch Front Group Catfishes Millennials With Misleading Social Media Campaign To Save Food Trucks: Generation Opportunity, a secretive Koch-funded anti-government group aimed at "Millennials who love freedom," built a massive social media following through a misleading campaign -- and now aims to expand its lists using a stealthy campaign ostensibly to oppose excessive regulations on food trucks.

Public School Asks Parents to Pay $613 Per Student As Right-Wing Governor Destroys Public Education With Insane Defunding | Alternet

Public School Asks Parents to Pay $613 Per Student As Right-Wing Governor Destroys Public Education With Insane Defunding | Alternet
"Pennsylvania's right-wing governor drains public schools of basic funds -- and the sickening details will shock you."

HEIGHT VS. RIGHT: LG Electronics Plans to Destroy Scenic Hudson River 'Palisades' Cliff Vistas

HEIGHT VS. RIGHT: LG Electronics Plans to Destroy Scenic Hudson River 'Palisades' Cliff Vistas
"The stunning, uninterrupted tree-lined cliff views of the historic Palisades Interstate Park along the New Jersey side of the Hudson River are about to be destroyed if LG Electronics has its way. The South Korean electronics giant is aching to start yanking out trees and bulldozing near the peaceful, majestic 100 year old natural landmark and recreation area to build itself a $300 million glass and steel corporate headquarters that will rise 80’ above the tree line, giving them exclusive bragging rights to some of the most panoramic views of New York City and the Hudson River valley.

And everybody in New Jersey and New York can just lump it."

The Misdeeds of Times Star Columnist Maureen Dowd | Alternet

The Misdeeds of Times Star Columnist Maureen Dowd | Alternet
"This week's misquote of a NYC mayoral candidate's wife is just part of a pattern of inaccuracy and offensiveness."

Companies Will Soon Publish The Ratio Of CEO Pay To Worker Pay

Companies Will Soon Publish The Ratio Of CEO Pay To Worker Pay: Chief executives make an estimated 273 times more than the typical worker.

A Decade of Flat Wages: The Key Barrier to Shared Prosperity and a Rising Middle Class | Economic Policy Institute

A Decade of Flat Wages: The Key Barrier to Shared Prosperity and a Rising Middle Class | Economic Policy Institute
"The weak wage growth since 1979 for all but those with the highest wages is the result of intentional policy decisions—including globalization, deregulation, weaker unions, and lower labor standards such as a weaker minimum wage—that have undercut job quality for low- and middle-wage workers. These policies have all been portrayed to the public as giving American consumers goods and services at lower prices. Whatever the impact on prices, these policies have lowered the earnings power of low- and middle-wage workers such that their real wages severely lag productivity growth. Macroeconomic policies have often added to the forces disempowering the vast majority of workers by tolerating (or causing) unnecessarily high unemployment rates to forestall (often hypothetical) increases in inflation or interest rates."

REPORT: American Workers Have Seen A ‘Lost Decade’ In Wage Growth

REPORT: American Workers Have Seen A ‘Lost Decade’ In Wage Growth:
"policies that have benefited consumers through lower prices – “globalization, deregulation, weaker unions, and lower labor standards such as a weaker minimum wage” – have destroyed the virtuous capitalist cycle in which consumers and workers are both supposed to benefit from greater output."

Militarizing America's Police Forces | Common Dreams

Militarizing America's Police Forces | Common Dreams
"Actually, it is not al-Qaida terrorists that have Concord's police gearing up for war, but, as their request put it, "the domestic type" of terrorists.
Really? Terrorists in Concord? Yes, claim police, referring vaguely to "daily challenges" and warning that the "threat is real and here."

Who are these domestic demons? The police finger two groups. First, Occupy NH. But it's a benign bunch that legitimately protests inequalities in our country, and its only "violence" has been directed at litter, having joined in local litter pickup days. Second, the Free State Project. But it's just a libertarianish outfit trying to convince 20,000 likeminded people to move to New Hampshire and support limited government. How's that for irony?"

The rich, summed up: Nepotism, cronyism, narcissism

The rich, summed up: Nepotism, cronyism, narcissism
"It shouldn’t be a surprise, in other words, that rich people — specifically rich young college-age Americans — exhibit narcissistic tendencies, as a new study says."

The Cayman Islands Agree To Help The U.S. Hunt Down Tax Cheats

The Cayman Islands Agree To Help The U.S. Hunt Down Tax Cheats: The famous tax haven archipelago will aid an American crackdown.

Walmart's Latest Strategy to Replace the Middle Class With an Underclass Forced to Buy its Shortlived, Shoddy Goods | Alternet

Walmart's Latest Strategy to Replace the Middle Class With an Underclass Forced to Buy its Shortlived, Shoddy Goods | Alternet
"Almost 30 years ago, as the U.S. was bleeding jobs, Walmart launched a "Buy America" program and started hanging "Made in America" signs in its 750 stores.  It was a marketing success, cementing the retailer's popularity in the country's struggling, blue-collar heartland.  A few years later, NBC's Datelinerevealed the program to be a sham .  Sure, Walmart was willing to buy U.S.-made goods — so long as they were as cheap as imports, which, of course, they weren't."

PERRspectives: Beware the Red State Suckers!

PERRspectives: Beware the Red State Suckers!
"But if Republicans think things are bad now, just wait until this time next year. As millions of people in states like Texas, Florida and North Carolina see their friends and relatives in places like Oregon, New York and Colorado with health insurance coverage they themselves lack, there could be hell to pay for the GOP obstructionists who played them for suckers."

South Carolina City Approves Plan To Exile Its Homeless

South Carolina City Approves Plan To Exile Its Homeless: A new police plan aims to make homelessness illegal in downtown Columbia, S.C.

Top Ten Protester Signs From North Carolina’s ‘Moral Monday’ On The Road

Top Ten Protester Signs From North Carolina’s ‘Moral Monday’ On The Road: North Carolinians fed up with a raft of new sharply-conservative policies that would hurt the poor, women, minorities, and the environment are expanding their weekly 'Moral Monday' protests to legislators' home districts around the state.

$75 For Ice Cubes? The Absurd Things Rich People Are Blowing Their Cash on | Alternet

$75 For Ice Cubes? The Absurd Things Rich People Are Blowing Their Cash on | Alternet
"A small group of Americans is now sitting on more wealth than they could possibly know what to do with as growing numbers of ordinary families struggle."

How Corporate America Used the Great Recession to Turn Good Jobs Into Bad Ones | Common Dreams

How Corporate America Used the Great Recession to Turn Good Jobs Into Bad Ones | Common Dreams
"Watch closely: I’m about to demystify the sleight-of-hand by which good jobs were transformed into bad jobs, full-time workers with benefits into freelancers with nothing, during the dark days of the Great Recession."

In Vermont, 2,000 People Will Become Homeless Because Of Sequestration

In Vermont, 2,000 People Will Become Homeless Because Of Sequestration: More than 2,000 Vermonters may lose their homes because of sequestration.

How Low Can You Get: The Minimum Wage Scam | Common Dreams

How Low Can You Get: The Minimum Wage Scam | Common Dreams
"You'd think the exceptionally low minimum-wage – $7.25 an hour – would be the shame of a country like the United States that prides itself on its economic leadership. Half of minimum-wage jobs are held by adults over 25 years old, and asking adults to live on $7.25, or $14,500 a year, doesn't leave them with enough to rent an apartment, commute to work, raise a child and participate in society in any meaningful way."

North Carolina Could Be Next To Throw A Wrench Into Paid Sick Leave

North Carolina Could Be Next To Throw A Wrench Into Paid Sick Leave: The governor is expected to sign a bill blocking any requirements that city or county contractors offer paid sick days.

GOP Rep. Joe Heck Catches Hell From Constituent Over ACA Repeal Votes

GOP Rep. Joe Heck Catches Hell From Constituent Over ACA Repeal Votes
"You thought Barry Goldwater was bad? The John Birch Society? Strap in, folks, because it's about to get much, much worse at the hands of those like Rep. Joe Heck who are so willing to bearhug terrible policy in the name of billionaire backing."

How Libertarian-Style Capitalism Killed My Father and My Best Friends | Alternet

How Libertarian-Style Capitalism Killed My Father and My Best Friends | Alternet
"When a nation, like the United States, uses the libertarian way, it allows corporations to send whatever products they want into the marketplace, regardless of how dangerous those products are. The theory is that once people notice how deadly something is, they will stop buying it and the "free-market" will magically correct itself."

“Indescribably insane”: A public school system from hell

“Indescribably insane”: A public school system from hell
"Want to see a public school system in its death throes? Look no further than Philadelphia. There, the school district is facing end times, with teachers, parents and students staring into the abyss created by a state intent on destroying public education."

Nine Term North Carolina Senator Resigns To Fight New Voter Suppression Law

Nine Term North Carolina Senator Resigns To Fight New Voter Suppression Law: In a message posted on her website, former NC State Sen. Ellie Kinnaird (D) wrote that a major focus of her post-legislative work will be “a grass-roots project to make sure everyone in the state has a proper voter ID so that no votes are denied, even though” a recently enacted voter suppression law “is aimed at exactly that – repressing the vote.”

How Billionaire 'Philanthropy' Is Fueling Inequality and Helping To Destroy the Country | Alternet

How Billionaire 'Philanthropy' Is Fueling Inequality and Helping To Destroy the Country | Alternet
"A closer look at how the world’s wealthiest are choosing to give away their money provides clues. While pretending to fix inequality, contemporary philanthropy’s actual role has been to strengthen the arrangements that make gross inequality possible in the first place. It has become a weapon in the class warfare of the 1%, the carrot to win people over to their ideology complementing the stick of political spending to coerce them into the same."

Chris Christie, The 'King Of Hoodwinking'?

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8 Reasons Charles Koch is the Scariest Man in America | Alternet

8 Reasons Charles Koch is the Scariest Man in America | Alternet
"Scary because he  claims "We don't have the power to coerce anybody" while providing massive  funding to organizations that attack public education, social programs, worker salaries, business regulations, and the environment."

Will JP Morgan Crooks Finally See the Inside of a Jail Cell? 7 Things You Need to Know About Banker Arrests | Alternet

Will JP Morgan Crooks Finally See the Inside of a Jail Cell? 7 Things You Need to Know About Banker Arrests | Alternet
"Four years after Wall Street’s malfeasance dealt a telling blow to the economy, and long after tens of billions of dollars have been paid out for banker fraud,  reports say that we’re about to see the first arrests of Wall Street bank employees. What’s more, the suspects work at JPMorgan Chase – a bank which, ironically enough, politicians and pundits insisted was the “good bank” after the financial crisis hit in 2008.

In fact, Chase CEO Jamie Dimon spent years speaking out forcefully against additional bank regulation. (Lately, not so much …)"

What A Transaction Tax Would Do For The Country

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Moral Monday Marches on with Dr. King in Mind | Common Dreams

Moral Monday Marches on with Dr. King in Mind | Common Dreams
"While North Carolina lawmakers have adjourned for the year, the Moral Monday movement marches on, with plans underway to hold rallies across the state this month protesting the legislature's far-right turn."

Detroit Institute Of Arts Fights To Keep Collection

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The War On Voting, Past And Present

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Student Voting Rights Under Fire In North Carolina

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Will Other Red States Follow North Carolina’s Targeting Of Student Voters? | Alternet

Will Other Red States Follow North Carolina’s Targeting Of Student Voters? | Alternet
"Barriers to student voting are nothing new, but these North Carolina attacks are signs of what the GOP wants to do nationally, especially in states where it is the political majority. Its strategy is to complicate voting by slices of society presumed to lean Democratic, whether non-whites, the poor or students."

Libertarian Capitalism Killed My Best Friend...

A WI Democratic Legislator Goes To The ALEC Conference

A WI Democratic Legislator Goes To The ALEC Conference
"This might be the scariest thing I've read in a while. Not that I didn't know what sorts of things ALEC is up to, of course, but damn. They have the equivalent of the space shuttles and we have Flexible Flyers."

GOP Congressman: White Collar Crime on Wall Street Doesn't Exist

GOP Congressman: White Collar Crime on Wall Street Doesn't Exist
"At a town hall meeting in El Dorado Hills, California on Tuesday, a constituent asked McClintock for his “stance on Wall Street criminal practices.” The congressman responded, “Well first of all, for a criminal practice there has to be a gun. It’s pretty simple"."

More Corporations Drop Off ALEC's Conference Brochure

More Corporations Drop Off ALEC's Conference Brochure
"An examination of the promotional brochure for the Chicago meeting of theAmerican Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) reveals that the meeting -- where corporate lobbyists secretly vote as equals with legislators on model bills at ALEC task force meetings -- has fewer corporate sponsors willing to tell the public they bankroll ALEC's operations."

A young person’s guide to Social Security | Economic Policy Institute

A young person’s guide to Social Security | Economic Policy Institute
"Many young people don’t think Social Security will be there for them when they retire. Coupled with the doubt about Social Security’s longevity is a general apathy toward learning its basic functions and how it operates. Young people are uninformed and therefore misinformed. They do not understand how Social Security works, who it affects, and how it fits into their future plans. Yet, Social Security is the nation’s most successful anti-poverty program and it remains a fundamental pillar of the American economy—one that is critical to the long-term economic security of today’s young people. 

Missouri ‘Right-To-Work’ Bill May Be Put In The Hands Of Voters

Missouri ‘Right-To-Work’ Bill May Be Put In The Hands Of Voters:
They cost all workers, union members and otherwise, $1,500 a year in wage losses. They are also linked to less access to health and retirement benefits. Weakening unions through such laws hollows out the middle class. And they can decrease worker safety.

The “Bankization” of America | Common Dreams

The “Bankization” of America | Common Dreams
"The share of our national income which goes to corporate profit is the highest it’s been since they started tracking it in 1929, while the share going to people – as salary and wages – is the lowest. And the percentage of that corporate profit which goes to Wall Street is also the highest on record. We’re becoming a financialized economy. Never before has the manipulation of money counted for so much and the real-world economy of people and consumer goods counted for so little.

And none of it is an accident."

Thank The Financial Sector For Increasing Income Inequality

Thank The Financial Sector For Increasing Income Inequality: It's not just tax policy that's driving inequality.

War On Student Voting Next Step For NC Republicans

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NY Mayoral Candidate Bill de Blasio SHOCKS Media by Talking About Inequality | Alternet

NY Mayoral Candidate Bill de Blasio SHOCKS Media by Talking About Inequality | Alternet
"In the nation's finance capital, a candidate talks about fighting inequality—voters are flocking to him."

Even Many White-Collar Jobs Won’t Pay The Rent

Even Many White-Collar Jobs Won’t Pay The Rent: Being an urban planner or a bank teller won't earn you enough to afford rent in many major cities.

Social Security Is the Only Reason Most Americans Can Afford to Retire | Economic Policy Institute

Social Security Is the Only Reason Most Americans Can Afford to Retire | Economic Policy Institute
"As we celebrate the 78^th birthday of Social Security today, it’s worth noting the vital role the program continues to play in Americans’ retirement security."

PERRspectives: State-Run Exchanges Expand Blue States' Health Care Edge

PERRspectives: State-Run Exchanges Expand Blue States' Health Care Edge
"From the very beginning, one massive irony has loomed over the Obamacare debate. The elephant in the room? Health care is worst where Republicans poll best. From access to care and insurance coverage to the health of their residents, red states generally produce the most dismal rankings. And while Democratic-led states are now embracing the Affordable Care Act to bring new insurance options, lower premiums and improved customer service to blue state denizens, many GOP states are doing almost nothing at all."

No, Lending To Poor People Did Not Cause The Financial Crisis

No, Lending To Poor People Did Not Cause The Financial Crisis: Despite the right-wing narrative, the CRA and expanded access to credit were not behind the crash.

Did You Know the Deficit Is Shrinking? Most Americans Don't, Thanks to Shameless Deficit Hawk Propaganda | Alternet

Did You Know the Deficit Is Shrinking? Most Americans Don't, Thanks to Shameless Deficit Hawk Propaganda | Alternet
"Here are the facts: The U.S. budget deficit has been shrinking at a rapid rate over the last few months. The deficit peaked at 10.2 percent of GDP in 2009, but over the past four quarters, it has shrunk to a mere 4.2 percent of GDP. What’s more, the Congressional Budget Office predictsthat the deficit will fall to 2.1 percent of GDP in 2015.

Why such a disconnect? Unfortunately, disgraceful propaganda has left the public misinformed and confused."

Pension Advance Companies Are Another Scam To Steal Our Future

Pension Advance Companies Are Another Scam To Steal Our Future
"Aggressive marketers are targeting seniors' pensions for their next effort to strip away what little they might have in the way of assets. As if it weren't bad enough that conservatives have found ways to destroy pensions during the working years, now their Wall Street pals are working hard to steal your pension payments after they begin."

Darkness in North Carolina: A Vision of the World the GOP Seeks to Create

Darkness in North Carolina: A Vision of the World the GOP Seeks to Create
"And so, if you want to see what the Republican future will look like, you need look no further than North Carolina. This is what "The 15% Solution" to the GOP problem of rapidly declining popularity among the population as a whole, now being implemented by GOP state governments all over the country, will bring us."

Koch-Funded Franklin Center "Watchdogs" Infiltrate State Capitols

Koch-Funded Franklin Center "Watchdogs" Infiltrate State Capitols
"The Franklin Center does not disclose its funders. But based on a review of the annual IRS filings of foundations that fund groups like Franklin, as of 2011 (the most recent available financial data), 95 percent of the group's funding comes from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. These two related entities are "donor-advised funds" that were spun off by the Philanthropy Roundtable and cloak the identity of donors to right-wing causes across the country. Mother Jones has called the combined Donors funds "the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement." The Franklin Center received the Donors funds' second-largest donation in 2011. Among the most prominent funders of Donors is the Knowledge and Progress Fund, a Charles Koch-run organization, which contributed nearly $8 million from 2005 to 2011."

How I Exposed an Undercover Cop Spying on Peaceful Protestors | Alternet

How I Exposed an Undercover Cop Spying on Peaceful Protestors | Alternet
"she was actually Nicole Rizzi, an undercover cop ordered to secretly spy on peaceful protesters, violate our freedom of speech and assembly, and disregard our right to privacy."

Libertarian Capitalism Killed My Best Friends

Libertarian Capitalism Killed My Best Friends
"But our country is still one big libertarian experiment. And with exploding autism and cancer rates, we'll probably find out in the next generation what's out there right now that people will look back on in 30 years the same way we look back on asbestos today.
Our country needs to seriously reconsider unregulated libertarian capitalism and think about the safety of people, everyday people, as a higher priority than the profits of hustlers and giant corporations."

Repealing Sequestration Would Create 900,000 New Jobs in a Year | Economic Policy Institute

Repealing Sequestration Would Create 900,000 New Jobs in a Year | Economic Policy Institute
"Canceling the automatic, across-the-board spending reductions known as the “sequester” today would have a sizable short-term impact on our economy, according to a recent letter from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to House Budget Committee chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). CBO estimates that canceling sequestration would increase the level of real GDP by $113 billion (0.7 percent) and generate 900,000 new jobs in the third quarter of calendar year 2014; a number akin to 40 percent of the total number of jobs created over the last twelve months."

These States Want Congress To Break Up Big Banks

These States Want Congress To Break Up Big Banks: The states are waking up to the threat Wall Street still poses to the global economy.

Reaganomics: 32 Years of Failed Policy

Wells Fargo Bank: Too Big To Give A Damn

Wells Fargo Bank: Too Big To Give A Damn
"They don't have to be accountable, they don't have to be ethical, and they don't have to give a damn. That's a recipe for an entity that needs to be broken up already. Since they haven't been, now is as good a time as any to begin.

In the meantime, if you have read this far because you're in the middle of a similar nightmare, I have advice for you. Run, don't walk, to the CFPB and file your complaint now. This is the one place where you might actually get clout you don't have on your own. Do not assume the bank is being incompetent or bureaucratic. Assume they are doing their level best to screw you and get an advocate on your side."

What To Do When You No Longer Need Your Slaves?

New Fraud Evidence Shows Trillions Of Dollars In Mortgages Have No Owner

New Fraud Evidence Shows Trillions Of Dollars In Mortgages Have No Owner: Unsealed court records reveal the scope of "robosigning" fraud.

Corporate America's New Profit Center: Put as Many People in Jail as Possible | Alternet

Corporate America's New Profit Center: Put as Many People in Jail as Possible | Alternet
"Turning unemployed Americans into very profitable prisoners is a booming business."

The US Has Lowest Minimum Wage and Most Young People Without Jobs Among Wealthiest Countries

PERRspectives: Meet the Real Death Panelists

PERRspectives: Meet the Real Death Panelists
"Every single Republican Representative and Senator voted against the Affordable Care Act before President Obama signed it into law in March 2010. Since January 2011, House Republicans have voted 40 times to repeal Obamacare. Were they to succeed, the GOP wouldn't just be preventing up to 30 million more people in the U.S. from obtaining health insurance."

Next Fed Head Should Meet the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren Standard | Common Dreams

Next Fed Head Should Meet the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren Standard | Common Dreams
"Senators Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, keep making the right demands and asking the right questions."

Why America's Savage Inequality Is a Danger to Us All | Alternet

Why America's Savage Inequality Is a Danger to Us All | Alternet
"Make no mistake: The savage inequality America is experiencing today is deeply dangerous."

CIA Targeted Noam Chomsky, Documents Reveal | Alternet

CIA Targeted Noam Chomsky, Documents Reveal | Alternet
"Foreign Policy magazine has obtained documents confirming that the Central Intelligence Agency snooped on famed activist and linguist Noam Chomsky."

5 Reasons Congress Should Be Deeply Ashamed About Jobs | Alternet

5 Reasons Congress Should Be Deeply Ashamed About Jobs | Alternet
"Congress' unwavering support of big business donors shows a callous disregard for the needs of the millions of Americans they're supposed to be representing. Here are five of the paralyzing consequences."

It's Time to Do Something When a Corporation Like WalMart Won't Pay a Living Wage: Or Else We All Pay | Alternet

It's Time to Do Something When a Corporation Like WalMart Won't Pay a Living Wage: Or Else We All Pay | Alternet
"A living wage isn’t just something corporations owe their workers, it’s something corporations owe America.

If a corporation won’t pay a living wage, then it shouldn’t have the right to exist. Period. End of story."

Walmart Threatens To Vacate DC Over Living Wage

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