740 Park Ave, New York City, is home to some of the wealthiest Americans. Across the Harlem River, 10 minutes to the north, is the other Park Avenue in South Bronx, where more than half the population needs food stamps and children are 20 times more likely to be killed. In the last 30 years, inequality has rocketed in the US -- the American Dream only applies to those with money to lobby politicians for friendly bills on Capitol Hill.
How much inequality is too much? To find out more and get teaching resources linked to the film, go to www.whypoverty.net
Showing posts with label Cronyism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cronyism. Show all posts
Monday, October 21, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
Across America, Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers
Matt Taibbi | RollingStone.com
26 Sept 2013
[Excerpt] This is the third act in an improbable triple-fucking of ordinary people that Wall Street is seeking to pull off as a shocker epilogue to the crisis era. Five years ago this fall, an epidemic of fraud and thievery in the financial-services industry triggered the collapse of our economy. The resultant loss of tax revenue plunged states everywhere into spiraling fiscal crises, and local governments suffered huge losses in their retirement portfolios – remember, these public pension funds were some of the most frequently targeted suckers upon whom Wall Street dumped its fraud-riddled mortgage-backed securities in the pre-crash years.
Today, the same Wall Street crowd that caused the crash is not merely rolling in money again but aggressively counterattacking on the public-relations front. The battle increasingly centers around public funds like state and municipal pensions. This war isn't just about money. Crucially, in ways invisible to most Americans, it's also about blame. In state after state, politicians are following the Rhode Island playbook, using scare tactics and lavishly funded PR campaigns to cast teachers, firefighters and cops – not bankers – as the budget-devouring boogeymen responsible for the mounting fiscal problems of America's states and cities.
READ IT ALL:
26 Sept 2013
[Excerpt] This is the third act in an improbable triple-fucking of ordinary people that Wall Street is seeking to pull off as a shocker epilogue to the crisis era. Five years ago this fall, an epidemic of fraud and thievery in the financial-services industry triggered the collapse of our economy. The resultant loss of tax revenue plunged states everywhere into spiraling fiscal crises, and local governments suffered huge losses in their retirement portfolios – remember, these public pension funds were some of the most frequently targeted suckers upon whom Wall Street dumped its fraud-riddled mortgage-backed securities in the pre-crash years.
Today, the same Wall Street crowd that caused the crash is not merely rolling in money again but aggressively counterattacking on the public-relations front. The battle increasingly centers around public funds like state and municipal pensions. This war isn't just about money. Crucially, in ways invisible to most Americans, it's also about blame. In state after state, politicians are following the Rhode Island playbook, using scare tactics and lavishly funded PR campaigns to cast teachers, firefighters and cops – not bankers – as the budget-devouring boogeymen responsible for the mounting fiscal problems of America's states and cities.
READ IT ALL:
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Mark Leibovich on America's Gilded Capital | Bill Moyers
This
Town by Mark Leibovich is the story of how Washington became an
occupied city, its hold on reality distorted by greed and ambition.
Leibovich pulls no punches, naming names and revealing the city’s
bipartisan lust for power, cash and notoriety.
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
The Top Ten things Black America will have to show for eight years of President Obama — none of them are good
In 2017, it will be routine for US presidents to unilaterally murder with or without announcement of cause anybody, anyplace on the planet within the reach of US drones, special operators and mercenaries.
Bruce A. Dixon | alternet.org
30 April 2013
When Barack Obama leaves the White House in January 2017, what will black America, his earliest and most consistent supporters, have to show for making his political career possible? We'll have the T-shirts and buttons and posters, the souvenirs. That will be the good news. The bad news is what else we'll have... and not.
To hear our black political class tell it, the election of the first black US president was its ultimate achievement to date, a giant step toward fulfillment of a previous generation's insurgent agenda for social transformation. Is that real? Has the career of Barack Hussein Obama really advanced any of the historic goals of the Freedom Movement? Is the question even fair?
With corporate media already speculating about next year's midterm elections, and the presidential contest of 2016, it's entirely appropriate to discuss the president's legacy. And fair is fair --- the black political class doesn't want its meager achievements compared to the agenda of those who fought for our freedom a half century ago, it probably ought to abandon its ceaseless self-promotion as the inheritors of that tradition.
It was the overwhelming black and brown vote, along with the utter, unwavering and uncritical support of African America which made President Obama's career possible. When he leaves office in January 2017, what will be the top ten things we can say black America gained or lost from his two terms in the White House?
READ THE TOP TEN:
Bruce A. Dixon | alternet.org
30 April 2013
When Barack Obama leaves the White House in January 2017, what will black America, his earliest and most consistent supporters, have to show for making his political career possible? We'll have the T-shirts and buttons and posters, the souvenirs. That will be the good news. The bad news is what else we'll have... and not.
To hear our black political class tell it, the election of the first black US president was its ultimate achievement to date, a giant step toward fulfillment of a previous generation's insurgent agenda for social transformation. Is that real? Has the career of Barack Hussein Obama really advanced any of the historic goals of the Freedom Movement? Is the question even fair?
With corporate media already speculating about next year's midterm elections, and the presidential contest of 2016, it's entirely appropriate to discuss the president's legacy. And fair is fair --- the black political class doesn't want its meager achievements compared to the agenda of those who fought for our freedom a half century ago, it probably ought to abandon its ceaseless self-promotion as the inheritors of that tradition.
It was the overwhelming black and brown vote, along with the utter, unwavering and uncritical support of African America which made President Obama's career possible. When he leaves office in January 2017, what will be the top ten things we can say black America gained or lost from his two terms in the White House?
READ THE TOP TEN:
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Health coalition swipes family-planning funds from State of Texas
Federal government bypasses state agency, awards Title X grant to Women’s Health and Family Planning Association of Texas.
Carolyn Jones
25 March 2013
Some family-planning funding in Texas will soon be under new management.
The federal government announced today that it would no longer give a large slice of federal family-planning funds to the state of Texas. Instead, the feds will award the $6.5 million grant to the Women’s Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, a coalition of providers led by Fran Hagerty, to distribute to clinics for birth control, wellness exams, STD screenings and other family-planning services.
The Observer reported in November that the coalition would apply directly to the federal government for the grant—called Title X (Title 10)—one of three federal funding streams that pay for family-planning services in the state.
Before today, the sole grantee for Texas’ Title X funds had been the Texas Department of State Health Services. The health department had in turn distributed the grant money to family planning providers statewide.
But the 2011 Legislature slashed the $111-million family-planning budget by two thirds, causing more than 60 clinics to close. The loss of clinics resulted in the number of Texans receiving services through Title X to drop by 50 percent, according to an annual review by the Texas Department of State Health Services.
The collateral damage wrought by the budget cuts has been widespread. Many of the providers in Hagerty’s coalition had lost state family-planning funds and are struggling to stay open.
READ IT ALL:
Carolyn Jones
25 March 2013
Some family-planning funding in Texas will soon be under new management.
The federal government announced today that it would no longer give a large slice of federal family-planning funds to the state of Texas. Instead, the feds will award the $6.5 million grant to the Women’s Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, a coalition of providers led by Fran Hagerty, to distribute to clinics for birth control, wellness exams, STD screenings and other family-planning services.
The Observer reported in November that the coalition would apply directly to the federal government for the grant—called Title X (Title 10)—one of three federal funding streams that pay for family-planning services in the state.
Before today, the sole grantee for Texas’ Title X funds had been the Texas Department of State Health Services. The health department had in turn distributed the grant money to family planning providers statewide.
But the 2011 Legislature slashed the $111-million family-planning budget by two thirds, causing more than 60 clinics to close. The loss of clinics resulted in the number of Texans receiving services through Title X to drop by 50 percent, according to an annual review by the Texas Department of State Health Services.
The collateral damage wrought by the budget cuts has been widespread. Many of the providers in Hagerty’s coalition had lost state family-planning funds and are struggling to stay open.
READ IT ALL:
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Rick Perry's $487 million corporate slush fund doesn't need your stinkin' audit
The Texas governor doesn't agree that his corporate-handout
fund needs an audit—because he and two other GOP pols already monitor
it.
Dana Liebelson | Mother Jones
20 March 2013
snip
Perry maintains that the fund gives Texas a competitive edge and has brought more than 56,000 new jobs to the state and generated more than $14.7 billion in capital investment. But the watchdog group Texans for Public Justice found that by the end of 2010, companies getting cash from the fund were only creating about 37 percent of the number of jobs promised. The administration has lowered standards in the past so that companies could create fewer jobs than they had promised, and it has canceled contracts after criticism over companies such as Bank of America's Countrywide, which continued to be an Enterprise grantee as it collapsed and laid off thousands of workers nationwide.
snip
"Perry's office is basically accommodating a process by which taxpayer money is transferred to corporations, not invested in state infrastructure," says Matt Angle, the director of the Lone Star Project, a political action committee devoted to strategic communications and research for Democrats. He would like to see Enterprise funds start going to education, family planning, and roads. (In 2011, Perry cut $5.4 billion in state funding from public schools, and he is turning down $100 billion to expand Medicaid while also shuttering 53 family planning clinics.)"
READ IT ALL:
Dana Liebelson | Mother Jones
20 March 2013
snip
Perry maintains that the fund gives Texas a competitive edge and has brought more than 56,000 new jobs to the state and generated more than $14.7 billion in capital investment. But the watchdog group Texans for Public Justice found that by the end of 2010, companies getting cash from the fund were only creating about 37 percent of the number of jobs promised. The administration has lowered standards in the past so that companies could create fewer jobs than they had promised, and it has canceled contracts after criticism over companies such as Bank of America's Countrywide, which continued to be an Enterprise grantee as it collapsed and laid off thousands of workers nationwide.
snip
"Perry's office is basically accommodating a process by which taxpayer money is transferred to corporations, not invested in state infrastructure," says Matt Angle, the director of the Lone Star Project, a political action committee devoted to strategic communications and research for Democrats. He would like to see Enterprise funds start going to education, family planning, and roads. (In 2011, Perry cut $5.4 billion in state funding from public schools, and he is turning down $100 billion to expand Medicaid while also shuttering 53 family planning clinics.)"
READ IT ALL:
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Rick Perry shows his love for corporate welfare queens
Libby Shaw | Texas Kaos
11 Feb 2013
Now that we know the Governor's political appointees have turned the state's taxpayer funded cancer prevention institute (CPRIT) into a cash cow for themselves and their cronies in the medical and pharmaceutical fields, state legislators want to take a hard look at two of Rick Perry's pet projects. This is especially necessary now that CPRIT is under criminal investigation.
These funds would be none other than the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Emerging Technology Fund. These funds were created as a means by which to attract businesses to the state as well as to advance various technologies here.
But both have been shrouded in secrecy with little oversight or accountability. Since the Governor controls these funds and knowing what we know about CPRIT, one has to wonder if their prime motive is to merely serve as corporate welfare programs or as slush funds from which Rick Perry can reward his campaign donors.
READ IT ALL:
11 Feb 2013
Now that we know the Governor's political appointees have turned the state's taxpayer funded cancer prevention institute (CPRIT) into a cash cow for themselves and their cronies in the medical and pharmaceutical fields, state legislators want to take a hard look at two of Rick Perry's pet projects. This is especially necessary now that CPRIT is under criminal investigation.
These funds would be none other than the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Emerging Technology Fund. These funds were created as a means by which to attract businesses to the state as well as to advance various technologies here.
But both have been shrouded in secrecy with little oversight or accountability. Since the Governor controls these funds and knowing what we know about CPRIT, one has to wonder if their prime motive is to merely serve as corporate welfare programs or as slush funds from which Rick Perry can reward his campaign donors.
READ IT ALL:
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