Trans-Pacific Partnership is the answer to the question: How can we make the rich richer?

Dean Baker, Truthout | 28 Oct 2013

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) stands at the top of the Obama administration’s trade agenda. The argument from its supporters is that this agreement is part of the never-ending quest for freer trade. The evidence from what we know of this (still secret) pact is that the TPP has little to do with free trade. It can more accurately be described as a pact designed to increase the wealth and power of crony capitalists.

[snip]

The TPP is about crafting rules that will favor big business at the expense of the rest of the population in both the United States and in other countries. For example, we can expect to see limits on the ability of national and sub-national governments to impose environmental restrictions, such as requirements that companies engaging in fracking disclose the list of chemicals they use. There may also be limits on the extent to which governments can restrict the sale of genetically modified foods, with rules on labeling. And, the TPP may prevent governments from imposing restraints on financial firms that would prevent the sort of abuses that we saw during the run-up of the housing bubble. 

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Park Avenue: money, power and the American dream - Why Poverty?

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

Happy Birthday, Molly Ivins (you were right)

In 1998, the late, brilliant Molly Ivins warned against passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act, predicting that massive financial institutions (like AIG) might take on excessive risk and require taxpayer bailouts:

"Watch the House pass a bad bill. Watch the Senate make it worse. Watch the banking industry dig its own grave. Watch supposedly smart people set up a financial disaster. Can we see President Clinton veto this mess? Veto, Clinton, veto.

"Not since Congress passed the Garn-St. Germain bill in 1981 – the one that deregulated the S&Ls and unleashed a half-a-trillion-dollar disaster, which the taxpayers of this country wound up paying for – has there been a move to match this for pure folly.

"In May, the House passed (by one vote) a bill to eliminate barriers between banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies. This sets up financial holding companies that can offer all three types of services simultaneously. The most obvious risk is that a blunder in the insurance or brokerage end of the business could bring down a bank, putting insured deposits at risk. The taxpayers, of course, then wind up with the tab, as we did with the savings-and-loan mess."

Inside Job [2010 documentary]

Winner of 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature

Inside Job is a 2010 documentary film about the late-2000s financial crisis. The film is described as being about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption". In five parts, the film explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices helped create the financial crisis.
Inside Job Documentary from Splashy on Vimeo.

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.

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Anti-union, pro-fossil fuel forces are the real reason the Post Office is struggling

February 14, 2013

Best-selling author and progressive radio talk show host Thom Hartmann tells Current TV’s John Fugelsang that the U.S. Postal Service is struggling to survive not because of the rise of email and the Internet, but because of a concerted right-wing effort to destroy the USPS.

“As the second -largest employer in the United States, behind Wal-Mart, which is not unionized, they’re the largest union employer in the United States. And ever since 1981, when Ronald Reagan declared war on union workers, the Republican war against unions has been relentless,” Hartmann says.

SOURCE:

Wealth Inequality in America

Published on Nov 20, 2012

Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is.

Paul Krugman explains the keys to our recovery | BillMoyers.com

January 11, 2013
Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argues that saving money is not the path to economic recovery. Instead, he tells Bill, we should put aside our excessive focus on the deficit, try to overcome political recalcitrance, and spend money to put America back to work. Krugman offers specific solutions to not only end what he calls a “vast, unnecessary catastrophe,” but to do it more quickly than some imagine possible. His latest book, End This Depression Now!, is both a warning of the fiscal perils ahead and a prescription to safely avoid them.

FRONTLINE: The Untouchables

FRONTLINE examines why no Wall St. execs have faced fraud charges for the financial crisis

Watch The Untouchables on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Ross Perot in 1992 on NAFTA and the "Giant Sucking Sound"

Bill Moyers: Neil Barofsky’s disappointment with Vikram Pandit and President Obama

October 23, 2012 | Former TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky explains his disappointment with the former Citigroup CEO and the president for failed financial leadership.

Chris Hedges: Hear the 99% roar

Chris Hedges on what he sees as the consequences of an uneven distribution of wealth: destruction, violence and revolt. He tells Piya Chattopadhyay what the Occupy movement should be about and how best to deal with these socioeconomic issues in the public discourse.

Greed and Debt: The true story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital | Rolling Stone

By MATT TAIBBI | rollingstone.com
August 29, 2012

Four years ago, the Mitt Romneys of the world nearly destroyed the global economy with their greed, shortsightedness and – most notably – wildly irresponsible use of debt in pursuit of personal profit. The sight was so disgusting that people everywhere were ready to drop an H-bomb on Lower Manhattan and bayonet the survivors. But today that same insane greed ethos, that same belief in the lunatic pursuit of instant borrowed millions – it's dusted itself off, it's had a shave and a shoeshine, and it's back out there running for president.

Mitt Romney – a man whose own father built cars and nurtured communities, and was one of the old-school industrial anachronisms pushed aside by the new generation's wealth grab – has emerged now to sell this make-nothing, take-everything, screw-everyone ethos to the world. He's Gordon Gekko, but a new and improved version, with better PR – and a bigger goal. A takeover artist all his life, Romney is now trying to take over America itself. And if his own history is any guide, we'll all end up paying for the acquisition.

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Rmoney falls for granny hater Ryan

"So it makes sense, on the surface anyway, that Rmoney would fall for teabagger boner fuel like Ryan. The thing is, as Matt Taibbi (and anyone else actually paying attention to these dimbulbs) correctly sussed a couple years ago, while your average teabagger talks a great game about cutting spending and reducing government, blah blah blah, a great many of them were rather obvious recipients of tha... t eeevil gubmint aid themselves. They're hypocrites -- they just don't like gubmint money that isn't thrown at them, pure and simple. How many of those Rascal-riding geezers down at the (tax-funded) public park didja see burning their Medicare or Social Security cards in protest? Yep, me neither." - Heywood J @ Hammer of The Blogs

Stephen Colbert interviews MSNBC's Chris Hayes, author of the new book 'Twilight of the Elites'

The host of MSNBC’s “Up with Chris Hayes” explains America’s housing bubble, elitism and the difference between educational opportunities and outcomes.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Clinical diagnosis (PCLR) of personality of corporation

Opinions by Dr. Robert D. Hare, Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Peter Drucker.

Paul Krugman's solution to getting fiscal stimulus | PBS News Hour

18 June 2012 Amid a tough economy, economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has probably captured as much attention -- and notoriety -- as anyone else in his field. Part of his Making Sen$e of financial news series, Paul Solman speaks with Krugman whose new book "End This Depression Now" suggests some radical policy-making. -

Watch Krugman's Solution to Fiscal Stimulus? It Involves Aliens on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Ed Schultz and Bernie Sanders discuss the GOP war on the US Postal Service

4 April 2012

Michael D Higgins on the banks bail out

Michael D Higgins TD speaking on the Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Scheme 2008

Bernie Sanders: "Break up the big banks"