Keith Olbermann: Taking Back Governance From Politicians: 1 August 2011

The Demand Is A Process: by Jaisal Noor and Nathan Schneider

Countdown with Keith Olbermann - 9-23-11 – Worst Persons

The men who crashed the world - Meltdown - Al Jazeera English

The first of a four-part investigation into a world of greed and recklessness that led to financial collapse.

In the first episode of Meltdown, we hear about four men who brought down the global economy: a billionaire mortgage-seller who fooled millions; a high-rolling banker with a fatal weakness; a ferocious Wall Street predator; and the power behind the throne.

The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. Wall Street turned back the clock to 1929.

But how did it all go so wrong?

Lack of government regulation; easy lending in the US housing market meant anyone could qualify for a home loan with no government regulations in place.

Also, London was competing with New York as the banking capital of the world. Gordon Brown, the British finance minister at the time, introduced 'light touch regulation' - giving bankers a free hand in the marketplace.

All this, and with key players making the wrong financial decisions, saw the world's biggest financial collapse

Watch the video here.

Elizabeth Warren on Debt Crisis, Fair Taxation

Elizabeth Warren on Debt Crisis, Fair Taxation

“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever,’” Warren said. “No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody.

“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

“Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

Keith Olbermann slams media blackout of #OccupyWallStreet and the teabagger double standard

Don't mess with the steel workers...

Reich Debunks 6 Big GOP Lies About The Economy

This was the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.

Republicans Get an earful on Social Security and Medicare cuts at town hall meetings

JFK on the Separation of Church and State

The Daily Show | World of Class Warfare: Warren Buffet vs. Wealthy Conservatives

The Daily Show
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Rick Perry attempts to bully a Texas DPS officer

Rick Perry whistles Dixie

Dylan Ratigan's epic rant on the international banking cartel thieves and political corruption

Molly Ivins: Working for the NY Times, death of the Dallas Times-Herald

Fault Lines: The Top 1%

The richest 1% of US Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country's income and control an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it's been in almost a century — and the gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years.

Meanwhile, in Washington, a bitter partisan debate over how to cut deficit spending and reduce the US' 14.3 trillion dollar debt is underway. As low and middle class wages stagnate and unemployment remains above 9%, Republicans and Democrats are tussling over whether to slash funding for the medical and retirement programs that are the backbone of the US's social safety net, and whether to raise taxes — or to cut them further.

The budget debate and the economy are the battleground on which the 2012 presidential election race will be fought. And the United States has never seemed so divided — both politically and economically.

How did the gap grow so wide, and so quickly? And how are the convictions, campaign contributions and charitable donations of the top 1% impacting the other 99% of Americans? Fault Lines investigates the gap between the rich and the rest.

This episode of Fault Lines first aired on Al Jazeera English on August 2, 2011.

Moon volcanoes and global warming

Bill Nye-the-Science-Guy explains to some dimwit wingnut on Fox News that moon volcanoes are not part of global climate change. But the priceless moment is the look and pause that Bill Nye gives this low-watt bulb right after he is asked about global warming from moon volcanoes.

New Balance struggles as last major athletic shoe brand still manufacturing in U.S.

By Peter Whoriskey | Washington Post
28 July 2011

NORRIDGEWOCK, Maine — At the factory here owned by New Balance, the last major athletic shoe brand to manufacture footwear in the United States, even workers on the shop floor recognize that in purely economic terms, the operation doesn’t make sense.

The company could make far more money if, like Nike and Adidas, it shifted virtually all of these jobs to low-wage countries.

Negotiations between the United States, Vietnam and other countries for a free trade agreement, which would lower the price of imported shoes by removing the existing tariff, have workers at the New Balance factory in Maine worried for the security of their jobs.

Negotiations between the United States, Vietnam and other countries for a free trade agreement, which would lower the price of imported shoes by removing the existing tariff, have workers at the New Balance factory in Maine worried for the security of their jobs.

So employees try working each shift to make it up. Conversations on the shop floor are sparse at best, and the tasks at each work station have been stripped of waste and precisely timed. Workers cut leather for a pair of shoes in 88 seconds, handle precise stitching in 37 seconds and glue soles to uppers even faster.

“The company already could make more money by going overseas, and they know it,” said Scott Boulette, 35, a burly team leader who has his son’s name tattooed in Gothic letters down his left forearm. “So we hustle.”

Now, however, comes what may be an insurmountable challenge. The Obama administration is negotiating a free-trade agreement with Vietnam and seven other countries, and it is unclear whether the plant can stand up to a flood of shoes from that country, already one of the leading exporters of footwear to the United States.

Read it here:

"... the common clay..."