Here's Part Of Mayor Bloomberg's Legacy

This is it, in a nutshell:

The city's poverty rate sat at 21.4% in 2012, barely unchanged from a year earlier, according to a report released by Mayor de Blasio's office and the Center for Economic Opportunity on Wednesday.
The rate increased across nearly every demographic group between 2008 and 2012, the report found.
Notably, New Yorkers of Asian descent saw the rate rise 6.6% to 29% and non-U.S. citizens experienced an increase of 5.3% to 29.9%. About a third of the city's Asian-descent residents are also non-citizens.

Eight percent of adults between the working ages of 18 and 64 lived in poverty in 2012, up 1.8% from 2008. Among families with two full-time workers, the rate increased by 1.3 percentage points to 5.2%.

Conditions in the city improved after the 2008 recession, but -- using the CEO's metrics -- 45.6% of New Yorkers continued to live near the poverty line in 2012, the report says. The standard federal measure set the rate at 30.7%.

Almost half of all New Yorkers live either in poverty or near-poverty.

You know whose fault that is?

Teachers, that's who!

If more of these lazy, pension-sucking, tenure-loving, test-hating teachers could just be fired, and more failing schools closed, we could address this poverty issue and - oh, wait, no, that's not actually right.

You see, middle class jobs have disappeared at an alarming rate over the past decade and they aren't coming back.

As Gothamist noted:

New York's reality mirrors what the country is experiencing. Per another report on the meager wage job boom in the Times:

The National Employment Law Project study found that there were about a million fewer jobs in middle-wage industries — including parts of the health care system, loan servicing and real estate — than there were when the recession hit. 

Economists worry that even a stronger recovery might not bring back jobs in traditionally middle-class occupations eroded by mechanization and offshoring. The American work force might become yet more “polarized,” with positions easier to find at the high and low ends than in the middle.

Now you can blame schools and teachers for this mess, as Mayor Bloomberg and so many of the education reformers like to do, but the truth is, the plutocrats running things (including Bloomberg himself) are sucking up more and more of the economy, they're paying less and less in taxes, and even when they engage in so-called "philanthropy" to "help others," it's more often than not a way to a) lower their tax bills and b) make money for other parts of their conglomerates.

That's why Bloomber is worth five times as much now as when he became mayor, it's why Bill Gates has more money than he ever has even as he claims he wants to give most of his fortune away in philanthropy.

It's one big racket, folks, and it's rigged for plutocrats.

You can blame teachers and schools, government workers and pensions or whatever, but the truth is, the economy and government policy are now rigged for the 1% and that ain't changing unless people take to the streets and make it change.

NYCDOE Chancellor Announcement Not Coming This Week - But De Blasio Did Appoint Former Goldman Sachs Employee To Administration Post

De Blasio: "Very likely" to announce Chancellor next week. "There will be some interim leadership... until new chancellor fully on board"
— Beth Fertig (@bethfertig) December 23, 2013

No chancellor announcement, but de Blasio did appoint a former employee of Goldman Sachs, the Vampire Squid of Wall Street, as a deputy mayor for urban affairs:

For all his campaign bluster against the two cities New York has become, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio isn't exactly shying away from some of the people who helped make it that way. This morning, the mayor-elect announced that Alicia Glen will serve as Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, a newly created position that will aim to make housing more affordable, as well create living-wage jobs for New Yorkers.

"We need to invest in key emerging industries and affordable housing so New Yorkers have a better shot at working their way into the middle class. Alicia has the record, fresh ideas and bold outlook to make that vision a reality,” said de Blasio at this morning's press conference.

De Blasio discussed Glen's vast experience, but mostly skirted the topic of Glen's last position, as the head of Goldman Sachs's Urban Investment Group.

While at Goldman, Glen worked with the Bloomberg administration on the public-private partnerships that Bloomberg championed throughout his reign. In her speech this morning, Glen told the crowd that "we can’t remain the greatest city in the world when half of New Yorkers are living in or near poverty. We can do so much more to lift people up by investing in our neighborhoods—especially in the outer boroughs."

Here is a description of one high profile piece of Alicia Glen's previous work at Goldman:

Goldman Sachs is making its second foray into an experimental method of financing social services, lending up to $4.6 million for a childhood education program in Salt Lake City.

This “social impact bond,” in which Goldman stands to make money if the program is successful but will lose its investment if it fails, will support a preschool program intended to reduce the need for special education and remedial services. The upshot, in theory, is that taxpayers will not have to bear the upfront cost of the program.

Goldman is being joined in this effort by the Chicago investor J.B. Pritzker, who is providing a subordinate loan of up to $2.4 million, bringing the total financing to $7 million. The loans will be announced at an event in Chicago on Thursday.

“Social impact bonds are an entirely new way of financing things that have traditionally been paid for either through philanthropy or by taxpayer dollars,” said Alicia Glen, head of Goldman’s urban investment group.

Though the effectiveness of this type of financing remains unproved, it has gained a prominent adherent in New York City, which allowed Goldman to invest nearly $10 million in a jail program last year. The city was the first in the United States to test social impact bonds.

For Goldman, which could gain a public-relations benefit from the investment, Salt Lake City has become an important business center. The city is home to Goldman’s second-largest office in the United States, and the Wall Street firm held its annual meeting there in May.

The loans are going to the United Way of Salt Lake, which oversees the Utah High Quality Preschool Program. The investment’s success will be measured by the level of cost savings when children do not need to use special education services, which are financed by the state.

The loans carry an interest rate of 5 percent, which is paid along with the principal if the program is successful. In the best case, Goldman and Mr. Pritzker would make additional “success fees.”

“We’re creating something sustainable that has a focus on returns,” Mr. Pritzker said. “This titillates my interest in business and engages me.”

This type of financing, which was first used in Britain in 2010, has raised eyebrows. Data on the New York investment, focused on men incarcerated at Rikers Island, is not yet available.

“I think it’s distressing the degree to which a new industry has been built around social impact bonds before it’s ever been proven viable,” said Mark Rosenman, a professor emeritus at Union Institute and University in Cincinnati. “We ought to work it to fruition in a couple places before we start promoting it.”

Ah yes - creating financial instruments so that Goldman can makes bets on students who need support services, giving the program the incentive to find ways to "demonstrate" the children do not need these services.

Boy, that sounds like there could be no down side there.

And who helped come up with this new scheme but Alicia Glen, Bill de Blasio's new Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but it sounds to me like de Blasio just appointed the scum of the earth to be a deputy mayor.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Republican Congressman Wants Poor School Children To Sweep Floors For Food

This country is becoming more Dickensian by the day:

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) proposed that "low-income children do some manual labor in exchange for their subsidized meals," the Huffington Post reports.

Said Kingston: "Why don't you have the kids pay a dime, pay a nickel to instill in them that there is, in fact, no such thing as a free lunch? Or maybe sweep the floor of the cafeteria -- and yes, I understand that that would be an administrative problem, and I understand that it would probably lose you money. But think what we would gain as a society in getting people -- getting the myth out of their head that there is such a thing as a free lunch."

Great idea, Congressman. 

And you're so right that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

There is, however, such a thing as free airport parking, among the other perks - for a congressman, at any rate:

In addition to the power to shape policy and public discourse, legislators get great health care and retirement benefits, hefty salaries with annual cost of living increases and the incumbency-boosting ability to blanket constituents with mail touting their achievements.

But there are many less-publicized perks that come along with the job. Here are a few to keep in mind the next time you hear politicians refer to themselves as “public servants.”

Members of Congress have long been treated as a class apart at the Capitol.

For years there were members-only parking spaces, elevators, dining rooms and exercise facilities to which all legislators — past and present — enjoyed lifetime access. Former lawmakers could also return to the floor of the House or Senate whenever they liked.

In the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, access to these privileged places was curtailed in 2006 for ex-members of Congress who registered as lobbyists.

...

Lawmakers’ perks aren’t limited to the legislature. Airports and airlines — the profits of which can be heavily impacted by decisions made on the Hill — also pamper politicians.

Staff schedulers often times make reservations for members of Congress via dedicated phone lines that Delta and other major airlines have reportedly set up for Capitol Hill customers. Airlines also permit members to reserve seats on multiple flights but only pay for the trips they take. “We get on every single flight,” one congressional aide familiar with the process told Roll Call last month.

Whenever lawmakers decide to show up for a flight, they are also guaranteed free parking at the two Washington-area airports, according to a spokesman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. At Reagan National, 89 spaces out of 8,000 are reserved for members of Congress, diplomats and Supreme Court justices; at Dulles International, 97 of 25,000 are set aside.

Former Rep. Tom Davis, R – Va., defended the airport amities in a 2007 interview with WTOP. “Members like to get out of town and get back with their constituents,” he said. “If you make it hard for members to move back and forth from their districts, then the people are going to say, ‘Where are you? Why aren’t you back here?’”

Free airport parking, free Capitol parking, access to the Congressional dining room, with it's subsidized meals, as well as subsidized daycare and free postage for mail - yeah, you're so right, Congressman Kingston. 

There is no free lunch in this world.

Unless you're a functionary of the corporatist state - like a congressman.

Bloomberg Says Municipal Worker Benefits Biggest Threat Facing The Country

I know, I know, sounds like another one of those lame parodies I occasionally do.

But it's really not a parody - Bloomberg actually said it:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg today took aim at the city’s rising pension and health costs, calling what he dubbed the “labor-electoral complex” the most pressing threat to New York in the final major speech as mayor.

Speaking in a grand ballroom in front of members of the Economic Club of New York, Mr. Bloomberg said that exploding health and pension benefits for municipal workers threatened to undermine the city’s progress and urged his successor, Bill de Blasio, to push through reforms.

“Right now our country appears to be in the early stages of a growing fiscal crisis that, if nothing is done, will extract a terrible toll on the next generation,” said Mr. Bloomberg. “It is one of the biggest threats facing cities because it is forcing government into a fiscal straight jacket that severely limits its ability to provide an effective social safety net and to invest in the next generation.”

“The costs of today’s benefits cannot be sustained for another generation–not without inflicting real harm on our citizens, on our children and our grandchildren,” he added.

Bloomberg tried to channel Dwight Eisenhower by dubbing municipal workers the "labor-electoral complex":

 “More and more mayors and governors in both political parties are asking across the country, which is the first real sign of a crack in the ‘labor-electoral complex’ that has traditionally stymied reform,” he said, dubbing a term aides said was a reference to President Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address, in which the ex-president warned of the “military-industrial complex.”

...

“I think it’s no secret that elected officials have a tendency to make decisions based on short-term political rewards, rather than long-term economic gains,” he said. “We cannot afford for our elected officials to put their own futures ahead of the next generation’s and to continue perpetuating a labor-electoral complex that is undermining our collective future.”

“We need them to look ahead and to address the needs of tomorrow instead of being prisoners to the labor contracts of yesteryear. Simply put, our pension and health care system must be modernized to be sustained,” he added, vowing to continue to work on the issue after he leaves office.

De Blasio responded to the speech, which was clearly aimed at him, by pointing out the reason the city has a "crisis" is because Bloomberg allowed every labor contract to expire so that they all have to be negotiated at the same time:

“Um, I can’t help but not that we are starting today’s discussion with an acknowledgment of the fact that every labor contract is open in New York City, that’s never happened before, that no previous mayor ever let that happen … So I would caution, as much as I appreciate Mayor Bloomberg’s advice, I would caution that one should be careful about giving advice from that perspective,” he told reporters at an unrelated press conference scheduled shortly after Mr. Bloomberg’s.

John Nichols of The Nation responded to Bloomberg's speech this way on the Twitter:

Michael Bloomberg finishes mayoralty by griping about "unsustainable" public-employee pensions. Good thing NYC has a new mayor. @thenation
— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) December 18, 2013

Bloomberg yesterday said that NYC is the best place to be homeless and today dubbed the "labor-electoral complex" the biggest threat facing the country today.

Apparently Wall Street running as one big casino for the financial sector doesn't rank high on his list of problems facing the country, even though they nearly brought down the economy in 2008-09 and may still do it in the future since nothing much changed post-Great Recession.

Bloomberg's totally out of touch, an arrogant billionaire who thinks about nothing other than how to make members of his class wealthier and aggrandize his own ego while sticking it to middle and working class people.

Mayor Bloomberg Plans On Bringing NYC's Homeless Problem To The Rest Of The World

Mayor Bloomberg, fresh from arguing that there's no place as good as NYC to be homeless and down on your luck, brags that the consulting firm he has put together to help governments around the world make their income inequality problems as bad as NYC's is very much in demand:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, burnishing his legacy in all five boroughs this week as he prepares to leave office, shed a sliver of light today on the new consulting firm he’s planning to found once he leaves office, aimed at helping cities across the world.


Mr. Bloomberg, who was in Brooklyn to herald the opening of a new ice skating center in Prospect Park, told reporters that many other cities want to replicate the “wonderful things” New York has accomplished in his tenure.

“We’ve got enormous demand and we’ve had for years now from other cities around the world, not just around the country of, ‘How do you do these wonderful things?’” Mr. Bloomberg said. “We are, no matter we may whip ourselves, but we are the poster child for most of the good things that have happened in big cities.”

And what are some of those good things he's brought to NYC that he now wants to bring to the rest of the world?

Why despair, hopelessness and abject poverty of course!

Wonkette has the story:

So we have all read the New York Times story about homelessness in New York, yes? And we have all cried for the smart, tough little girl named Dasani, who lives in a “520-square-foot room with her parents and seven siblings” in a most wretched shelter, where life is most wretched, and we have all said, “Goddamn, this is unacceptable and something must be done.” Yes?

No. Apparently, some of us think, ‘Meh, that’s just God for ya.’ Some of us who happen to be bazillionaires and soon-to-be-ex-mayors of New York.

Asked today if he was similarly moved by the story, current Mayor Michael Bloomberg told Politicker he’d had a different reaction.

While calling her life story “really quite extraordinary,” Mr. Bloomberg insisted Dasani’s situation was not representative of the city’s broader homeless population. 

Well, actually, Mr. Mayor, the point of the story is that actually, Dasani is not “really quite extraordinary.”

Yet Dasani is among 280 children at the shelter. Beyond its walls, she belongs to a vast and invisible tribe of more than 22,000 homeless children in New York, the highest number since the Great Depression, in the most unequal metropolis in America. 

But hey, don’t blame the city or its mayor for that. Nope, blame God.

“This kid was dealt a bad hand. I don’t know quite why. That’s just the way God works. Sometimes some of us are lucky and some of us are not,” he said. 

Yes, God sure does work in mysterious ways, arbitrarily dealing bad hands like that. Sometimes he hands out lots of money, like to Mayor Bloomberg, who is just lucky that way, and sometimes he does not. Shrug, we guess. Whatcha gonna do? Hey, maybe you can fight the scourge of extra-large sodas! Sure, God invented the Big Gulp, but that’s, like, a Serious Problem, the kind of problem that a mayor should do his very best to do something about. Unlike homeless children living in filth and squalor and where guards sexually assault their moms, because that’s just bad luck. Sorry, Dasani and the thousands of children like you, but if you wanted to be not poor and homeless in one of the wealthiest cities in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, you should have asked God for better luck.

Yeah, NYC surely is the poster child for most of the good things that have happened in big cities and I'm sure many other cities can't wait to have Bloomberg and his consultant group bring them what he's brought to NYC.

Disgrace In Illinois

RT @twilight2000: Why would anyone work for any state gov't if they can steal the pension you worked for for 30 years? #PensionTheft
— RayBeckerman (@RayBeckerman) December 3, 2013

And

Let the lawyering begin. Illinois #PensionTheft is against our state constitution @GovernorQuinn.
— Michelle Gunderson (@MSGunderson) December 3, 2013

The corporatists will stop at nothing to feudalize every part of human existence.

They want it all and they won't stop until they get it.

What The Common Core/Danielson Rubric Has Been Devised To Produce

“The most deadly criticism one could make of modern civilization is that apart from its man-made crises and catastrophes, is not humanly interesting. . . . In the end, such a civilization can produce only a mass man: incapable of spontaneous, self-directed activities: at best patient, docile, disciplined to monotonous work to an almost pathetic degree. . . . Ultimately such a society produces only two groups of men: the conditioners and the conditioned, the active and passive barbarians.” —Lewis Mumford, 1951

This statement is taken from a larger piece on mental illness and the dehumanization of American society in Salon.

I couldn't help but think of the Common Core/Danielson juggernaut as I read this piece:

Underlying many of psychiatry’s nearly 400 diagnoses is the experience of helplessness, hopelessness, passivity, boredom, fear, isolation, and dehumanization—culminating in a loss of autonomy and community-connectedness. Do our societal institutions promote:

• Enthusiasm—or passivity?
• Respectful personal relationships—or manipulative impersonal ones?
• Community, trust, and confidence—or isolation, fear and paranoia?
• Empowerment—or helplessness?
• Autonomy (self-direction)—or heteronomy (institutional-direction)?
• Participatory democracy—or authoritarian hierarchies?
• Diversity and stimulation—or homogeneity and boredom?

Gee, a standardized curriculum tied to regular standardized tests all the year through tied to standardized evaluations of teachers so that nobody deviates from the status quo curricula - that should address all these problems people are facing that are making them feel helpless, hopeless, passive, bored, fearful, isolated, and dehumanized.

Yeah, not so much actually.

But of course the intent of the Common Core and Danielson and education reform and charter schools has always been about beating the humanity and individuality out of people, sterilizing the education experience even more than it already is, and churning out good little workers disciplined enough to follow orders and compliant consumers hungry to fill their starving souls with material goods.

But the more the powers that be try and control people, the worse things become:

The reality is that with enough helplessness, hopelessness, passivity, boredom, fear, isolation, and dehumanization, we rebel and refuse to comply. Some of us rebel by becoming inattentive. Others become aggressive. In large numbers we eat, drink and gamble too much. Still others become addicted to drugs, illicit and prescription. Millions work slavishly at dissatisfying jobs, become depressed and passive aggressive, while no small number of us can’t cut it and become homeless and appear crazy. Feeling misunderstood and uncared about, millions of us ultimately rebel against societal demands, however, given our wherewithal, our rebellions are often passive and disorganized, and routinely futile and self-destructive.

And so, they drug us - sometimes literally, with Big Pharma's "wonder drugs" that actually make many conditions worse in the long run, or sometimes figuratively, with the lies and half-truths they feed us in the media and in school.

How many more passive barbarians will be mass produced through President Obama's Race to the Top education reform system?

How many more children will grow up to lose their sense of wonder, their idealism, their creativity, their very souls to an education system that values only what can be "quantified."

The Salon article notes the following:

How engaged are we with our schooling? Another Gallup poll “The School Cliff: Student Engagement Drops With Each School Year” (released in January 2013), reported that the longer students stay in school, the less engaged they become. The poll surveyed nearly 500,000 students in 37 states in 2012, and found nearly 80% of elementary students reported being engaged with school, but by high school, only 40% reported being engaged. As the pollsters point out, “If we were doing right by our students and our future, these numbers would be the absolute opposite. For each year a student progresses in school, they should be more engaged, not less.”

Our education system should be helping to develop creative, idealistic, soulful people full of wonder, people full of empathy who can interact with others and feel a part of a larger community.

Instead we churn out fearful, selfish drones, isolated from community, stunted in creativity, bored beyond reason.

Clearly our education system is doing something wrong - unless those are the kinds of people you want to churn out.

And of course that is exactly the kind of people the people who own us want to churn out - good little workers disciplined enough to follow orders and compliant consumers hungry to fill their starving souls with material goods.

No wonder non-compliance scares our owners so much.

Remember how they handled Occupy?

Nothing scares the men who own us more then a bunch of people getting together to talk about how badly they're getting screwed by the system.

No wonder they're spying on us.

No wonder they're taking away the commons.

No wonder they're paramilitarizing the police forces in every city.

Anything to prop up the status quo and make sure people stay isolated and fearful.

And now Charlotte Danielson and the Common Core are two more "tools" in their control toolbox.

It's all about forcing compliance and maintaining control.

So glad my union leaders at the AFT, the UFT and the NYSUT are on board with the latest control mechanisms.

Anything to prop up the status quo.

Why Gates, Buffett and So Many Other "Philanthropic Givers" Are Part Of The Problem

From Peter Buffett, son of Warren Buffett:

The Charitable-Industrial Complex

By PETER BUFFETT

I HAD spent much of my life writing music for commercials, film and television and knew little about the world of philanthropy as practiced by the very wealthy until what I call the big bang happened in 2006. That year, my father, Warren Buffett, made good on his commitment to give nearly all of his accumulated wealth back to society. In addition to making several large donations, he added generously to the three foundations that my parents had created years earlier, one for each of their children to run. 

Early on in our philanthropic journey, my wife and I became aware of something I started to call Philanthropic Colonialism. I noticed that a donor had the urge to “save the day” in some fashion. People (including me) who had very little knowledge of a particular place would think that they could solve a local problem. Whether it involved farming methods, education practices, job training or business development, over and over I would hear people discuss transplanting what worked in one setting directly into another with little regard for culture, geography or societal norms. 

Often the results of our decisions had unintended consequences; distributing condoms to stop the spread of AIDS in a brothel area ended up creating a higher price for unprotected sex. 

But now I think something even more damaging is going on. 

Because of who my father is, I’ve been able to occupy some seats I never expected to sit in. Inside any important philanthropy meeting, you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left. There are plenty of statistics that tell us that inequality is continually rising. At the same time, according to the Urban Institute, the nonprofit sector has been steadily growing. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of nonprofits increased 25 percent. Their growth rate now exceeds that of both the business and government sectors. It’s a massive business, with approximately $316 billion given away in 2012 in the United States alone and more than 9.4 million employed. 

Philanthropy has become the “it” vehicle to level the playing field and has generated a growing number of gatherings, workshops and affinity groups. 

As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity. 

But this just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place. The rich sleep better at night, while others get just enough to keep the pot from boiling over. Nearly every time someone feels better by doing good, on the other side of the world (or street), someone else is further locked into a system that will not allow the true flourishing of his or her nature or the opportunity to live a joyful and fulfilled life. 

And with more business-minded folks getting into the act, business principles are trumpeted as an important element to add to the philanthropic sector. I now hear people ask, “what’s the R.O.I.?” when it comes to alleviating human suffering, as if return on investment were the only measure of success. Microlending and financial literacy (now I’m going to upset people who are wonderful folks and a few dear friends) — what is this really about? People will certainly learn how to integrate into our system of debt and repayment with interest. People will rise above making $2 a day to enter our world of goods and services so they can buy more. But doesn’t all this just feed the beast? 

I’m really not calling for an end to capitalism; I’m calling for humanism. 

Often I hear people say, “if only they had what we have” (clean water, access to health products and free markets, better education, safer living conditions). Yes, these are all important. But no “charitable” (I hate that word) intervention can solve any of these issues. It can only kick the can down the road. 

My wife and I know we don’t have the answers, but we do know how to listen. As we learn, we will continue to support conditions for systemic change.  

It’s time for a new operating system. Not a 2.0 or a 3.0, but something built from the ground up. New code. 

What we have is a crisis of imagination. Albert Einstein said that you cannot solve a problem with the same mind-set that created it. Foundation dollars should be the best “risk capital” out there. 

There are people working hard at showing examples of other ways to live in a functioning society that truly creates greater prosperity for all (and I don’t mean more people getting to have more stuff). 

Money should be spent trying out concepts that shatter current structures and systems that have turned much of the world into one vast market. Is progress really Wi-Fi on every street corner? No. It’s when no 13-year-old girl on the planet gets sold for sex. But as long as most folks are patting themselves on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got a perpetual poverty machine. 

It’s an old story; we really need a new one. 

Peter Buffett is a composer and a chairman of the NoVo Foundation.

I doubt Bill Gates would hear any of this, but he really is one of those people who allegedly is out to "solve" problems he has helped create.

Take poverty in Asia.

His wife, Melinda, did a three part Q & A series for the NY Times with suck up journalist Nick Kristof about alleviating poverty in Asia a few years back.

While hosting the Q & A, not once did Kristof ever ask how Melinda can talk about alleviating poverty in Asia with a straight face when her husband's company employs slave labor to make it's products in Asia, thus helping to cause poverty in Asia.

It's as if this contradiction didn't exist for either Melinda Gates or Nick Kristof as they breathlessly talked about bringing free market solutions to Asia to solve all the problems there.

So it's good to see Peter Buffett put the idea out there into the NY Times that all this philanthropy does not really solve anything.

I doubt the people its aimed at - the oligarchical/philanthropic class - will hear it or understand it.

But it's good to see it there in any case.

The Brazilification Of The United States

From Lloyd Green:

Five years into the Obama presidency, we are further from the Great Recession but also closer to a new normal—economic dystopia.

Yes, the unemployment rate has edged down to 7.6 percent, but America is well on its way to becoming a nation of part-timers and full-time temps. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of  involuntary part-time workers rose by 322,000 to 8.2 million in June, while the ranks of temporary-help services employees have swelled to a record 2.68 million. Meanwhile, the employment-population ratio, the percentage of adult Americans who hold a job, has dropped nearly 2 percent to 58.7 percent since Barack Obama took office.

Remarkably, both political parties are accommodating to this new reality of “Brazilification,” a term coined by Douglas Coupland in his 1991 novel Generation X and defined as the “widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the accompanying disappearance of the middle classes.” On a good day, Brazilification looks like the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala, a party for the well-heeled, well-dressed, and well-coiffed under the dazzle of blinding lights. But, on a bad day, Brazilification is bankrupt Detroit, post-Katrina New Orleans, or the shuttered mining and mill towns 24/7, except bleaker.

For now, see the grim world of Bruce Springsteen’s 2012 album Wrecking Ball. For the future, look for pockets of wealth surrounded by functional despair, where the “haves” are cocooned or walled-off from the “have-nots.” As Sherman McCoy said in Bonfire of the Vanities, “Insulate! Insulate!” And the Masters of the Met do just that.

 One might add the firing of thousands of Chicago public school teachers and the simultaneous hiring of Teach For America interns to replace them as another sign of Brazilification.

What The Minimum Wage Should Be

From the devout Communists at Bloomberg News:

If the minimum wage had simply tracked U.S. productivity gains since 1968, it would be $21.72 an hour -- three times what it is now.

The minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

It should be $21.72 an hour.

We simply cannot afford to raise the wages for the working classes of this country.

Because after all, how can the crooks on Wall Street possibly get by on less than record profits and compensation?

Top 1% Control Control 39% Of The World's Wealth

From CNBC:

The wealthiest 1 percent now control 39 percent of the world's wealth, and their share is likely to grow in the coming years, according to a new report.

The world's total private wealth grew 7.8 percent last year to $135 trillion, according to the Boston Consulting Group's Global Wealth report. The top 1 percent control $52.8 trillion, and those worth $5 million or more control nearly a quarter of the world's wealth.

That concentration is likely to increase in the coming years as the wealth of the wealthy grows faster than overall global wealth. The number of millionaires in the world surged by 10 percent year, reaching 13.8 million. The study predicts that global wealth will grow around 4.8 percent a year over the next five years—though millionaires will see their wealth grow nearly twice as fast.

Those worth $5 million or more will see their wealth grow 8 percent, while those worth more than $100 million will see their wealth grow 9.2 percent. The $100-million-plus group will see their share of global wealth grow to 6.8 percent in 2017 from the current 5.5 percent. 

Here in the United States, it's paper wealth, inflated by Federal Reserve printing and stock market gains propped up by Fed policy.

Robert Reich wrote the following yesterday:

Economic forecasters exist to make astrologers look good. But the recent jubilance is enough to make even weather forecasters blush. “Just look at the bull market! Look at home prices! Look at consumer confidence!”

Please.

I can understand the jubilation in the narrow sense that we’ve been down so long everything looks up. Plus, professional economists tend to cheerlead because they believe that if consumers and businesses think the future will be great, they’ll buy and invest more – leading to a self-fulfilling prophesy.

But prophesies can’t be self-fulfilling if they’re based on wishful thinking.

The reality is we’re still in the doldrums, and the most recent data gives cause for serious worry.

Almost all the forward movement in the economy is now coming from consumers —  whose spending is 70 percent of economic activity. But wages are still going nowhere, which means consumer spending will slow because consumers just don’t have the money to spend.

On Thursday the Commerce Department reported that consumer spending rose 3.4 percent in the first quarter of this year. But the personal savings rate dropped to 2.3 percent — from 5.3 percent in the last quarter of 2012. That’s the lowest level of savings since before the Great Recession. You don’t have to be an economic forecaster, or an astrologer, to see this can’t go on.

Yes, home prices are rising. The problem is, they’re beginning to rise above their long-run historical average. (Before the housing crash they were were way, way above the long-run average.) So watch your wallets. We’ve been here before: The Fed is keeping interest rates artificially low, allowing consumers to get low home-equity loans and to borrow against the rising values of their homes.

Needless to say, this trend, too, is unsustainable.

What about the stock market? It’s time we stopped assuming that a rising stock market leads to widespread prosperity. Over 90 percent of the value of the stock market — including 401(k)s and IRAs — is held by the wealthiest 10 percent of the population.

Moreover, the main reason stock prices have risen is corporate profits have soared. But that’s largely because corporations have slashed their payrolls and keep them low. Which brings us full circle, back to the fundamental fact that wages that are going nowhere for most people.

Not even fat corporate profits are sustainable if American consumers don’t have enough money in their pockets. Exports can’t make up for the shortfall, given the rotten shape Europe is in and the slowdown in Asia.

So don’t expect those profits to continue. In fact, the new Commerce Department report shows that corporate profits shrank in the first quarter, reversing some of the gains in the second half of 2012.

And, by the way, the full effect of the cuts in government spending hasn’t even been felt yet. The sequester is going to be a large fiscal drag starting next month.

Look, I don’t want to rain on the parade. But any self-respecting weather forecaster would warn you to zipper up and take an umbrella. Don’t be swayed by all the sunny talk. There are too many storm clouds ahead.

I would add that in some areas, the real estate is bubbling again because the hedge fundies and Wall Street free marketeers are buying real estate with cheap Fed money and causing prices to soar again.

I'm sure that will end well.

In fact, I'm sure this will all end well.

Just like it did the last time - for the 1%, who now have 39% of the world's wealth.

Dem Senators Fawn Over Obama's Corporate Criminal Nominee For Commerce

Dana Milbank:

Call it the revenge of the 1 percent.

President Obama bested Mitt Romney by portraying his Republican opponent as a rich businessman who used offshore tax havens and ran enterprises into the ground without regard for working people.

On Thursday, senators held a confirmation hearing for Obama’s nominee to be commerce secretary: a billionaire who benefits from offshore tax havens, whose family owned a failed savings and loan and who is accused by unions of mistreating workers.

Turns out the wealthy didn’t lose the 2012 election; rather, the Republican rich lost to the Democratic rich.

This is not to question the qualifications of Penny Pritzker, the Hyatt hotels heiress and Democratic mega-donor Obama nominated. I suspect she’ll be a fine commerce secretary when she is confirmed, as she surely will be.

But her confirmation hearing was a reminder of how wealth is power in Washington. A multimillionaire president nominated a billionaire who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his campaigns, and he sent her to be confirmed by the millionaires’ club that is the U.S. Senate.
“You will certainly have my vote,” commerce committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (average estimated net worth: $103 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics) assured the nominee (net worth $1.85 billion, according to Forbes).

“My hope,” said Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner ($228 million), is that “this committee will recommend you.”

Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill ($22 million) told Pritzker, “I find it very refreshing to find someone who is stepping up like you are in this position.”

Another committee member, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut ($100 million), didn’t speak at the hearing but issued a statement calling the heiress “a longtime friend with a lifetime of business experience and acumen that will serve her well.”

There wasn’t a mention during the two-hour hearing that the nominee had recently informed the committee that because of a “clerical error,” she omitted more than $80 million in income from the financial disclosures she filed.

The hearing was in its closing minutes before anybody mentioned the tax havens. The ranking Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, did so almost apologetically, saying he was “going to channel Sen. [Chuck] Grassley,” a Republican who is not on the committee, who had said it would be “hypocritical” not to press Pritzker on “the kind of tax avoidance activity that the president dismisses as fat-cat shenanigans for others.”

“I am the beneficiary of offshore family trusts that were set up when I was a little girl,” the nominee replied. “I didn’t create them. I don’t direct them.” Neither Thune nor anybody else followed up on her 70-word answer, and the family’s stake in the failed S&L got similar treatment from Thune.

The audience was packed with Hyatt workers in red shirts and baseball caps representing Unite Here, a hotel-workers union that opposes Pritzker’s confirmation on grounds that Hyatt has “a broad pattern of labor abuses, including aggressive outsourcing, low wages and the mistreatment of housekeepers.”
But the only senator to mention the union complaint was Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who appeared content with Pritzker’s assurance that she has a “good relationship” with labor before they moved on to discuss what the nominee called “the importance of salmon.”

Republicans probably went easy on Pritzker because they saw her as the most pro-business appointee they’re likely to get from a Democrat. And Democrats weren’t about to give an ally a hard time.
Pritzker and her husband have donated nearly $1 million to federal candidates since 1990, almost all to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign finance. She raised at least $500,000 for Obama’s 2012 campaign and was his campaign finance chairman in 2008. She contributed $250,000 to Obama’s second inaugural and about $120,000 to Democratic committees in the last two election cycles.

This doesn’t mean the lawmakers were bought. But it does add to the impression that the nominee and her interrogators are all part of the same club of the wealthy and the powerful.

About half the members of Congress have a net worth of more than $1 million, the center found — about 15 times the worth of the typical American household. And it’s a bipartisan club, from Republican committee chairmen Darrell Issa ($480 million) and Michael McCaul ($500 million) to Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi ($94 million). The Senate’s wealthiest member was John Kerry ($236 million), but he left to join an even more exclusive club.

How exclusive? Well, it’s about to land a billionaire.

Democrat, Republican - all the same.

Corporate criminals.

Gates, Bloomberg, Buffet, Oprah And Jeb Bush Meet At Gates Foundation Conference In South Carolina

From a local affiliate in South Carolina:

CHARLESTON, SC -Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft and one of the richest people in the world, is spending time in the Lowcountry.

  WCBD  confirmed the American business magnate is at the Sanctuary on Kiawah Island.

Suspicion was raised when nearly 20 very expensive jets were seen lined up at the Charleston International Airport on Johns Island.

Officials with the Beach Company confirmed to WCBD that other big names such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, TV host Oprah Winfrey and Billionaire Warren Buffet flew into the Charleston Executive airport on Johns Island Wednesday night.

Other prominent people said to also be staying there this weekend are  Jeb Bush and Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

 The famous guests were attending a two day long conference led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Officials say the meeting was about the foundation Gates and his wife Melinda run.

The meeting rented out the entire Sanctuary Hotel on the gated island. Security has been high throughout the entire week, keeping the public away from the hotel.

WCBD spoke to the Mayor of Kiawah by phone who said the town is happy to serve as host to the event.

"We wish them luck with what they're doing," Mayor Charles Lipuma said. "If they want to play golf, they couldn't have picked a better weekend. We are glad we could offer them great weather."

They weren't there to play golf, you can be sure of that.

They were there to continue destroying the public education system, among other policy goals

Shame they had to go to such lengths to try and keep their meeting secret.

Reminds me a little of these guys.

Or these guys.

At any rate, I love the line in the story about suspicion being raised that something was up when 20 "very expensive jets" were seen lined up at the Charleston Executive airport on Johns Island.

I wonder how that Save The World From Global Warming initiative Gates and Bloomberg are heading is going?

Private jets are good for the environment, yes?

Bloomberg: Why Won't Courts Of Law Let Me Do Anything I Want?

Pathetic whining from the Mayor of Money:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg railed against the court system Friday, blaming lawsuits for railroading his agenda in his final term.

“We’ve got to do something about our court system. Because they just stop everything,” Mr. Bloomberg lamented during his weekly radio interview Friday morning with WOR’s John Gambling.

Mr. Gambling chimed in in agreement: “Everything gets stopped–everything the city does.”

“Every single thing,” Bloomberg echoed. “You just can’t run a railroad this way.”

NOTE TO MAYOR OF MONEY: 

New York City is not a "railroad."  

You do not get to "railroad" through whatever you want no matter the level of opposition in the city.

You do not get to break the law, circumvent the rules or do whatever the hell you want despite your billions.

It's true that we live in a mostly fake democracy, which his how some rich arrogant ass like yourself was able to buy 12 years of power.

But there are enough vestiges of democracy left that even a billionaire like yourself does not get everything he wants.

I suppose you can use Bloomberg Philanthropies to remedy this sort of thing once you leave office and start bludgeoning judges with your PAC money the way to you plan to bludgeon politicians who don't agree with you 100% on your policies.

But until you do, God bless the courts of law in this country.

They're about the only thing standing between NYC and totalitarianism.

Cyprus Parliament Narrowly Votes To Accept Bailout

Amid all the stuff going on closer to home, this mess in Cyprus still bears watching:

Cyprus moved a step closer on Tuesday to receiving much-needed aid when its parliament narrowly endorsed a bailout deal drafted amid unprecedented acrimony and calls for the island to exit the eurozone.

In a nail-biting ballot, following hours of heated debate, Nicosia's 56-member House approved the €10bn rescue package with a majority of two votes. Among officials who had warned of a "chaotic default" the result was met with visible relief.

...

Highlighting the furore that the agreement has unleashed, however, the deal was wholeheartedly rejected by the island's anti-austerity opposition parties, Akel and Edek. Several lawmakers predicted that its impact on a country that until recently was better known for its robust offshore financial services, would be "far worse" than the devastating invasion it suffered at the hands of an invading Turkish army in 1974.

With the EU-IMF sponsored rescue programme forcing the government to dismantle the banking sector – and forcing depositors, for the first time, to foot the cost of recapitalising banks exposed to debt-stricken Greece – many MPs have virulently denounced the package as containing the seeds of the country's economic destruction.

Indicative of the concerns that the measure might not be passed, the beleaguered president of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, issued a last-minute appeal calling on politicians to think of the island's "greater good".

With bankruptcy looming, the governing coalition warned of "chaotic scenes", with public sector salaries and pensions going unpaid if the programme was voted down.

"Our country is passing through a critical time that calls for a sense of national responsibility and conduct in a manner which is consistent with the greater good," said Anastasiades, a British-trained barrister who assumed power barely two months ago.

In a replay of the scenes that have haunted Greece, protesters demonstrated outside parliament as the vote took place. Many hurled abuse at politicians now widely blamed for the island's economic decline. The Cypriot economy, once one of the most vibrant in the EU, is set to contract by 13% over the next year.

The prospect of the island being pushed into prolonged recession has given way to mounting speculation that perhaps it would be better if it left the eurozone altogether. In the runup to the vote, Akel ratcheted up the pressure by calling for a referendum on the issue.

"We know leaving the euro is an equally painful option, but reinstating a national currency could offer prospects for growth in the future," the party's general secretary, Andros Kyprianou, said.
Increasingly, the island's business elite has embraced the idea that the country would fare better if it dumped the single currency and returned to the Cyprus pound.

Calls for the island to leave the bloc have mounted as the knowledge has also sunk in that the price of international rescue funds will now be €13bn in budget cuts.

Maybe Randi Weingarten can issue a meaningless and useless call for the end to austerity measures?

Instead Of Extending The School Day, Why Not Lower Class Size?

I bet you could get much better results if you took the 20 middle schools the city is going extend the school day at and instead lowered class size to the low 20's or high teens.

In fact, I know you could get better results.

But for some reason, education reformers refuse to sell class size reforms and instead go with the extended school day and extended school year reforms.

Even though lowering class size is a proven reform and extending the school day is not.

My brain tells me that education reformers don't really care about improving performance so much, or helping kids, because if they did, they would choose the reform proven to work over the one that sometimes does and sometimes doesn't.

My brain also tells me that there is another agenda behind the extended school day and extended school year movement:

They want to socialize the kids to expect longer work days with no vacation, garbage pay and, as the Daily News put the extra work the middle school kids will be doing as part of the extended school day program, "toil" when they become working adults in our neo-feudal economy.

Quinn, Walcott Announce 2 Hour Longer School Days In 20 Middle Schools

Getting them ready for the 10-12 hour work day they'll have to put in, slaving at Walmart:

School days will get more than two hours longer for 2,000 New York City sixth-graders next fall. The nation's largest city is joining a roster of school systems experimenting with having students spend more time in class.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced the plan Monday.

It will involve about 2,000 students in 20 schools, not yet chosen.

Pupils will get 2½ extra hours a day of reading tutoring and other educational activities, run by a nonprofit group.

The City Council and private foundations are paying for the extra instruction. It's part of a $4.6 million effort to improve middle school reading.

Notice what they're going to spend the time on - reading, tutoring, and other educational activities.

In other words, test prep-related activities.

Drills and skills.

How about saving the regular school day for the drills and skills and putting in some fun activities after school?

How about some games or physical activities?

How about art or music?

How about some social-emotional learning?

How about anything other than test prep?

If you want the kids to read, forcing them to read complex text and do other Common Core and test prep-related activities for 10 hours a day isn't going to do it.

But I didn't fall off a turnip truck.

Quinn and Walcott don't care if the kids like reading.

They want the kids to learn how to obey rules and deal with drudgery, so they can be ready to be good Americans when they grow up.

Shut up and do your test!

Shut up and do your work!

Work longer and harder for less and less every year!

That's the agenda here.

Will Common Core Raise "Aliteracy" Levels In The U.S.?

Interesting point raised by John Young at the Denver Post:

In 1978, Larry Mikulecky of the University of Indiana-Bloomington introduced the term "aliteracy" to describe the condition of being able to read but not wanting to. For any number of reasons, studies show that it describes about half of Americans. Mikulecky warned even then that so-called back-to-basics movements that hammered on reading as a utilitarian skill — rather than one that would inspire and elevate — would result in many people who thought of reading as a chore, and who avoided it out of high school.

That's exactly what I see too often in my own classroom — the high school graduate so hammered by "school accountability" and state-imposed "emphasis" on reading that instead of curling up with a good book after graduation, he or she will run from it.

Education reformers argue that standards must be raised so that students leave school with the "21st century skills" they will need to compete in a globalized economy.

That's why they are in the process of sucking all the heart and soul out of English Language Arts classes, replacing creative writing with argumentative writing, fiction reading with the reading of informational tests, and personal journal responses with MLA-cited text writing.

 

As ELA Common Core standards creator David Coleman put it:

 

“As you grow up in this world you realize that people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think… it is rare in a working environment that someone says, ‘Johnson I need a market analysis by Friday but before that I need a compelling account of your childhood.’ That is rare”

 

Because really, when you get right down to it, don't we simply exist on earth not to come to a better understanding of ourselves and others but simply to provide a better market analysis for our employers and/or customers so that we can all make gobs of money off the poor suckers who are busy writing compelling narratives about their childhoods?

I have this theory that the reason why Common Core proponents like David Coleman want all the heart and soul taken from the ELA classroom and replaced with utilitarian skill-drilling like argumentative essay writing and MLA citation practice is because they want the hearts and souls of the kids taken from them too.

In our neo-feudal world, our corporate masters do not want citizens capable of critical thinking, self-reflection, or creativity.

 

They want people who can follow orders, who know just enough to be able to write the market analysis but lack the self-awareness to ask why it matters more than anything else in this world.

They want kids to grow up to be dutiful order-takers, compliant consumers, and obedient workers.

The Common Core, by sucking the soul and the heart from the ELA classroom, is helping to create that generation.

By teaching kids reading as nothing more than a utilitarian skill to be used at work, they are sowing the seeds for an entire generation of aliterate people who can read but choose not to because they associate it with soul-sucking drudgery and toil.

That's not a mistake on the part of the corporatists who put together this Common Core - that's exactly what they want.

 

In the 21st century, reading for pleasure - like going to school and learning things for fun - will be relegated to the affluent few who can afford to give their children these gifts.

Business Community Worried About Post-Bloomberg Years

According to the Daily News, it's because there won't be a billionaire in City Hall looking out for them:

A coalition of business leaders who flourished under Mayor Bloomberg offered a series of economic recommendations on Friday to the candidates who are jockeying to succeed him.

The business community has nervously watched the campaign, fretting that none of the candidates have Bloomberg’s business background or pro-business agenda.

...
 

Wylde confirmed that the group has met with all the candidates in recent weeks. It has no plans to offer a formal endorsement but many of its members are deep-pocketed business leaders who could influence the outcome of the campaign.

Really - these "deep-pocketed" business leaders can influence the outcome of the campaign?

I am shocked.

So in other words, even though a member of their economic class won't be mayor, they'll still be able to buy policy via their "deep-pockets."

I am so glad money is considered speech.

Because what would these poor little millionaires and billionaires do without that "free speech" advanatge they have over the rest of us?

They might have to, you know, submit themselves and their policy desires to actual democracy as opposed to back room oligarchy.

Job Search Discouraging For Many Americans

There's been all kinds of jive the last few months about how the economy has turned around, the housing market has turned around, the jobs market is turning around.

Let's be clear that the economy is still being propped up by the Federal Reserve printing press, the housing market is re-inflating in part because that Federal Reserve printing press program is helping Wall Street buy a ton of houses and the jobs market remains dismal for many:

WASHINGTON (AP) — After a full year of fruitless job hunting, Natasha Baebler just gave up.

She'd already abandoned hope of getting work in her field, counseling the disabled. But she couldn't land anything else, either — not even a job interview at a telephone call center.

Until she feels confident enough to send out resumes again, she'll get by on food stamps and disability checks from Social Security and live with her parents in St. Louis.

"I'm not proud of it," says Baebler, who is in her mid-30s and is blind. "The only way I'm able to sustain any semblance of self-preservation is to rely on government programs that I have no desire to be on."

Baebler's frustrating experience has become all too common nearly four years after the Great Recession ended: Many Americans are still so discouraged that they've given up on the job market.

Older Americans have retired early. Younger ones have enrolled in school. Others have suspended their job hunt until the employment landscape brightens. Some, like Baebler, are collecting disability checks.

It isn't supposed to be this way. After a recession, an improving economy is supposed to bring people back into the job market.

Instead, the number of Americans in the labor force — those who have a job or are looking for one — fell by nearly half a million people from February to March, the government said Friday. And the percentage of working-age adults in the labor force — what's called the participation rate — fell to 63.3 percent last month. It's the lowest such figure since May 1979.

The falling participation rate tarnished the only apparent good news in the jobs report the Labor Department released Friday: The unemployment rate dropped to a four-year low of 7.6 percent in March from 7.7 in February.

People without a job who stop looking for one are no longer counted as unemployed. That's why the U.S. unemployment rate dropped in March despite weak hiring. If the 496,000 who left the labor force last month had still been looking for jobs, the unemployment rate would have risen to 7.9 percent in March.

"Unemployment dropped for all the wrong reasons," says Craig Alexander, chief economist with TD Bank Financial Group. "It dropped because more workers stopped looking for jobs. It signaled less confidence and optimism that there are jobs out there."

 There are simply not enough jobs:

"It's the lack of job opportunities — the lack of demand for workers — that is keeping these workers from working or seeking work," says Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. The Labor Department says there are still more than three unemployed people for every job opening.

Cynthia Marriott gave up her job search after an interview in October for a position as a hotel concierge.

"They never said no," she says. "They just never called me back."

Her husband hasn't worked full time since 2006. She cashed out her 401(k) after being laid off from a job at a Los Angeles entertainment publicity firm in 2009. The couple owes thousands in taxes for that withdrawal. They have no health insurance.

She got the maximum 99 weeks' of unemployment benefits then allowed in California and then moved to Atlanta.

Now she is looking to receive federal disability benefits for a lung condition that she said leaves her weak and unable to work a full day. The application is pending a medical review.

"I feel like I have no choice," says Marriott, 47. "It's just really sad and frightening"

This is life in neo-feudal 21st century America.

The Best and Brightest running the country are technologizing everything they can, putting more and more people out of work and squeezing wages on everybody else, leaving more and more (often stolen) profits for the financial sector.

There is no end to this and you can bet that Obama calling for cuts to Social Security and Medicare isn't going to help that any.

The game is rigged, folks, and until the masses rise up against the bankster class and make them feel fear that they've got to loosen up the money, wealth and opportunity spigots a little, nothing is going to change.

That's why the Occupy movement was so scary to the oligarchs.

And that's why they, with the help of the Obama administration, destroyed the camps.

They want us all alone and isolated, fighting each other for what little remains of the social safety net.