We commissioned Ed Mayo and Tom Steinberg to write the Power of Information report because we knew that information, presented in the right way, was a potent driver for improving public services and government.
The decade's biggest scam - Salon.com - 0 views
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The March, 2011, Harper's Index expressed the point this way: "Number of American civilians who died worldwide in terrorist attacks last year: 8 - Minimum number who died after being struck by lightning: 29." That's the threat in the name of which a vast domestic Security State is constructed, wars and other attacks are and continue to be launched, and trillions of dollars are transferred to the private security and defense contracting industry at exactly the time that Americans - even as they face massive wealth inequality - are told that they must sacrifice basic economic security because of budgetary constraints.
U.S. Justice v. the world - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views
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In March, 2002, American citizen Jose Padilla was arrested in Chicago and publicly accused by then-Attorney-General John Ashcroft of being "The Dirty Bomber." Shortly thereafter, he was transferred to a military brig in South Carolina, where he was held for almost two years completely incommunicado (charged with no crime and denied all access to the outside world, including even a lawyer) and was brutally tortured, both physically and psychologically. All of this -- including the torture -- was carried out pursuant to orders from President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials. Just as the Supreme Court was about to hear Padilla's plea to be charged or released -- and thus finally decide if the President has the power to imprison American citizens on U.S. soil with no charges of any kind -- the Government indicted him in a federal court on charges far less serious than Ashcroft had touted years earlier, causing the Supreme Court to dismiss Padilla's arguments as "moot"; Padilla was then convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison.
America Is NOT Broke - 0 views
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America is not broke. Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich. Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.
Evil Corporate Tax Holiday Gains Bipartisan Support | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog... - 0 views
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The madness that is the proposed tax repatriation holiday is continuing and gathering steam. More and more members of congress are coming out of the woodwork, scratching their chins in contemplative consideration as it were, pretending that they've just realized what a great day a corporate tax holiday would be - not that they've taken gazillions of dollars from the firms lobbying for it or anything. The latest convert seems to be Nevada Democrat Shelley Berkley. Berkley's plan is to offer a pseudo-holiday - not the full-fledged happy-ending massage the companies wanted (i.e. a reduction from 35 percent+ to 5.25 percent) but a mere ten-point shave: Representative Shelley Berkley, a Nevada Democrat, is the latest lawmaker to consider legislation allowing multinational companies to send offshore profits to the U.S. at a reduced tax rate. Her proposal, which was confirmed yesterday by Berkley's communications director, David Cherry, would allow companies to return profits to the U.S. at a 25 percent tax rate, 10 percentage points below the maximum statutory rate. Most companies publicly supporting a holiday, such as Duke Energy Corp., have spoken favorably of the 5.25 percent rate that is being offered by Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican. One thing that people must understand about this tax repatriation business is that it's a wholly bipartisan affair. It's not solely the work of evil Republicans. This is a scheme that requires heavies in both parties to help ram the knotty, hard-to-sell legislation through. On the Democratic side, unsurprisingly, the main actor is going to be Chuck Schumer. John Kerry is also involved with this nastiness. Barbara Boxer led the 2004 effort and the failed 2009 campaign to get a holiday, and is rumored to be lurking somewhere in this business. Note that Cisco, a California corporate heavyweight and one of the companies lobbying most ravenously for this tax holiday, has been a consistent lifelong contributor
Why "business needs certainty" is destructive - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views
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Businesses have had at least 25 to 30 years near complete certainty -- certainty that they will pay lower and lower taxes, that they' will face less and less regulation, that they can outsource to their hearts' content (which when it does produce savings, comes at a loss of control, increased business system rigidity, and loss of critical know how). They have also been certain that unions will be weak to powerless, that states and municipalities will give them huge subsidies to relocate, that boards of directors will put top executives on the up escalator for more and more compensation because director pay benefits from this cozy collusion, that the financial markets will always look to short term earnings no matter how dodgy the accounting, that the accounting firms will provide plenty of cover, that the SEC will never investigate anything more serious than insider trading (Enron being the exception that proved the rule). So this haranguing about certainty simply reveals how warped big commerce has become in the US. Top management of supposedly capitalist enterprises want a high degree of certainty in their own profits and pay. Rather than earn their returns the old fashioned way, by serving customers well, by innovating, by expanding into new markets, their 'certainty' amounts to being paid handsomely for doing things that carry no risk. But since risk and uncertainty are inherent to the human condition, what they instead have engaged in is a massive scheme of risk transfer, of increasing rewards to themselves to the long term detriment of their enterprises and ultimately society as a whole.
Tom Watson MP » Blog Archive » Power of Information: New taskforce and speech - 0 views
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Today I am going to offer two arguments that I think compliment the Prime Minister’s recent announcement on public service reform
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Firstly, that freeing up data will allow us to unlock the talent British entrepreneurs. And secondly, engaging people - using the simple tools that bring them together - will allow the talents of all our people to be applied to the provision of public services.
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In Past Decade, American Funds Created Most Wealth - Yahoo! News - 0 views
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Morningstar determined that Janus and Putnam were the two largest "wealth destroyers" during the decade, losing $58 billion and $46 billion, respectively. "Janus and Putnam rode the growth wave more than anyone else," Kinnel says. "They had some very aggressive funds that put up big numbers that got huge inflows." After the tech bubble burst, the funds that were most heavily invested in these types of holdings experienced huge sell-offs, which made it difficult for these funds to attract inflows through the remainder of the decade. According to Morningstar, American Funds created about $191 million in wealth for investors during the decade, followed by Vanguard and Fidelity. Since American Funds generally employs a more value-oriented strategy, the firm was largely able to avert the first bear market of the decade. "The 2000 to 2002 bear market was all growth and tech, and American barely touched that, whereas they had lots of value, dividend payers, and bonds, which did very well," Kinnel says. Recently, the tables have turned for American. In 2009, it lost the most of any fund family (more than $25 billion). No fund family, including American, was able to avoid the bear market of 2008. The same strategy that allowed American to bypass most of the first bear market failed because many well-known dividend-paying companies, like big financial firms, experienced huge losses.
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In a decade with two bear markets and lackluster returns for many investors, American Funds created the most wealth for investors, while Janus destroyed the most wealth, according to a survey released by Morningstar. For the survey, Morningstar looked at the 50 largest mutual fund families and their total net assets at the end of 1999. Then the fund tracker subtracted each fund company's total cash flows over the decade and deducted their total net assets at the end of 2009. Numbers were calculated in dollar terms so that any funds that were liquidated during the decade would also be included.
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Get this! Mutual funds, where most American's have their 401Ks, IRAs, and retirement savings, performed pitifully in the "great economy" of the 2000's (brought to you by Republican deregulationists starting with Ronald Reagan). The "best" made $191 million (but lost $25 billion in 2009!), the worst lost around $50 billion! What a great way to transfer all that hard earned savings, mostly by the "little guy", from them to the Wall Street gamblers. Another socialistic Republican "redistribution of wealth" of the corporate criminal rich, by the corporate criminal rich, and for the corporate criminal rich.
Socialism Today - Capitalism: costing the earth - 0 views
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THE 2007 STATEMENT from the United Nation’s climate panel, the IPCC, that the average temperature on earth must not rise more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels or an incalculable disaster will take place, was a powerful reminder of the nature of the problem.
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The main reason is that as the oceans warm up they lose the ability to absorb carbon dioxide. Another horrific truth is that there is more carbon beneath the permafrost of the polar regions than in the entire atmosphere. Experts say that if the emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphate and nitrogen dioxide continue as they are today, this bomb will explode within the next 100 years.
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Does this mean that emissions are dropping? Not at all. So what does this trade mean in practice? An Oxford academic who studied the scheme, Adam Bumpus, concluded that "this regulation is ultimately there to facilitate the markets – it’s not about making cheap reductions, it’s about making a lot of money"
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