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rich hilts

Want To Do Something To Save This Country? You Can, You Know - 1 views

drscoundrels.com/?p=2192

shared by rich hilts on 06 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • rich hilts on 06 Jan 11
     
    Head this thing off at the pass. Give the GOP cover to at least try - because we know the other side just hit the accelerator!
Sarah Eeee

Income Inequality and the 'Superstar Effect' - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...26excerpt.html

inequality capitalism economics

shared by Sarah Eeee on 27 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Yet the increasingly outsize rewards accruing to the nation’s elite clutch of superstars threaten to gum up this incentive mechanism. If only a very lucky few can aspire to a big reward, most workers are likely to conclude that it is not worth the effort to try.
  • It is true that the nation grew quite fast as inequality soared over the last three decades. Since 1980, the country’s gross domestic product per person has increased about 69 percent, even as the share of income accruing to the richest 1 percent of the population jumped to 36 percent from 22 percent. But the economy grew even faster — 83 percent per capita — from 1951 to 1980, when inequality declined when measured as the share of national income going to the very top of the population.
  • The cost for this tonic seems to be a drastic decline in Americans’ economic mobility. Since 1980, the weekly wage of the average worker on the factory floor has increased little more than 3 percent, after inflation. The United States is the rich country with the most skewed income distribution. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the average earnings of the richest 10 percent of Americans are 16 times those for the 10 percent at the bottom of the pile. That compares with a multiple of 8 in Britain and 5 in Sweden.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Not coincidentally, Americans are less economically mobile than people in other developed countries. There is a 42 percent chance that the son of an American man in the bottom fifth of the income distribution will be stuck in the same economic slot. The equivalent odds for a British man are 30 percent, and 25 percent for a Swede.
  • Just as technology gave pop stars a bigger fan base that could buy their CDs, download their singles and snap up their concert tickets, the combination of information technology and deregulation gave bankers an unprecedented opportunity to reap huge rewards. Investors piled into the top-rated funds that generated the highest returns. Rewards flowed in abundance to the most “productive” financiers, those that took the bigger risks and generated the biggest profits. Finance wasn’t always so richly paid. Financiers had a great time in the early decades of the 20th century: from 1909 to the mid-1930s, they typically made about 50 percent to 60 percent more than workers in other industries. But the stock market collapse of 1929 and the Great Depression changed all that. In 1934, corporate profits in the financial sector shrank to $236 million, one-eighth what they were five years earlier. Wages followed. From 1950 through about 1980, bankers and insurers made only 10 percent more than workers outside of finance, on average.
  • Then, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration unleashed a surge of deregulation. By 1999, the Glass-Steagall Act lay repealed. Banks could commingle with insurance companies at will. Ceilings on interest rates vanished. Banks could open branches anywhere. Unsurprisingly, the most highly educated returned to banking and finance. By 2005, the share of workers in the finance industry with a college education exceeded that of other industries by nearly 20 percentage points. By 2006, pay in the financial sector was again 70 percent higher than wages elsewhere in the private sector. A third of the 2009 Princeton graduates who got jobs after graduation went into finance; 6.3 percent took jobs in government.
  • Then the financial industry blew up, taking out a good chunk of the world economy. Finance will not be tamed by tweaking the way bankers are paid. But bankers’ pay could be structured to discourage wanton risk taking
  • Sarah Eeee on 27 Dec 10
     
    (Part 2 of 2 - see first part below) What impact do the incredible salaries of superstars have on the rest of us? What has changed, technologically and socially, to precipitate these inequities? This article also offers a brief look at the relationship between income inequality and economic growth, comparing the US throughout its history and the US vis a vis several European countries.
thinkahol *

Paul Ryan's Dark Roadmap for America - 0 views

readersupportednews.org/...ryans-dark-roadmap-for-america

Paul Ryan's Dark Roadmap for America

shared by thinkahol * on 26 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • There are big winners in Paul Ryan's "Roadmap" and you can guess who they are. He would cut taxes for the wealthy, completely eliminate the corporate income tax, and create a value added tax. According to the Tax Policy Center, his plan would raise taxes for the bottom 95 percent of American wage earners and cut taxes for the top five percent. The top 0.1 percent would see an average tax cut of $1.7 million - every year!
Sarah Usher

One Step Closer to My Dream - 2 views

My father was a police officer and he died protecting people and making this world a better place. All my life, I always wanted to follow in my father's footsteps and follow a path with police care...

police careers

started by Sarah Usher on 25 May 11 no follow-up yet
Keith Sweat

Best Mandurah Houses - 1 views

I was amazed when I visited Natures Walk house and land packages Perth which have stunning home designs. Homebuyers like me would surely prefer living in this very nice community inside contemporar...

Mandurah houses

started by Keith Sweat on 10 Jun 11 no follow-up yet
Sarah Usher

I Have Help and I Become a Police Officer - 1 views

I want to follow the footsteps of my father who was a decorated police officer. Not wanting to embarrass the reputation he has diligently planted in the police force, I decided to seek the help of ...

police careers

started by Sarah Usher on 20 Jul 11 no follow-up yet
Kelly Bounce

Ignite AV: Europe's Best AV Provider from the UK - 2 views

I give a lot of lectures all over Europe and the UK and I really need the best AV team to assist me in all my talks. I discovered Ignite AV, and having this AV Hire company has changed my whole exp...

projector hire

started by Kelly Bounce on 25 Jul 11 no follow-up yet
Keith Sweat

House and Land Packages Perth: The Right Choice - 1 views

When I visited Natures Walk's house and land packages Perth, I was impressed by the stunning home designs. As a home buyer, the nice community which features Mandurah houses also provided a surroun...

Mandurah Real Estate

started by Keith Sweat on 27 Jul 11 no follow-up yet
thinkahol *

Wall Street Protests: Carnival or Revolution? - NYTimes.com - 0 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...can-you-hear-them-now-3

Wall Street Protests: Carnival or Revolution? - NYTimes.com

shared by thinkahol * on 03 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 03 Oct 11
     
    ludicrous
Leigh Ann Smith

Amazing House and Land Packages in Perth for First-time Buyers - 1 views

As a first-time homebuyer, I looked for house and land packages in Perth that would fit my idea of a dream house. Natures Walk offers stunning home designs; many homebuyers like me were lucky to ha...

Mandurah houses

started by Leigh Ann Smith on 14 Sep 11 no follow-up yet
Anne White

I Passed the UK Police Recruitment for 2011 - 1 views

I really wanted to become a police officer, not because being a police officer is exciting, but, because I knew being a police officer is a noble profession and I wanted to make a difference in the...

started by Anne White on 11 Oct 11 no follow-up yet
David Corking

Replace Police With Spin Doctors « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG - 0 views

inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/...place-police-with-spin-doctors

Culture

shared by David Corking on 16 Apr 09 - Cached
  • testing an age old theory about what happens when you approach a 6ft riot cop and tell him to fuck off repeatedly?
  • I blame Globalisation. Lets test this theory by choosing six other countries in the world, going over to each country one at a time, walking up to a riot cop and telling him to fuck off repeatedly. Compare injuries on return to UK. If you return to UK.
  • Will this person now be arrested for verbally abusing a Police Officer? If not, why not?
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • canteen culture of the mindless violence of the few backed up by the silence of the many.
  • As an A+E nurse would it be right for me to strike each and every member of the public if and when the became aggressive?
  • The Police should be held to a higher standard than other services, surely you are trained professionals and as such should be able to deal with the provacation in a much more proportional way?
  • it was against their clients human rights to be filmed with out their consent
  • When it’s not practical for you to be arrested because it would take police resources away from the lines then you deserve to get a shove. If you come back, then you deserve to be struck (something home office approved).
  • You ARE PROFESSIONALS and this kind of insta-agression is something that the public could gain at a fraction of the cost from a security guard. No one is denying that being a police officer is a difficult job at times
  • Sadly people are people, maybe he was wrong to hit her, she was maybe wrong for confronting him in the first place. All I can say that is if a uniformed officer tells me not to do something I don’t do it. Full stop.
  • David Corking on 16 Apr 09
     
    Other countries are worse. So? The rest of us would be jailed for assault if we hit someone with a stick in response to extreme provocation.
David Corking

In place of smear | Ed Mayne | LabourList.org | April 2009 - 0 views

www.labourlist.org/ed_mayne_in_place_of_smear

Blogging Culture

shared by David Corking on 15 Apr 09 - No Cached
  • But if he hadn't done it, someone else would have got there eventually. It's up to all of us now to stop this happening again. Some people tell me that blogging is the future of politics. If this is the case, I very much hope it gets more mature with its increasing importance.
  • We can all agree that censorship is not the route to go down. Therefore all political parties and all press and media outlets have a responsibility to regulate themselves
  • David Corking on 15 Apr 09
     
    Mayne fears that blogs have dragged politics into the gutter and threaten democracy. I hope not, but I'll wait for more evidence.
Peter Dearman

Mainstream Populist Democrats: Taiwan may provide a health care model for the U.S. - 0 views

populistdemocrats.blogspot.com/...provide-health-care-model.html

Taiwan medical medicine health health care insurance hospital

shared by Peter Dearman on 12 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Peter Dearman on 12 Apr 09
     
    A National Public Radio profile from last year points out that Taiwan has one of the world's best health care systems and it is cost efficient too. All Things Considered, April 15, 2008 · At the end of the 20th century, Taiwan became a rich country, almost overnight. But it still had a poor country's health care - about half the population had no coverage at all. So Taiwan set out to design a national health care system from scratch. What makes Taiwan unique is the way the country figured out how to cover everyone.
  • Peter Dearman on 12 Apr 09
     
    My first post here. Just joined. Live in Taiwan and can attest to the brilliance of the healthcare system here. It's a much better model than canda. (And I'm a canadian.)
Ahmad Al-Shagra

Saddam is Hanged for His Crimes, Who will Hang Bush/Blair for Theirs? - 0 views

www.paltelegraph.com/index.php

shared by Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Rumsfeld's famous hand shake with Saddam provides the proof on tha
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      Ridiculous misinterpretation to back such a statement
  • Saddam was originally a CIA man recruited to assassinate the previous Iraqi president Abdel-Karim Qassem
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      First time I hear this one, also not substantiated with references, this article should be in the science-fiction section
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2849.htm Info on Saddam's relationship with the CIA
  • his war of aggression against Iran
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      From this I can safely say a Pro-Iran biased writer is the author
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980 - partly instigated from a border dispute between the 2 countries - Iran was supplying the Kurds with weapons in the border areas. http://www.brucekelly.com/saddam-hussein-iran.html Both countries deployed chem weapons http://www.fas.org/irp/gulf/cia/960702/72566_01.htm The US supported Iraq against Iran. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/irq8-m29.shtml
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      From a Facebook commentor on the article: "In a secret 1981 memo summing up a trip to the Middle East, then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of Jordan." U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniev Brzezinski met with a Saddam Hussein in July 1980 in... Read More Amman, Jordan, to discuss joint efforts to oppose Iran."
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      From a commentator on the article on Facebook: "In a secret 1981 memo summing up a trip to the Middle East, then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of Jordan." U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniev Brzezinski met with a Saddam Hussein in July 1980 in Amman, Jordan, to discuss joint efforts to oppose Iran."
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Why doesn't this diigo thingy remove my posts when I tell it too ... grrrrr
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • 700 thousands mostly civilian Iraqis during the last three years of American occupation
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      actually 6 years, and more than 1,000,000
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      The article refers to the past 3 years - the last estimate by Lancet (as we know the US doesn't count the results of its carnage) was in 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_casualties_of_the_Iraq_War 654,965 to 2006 - so a ballpark for the last 3 years around the 700000 mark is plausible if one accepts the Lancet methodology. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ OTOH says around 100,000 all told.
  • hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      Millions in Syria Alone
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Which incident are you referring to here?
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Death counts from wars - good link is here: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat4.htm
  • Saddam is just a "baby" ruthless dictator compared to Bush and Blair.
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      Is this still an article?
  • when he converted Iraq's reserve funds from Dollars to Euros
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      This happened in the 21st century, not the 80's, but its agreed on by many that it changed the game
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Saddam's fatal mistakes of trading oil in euros, not dollars happened twice - In 1999 and in November 2000. http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2003/03oil.htm
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Saddam's fatal mistake of switching to euros from dollars for oil happened in 1999. http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2003/03oil.htm
  • that were used to bomb Kurdish Halabja
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      CIA published a report back in the 80's stating Iraq did not own the Chemical Weapons used in Halabja, yet, coincidently Iran did.
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Some still dispute the events, yet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack and see discussion.
  • last three years
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      For the last time, 6 years - not 3
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Sure - the article refers to the last 3 years though. I can't find any stats that cover the last 3 years death toll, so it's a fuzzy figure to me also.
David Corking

You are being lied to about Pirates | w w w . P e t e r S a n t i l l i . c o m - 0 views

petersantilli.com/?p=173

Law Culture

shared by David Corking on 21 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The pirates showed “quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy.” This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.
  • Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the U.N. envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories
  • European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • They call themselves the Volunteer Coast Guard of Somalia - and it’s not hard to see why.
  • this doesn’t make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters
  • 70 percent “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defense of the country’s territorial waters.”
  • George Washington and America’s founding fathers paid pirates to protect America’s territorial waters, because they had no navy or coast guard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?
  • David Corking on 21 Apr 09
     
    a column from the Independent - a fascinating alternative view of the Somali Pirates
Frank Schreiber

Health care legislation back behind closed doors - Yahoo! News - 1 views

news.yahoo.com/...us_health_care_overhaul

shared by Frank Schreiber on 14 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Both bills were written by Democrats, but that's not going to make it easier for Reid. They share a common goal, which is to provide all Americans with access to affordable health insurance, but they differ on how to accomplish it. The Finance Committee bill that was approved Tuesday has no government-sponsored insurance plan and no requirement on employers that they must offer coverage. It relies instead on a requirement that all Americans obtain insurance. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill, passed earlier by a panel in which liberals predominate, calls for both a government plan to compete with private insurers and a mandate that employers help cover their workers. Those are only two of dozens of differences.
    • Frank Schreiber
      Frank Schreiber on 14 Oct 09
       
      I like the "Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions" Committee bill better! I don't see how we can do without competition 
Bakari Chavanu

Socialism Today - Capitalism: costing the earth - 0 views

www.socialismtoday.org/...carbon.html

politics capitalism

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 16 Oct 09 - Cached
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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"
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Therefore, so the theory goes, the buyer pays to emit greenhouse gases while the seller is rewarded for having reduced emissions by more than their quota. There is only one problem. It does not work like that.
  • The market always chooses the easiest means to save a given quantity of carbon in the short term, regardless of what action is needed for long-term reduction. The result is that the system reinforces technological lock-in. For instance, small cuts may often be achieved cheaply through making a technology a little bit more efficient, whereas larger cuts would require massive investments in new technology.
  • The problem with most of the established green organisations is that they seek mechanisms, such as emissions markets, green taxes, green laws or other technical fixes to the problem of polluting fat cats.
  • The carbon trade system is bad in itself. But the fact that governments or other capitalist controlled bodies allocated the emissions permits in the first place, the logic of the market meant that they handed out too many permits out of fear of being in a disadvantage with competing capitalist powers. Today, there are more permits in circulation than there is capacity to pump out greenhouse gases!
  • MANY CDMS ARE about dams. The push for mega-dams has been justified by both development banks and multinationals as being necessary for the development of Africa and to combat carbon emissions. While governments, such as the US, Britain and China, announce mighty plans to electrify Africa, and other ‘aid’ schemes, the companies set in action the Boot model – Build, Own, Operate and Transfer – emptying the rivers of Africa to feed the growing energy needs of Europe, etc. And it is a very lucrative business when they can earn more carbon emission credits in the process. Large dams provide electricity for multinational companies, water for mining, and irrigation for large-scale foreign-owned farms.
  • In a study of 50 dams in Africa, professor Thayer Scudder, formerly the leading resettlement consultant for the World Bank, found that landlessness affected 86% and joblessness 80% of the displaced people. Lack of food security impacted on 79% of the people displaced by these ‘green dams’.
Bakari Chavanu

bonuses-put-goldman-in-public-relations-bind: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance - 0 views

finance.yahoo.com/...ldman-in-public-relations-bind

capitalism politics

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 16 Oct 09 - Cached
  • But these days that old dictum is being truncated to just “greedy” by some Goldman critics. While many ordinary Americans are still waiting for an economic recovery, Goldman and its employees are enjoying one of the richest periods in the bank’s 140-year history.
  • For Goldman employees, it is almost as if the financial crisis never happened. Only months after paying back billions of taxpayer dollars, Goldman Sachs is on pace to pay annual bonuses that will rival the record payouts that it made in 2007, at the height of the bubble. In the last nine months, the bank set aside about $16.7 billion for compensation — on track to pay each of its 31,700 employees close to $700,000 this year. Top producers are expecting multimillion-dollar paydays.
  • But its strong financial showing — a profit of $3.19 billion in the third quarter — was overshadowed by Goldman’s swelling bonus pool. Goldman set aside nearly half of its revenue to reward its employees, a common practice on Wall Street, even in this post-bailout era.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Even in 2008, the most tumultuous year in modern Wall Street history, Goldman employees reaped rewards that most people can only dream about. Goldman paid out $4.82 billion in bonuses last year, awarding 953 employees at least $1 million each and 78 executives $5 million or more. The rewards for 2009 will be far greater.
  • “We are very focused on what is going on in the world,” Mr. Viniar replied to a barrage of questions about whether the bank should pay outsize bonuses in these hard economic times. “We are focused on the economic climate. We are focused on what is going on with other people.”
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