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The Retirement Age Is Too Damn High!
By Dave Johnson
The D.C. elite insist that the retirement age should be raised even more than the current 67. They have jobs where they sit in nice chairs behind nice desks in nice offices in affluent areas. They don't even know anyone who waits tables or cleans or lifts boxes all day. They don't even know anyone without a fat 401K, or who is in their 50s who can't find work. That's not their problem; paying their share of taxes is what they are worried about.
But when you leave the affluent areas it becomes obvious that the retirement age is too high and Social Security pays too little. The Great Recession began with waves of layoffs that seemed to concentrate on people over 50 -- because of health care costs and reasonable pay (and they just smell bad). Two years later these people are having a very hard time finding work -- and don't even mention health insurance. Their savings are gone, their unemployment checks are stopping (the "99ers") and they are heAded for the streets. The DC elite solution is to keep them on the streets even longer.
Gitmo is staying open, no matter what the cost
Mary Shaw
January 11, 2011, marks the ninth anniversary of the arrival of the first prisoners at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. That's the same Guantanamo prison that Barack Obama promised to close in his first year as president. But Gitmo won't be closing any time soon. Congress has seen to that. And so has Obama.
Just before Christmas, Congress passed a defense spending bill that specifically prohibits the use of defense funding to establish an alternative prison in the United States or to transfer Gitmo detainees to the U.S. And, on January 7, President Obama signed it into law.
The Economic Hydra
By Dr. Elias Akleh
Economic crises are lately sweeping the globe like a contagious virus. They started in the US, the strongest economy in the globe, and then crept onto most European countries. They degraded the value of the American Dollar, the European Euro, and all international currency that use them as money reserve. The crises had led to what is referred to as austerity measures; cutting down luxury expenses, but instead the cutting down was on the necessary expenses; budget cuts on major social services including education, health, unemployment benefits, and social security, increase of taxes and educational tuitions, loss of jobs leading to homelessness and poverty, loss of businesses, increase of retirement age, theft of retirement funds and attempts to tab into social security funds, among many other devastating measures.
Shield Act Targets First Amendment Freedoms
by Stephen Lendman
For decades, America's freedoms have eroded, notably post-9/11 with:
-- a president declaring unconstitutional unitary executive powers to rule unilaterally;
-- his successor embracing the doctrine;
-- checks and balances and separation of powers virtually ended;
MAIN STREET MUST REVOLT / REPLACE OBAMA IN 2012
Allen L Roland
The long engagement is over and the marriage has finally been consummated between President Obama and the financial elite ~ with the appointment of William Daly as chief of staff and former Goldman executive Gene Sterling as his economic council chief. The stage is set for economic welfare you can believe in and Main Street be damned ~ unless Obama is replaced in 2012.
No more empty promises to his former Progressive and Independent base are necessary ~ President Obama is in full re-election mode, the Chicago mafia is assembled and his corporate base has been not only been bailed out but are more than willing to continue their corporate welfare dance with the Obama administration.
Meanwhile Obama is still cheer leading a failed top down recovery where the economy added 103,000 jobs (mostly in government subsidized health care and social services, and temporary business services) in December and Unemployment fell to 9.5 percent ~ largely because 260,000 adults dropped out of the labor force and are no longer counted as unemployed by the government.
2011: The year Lebanon Allows Palestinians Some Elementary Civil Rights?
FRANKLIN LAMB
Shatila Camp, Beirut
Maybe it was the really loud celebratory Ak-47 Kalashnikov and small arms gunfire and fireworks in my South Beirut neighborhood that triggered the intense New Years Eve nightmare. Or I guess it could have been the seemingly, just below my bedroom window, launched RPG-7’s which followed minutes past midnight on January 1, 2011.
Anyhow, in my News Years dream, I was back in my childhood home, Milwaukie, Oregon, nearly half a century ago. Our farming and lumber town on the Willamette River had a population of around 2000 in those much simpler and less crowded days. I dreamt it was Saturday afternoon and as we always did during our middle school years, my best friend and Lake Road neighbor, David Inabnit and I went to our town’s decaying WW II era movie theatre called the “Victory”, at exactly 1 p.m.
Milton Friedman’s ‘Capitalism and the Jews’ Revisited
by Gilad Atzmon
Given the severity and uncertainty of the economic crisis we are all experiencing, I suggest we look once more at the work of Milton Friedman, the leading economist and a staunch advocate of hard capitalism.
During the 1960s -80s Friedman was regarded by many academics, politicians and world leaders as the most important post- World War Two economist. Friedman was chief economic advisor to Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Menachem Begin. He also went on record advising the Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet.
It is far from surprising to note that more and more commentators have realised in recent years that it was Friedman’s ideology and advocacy of free enterprise, zero governmental intervention and privatisation that has led to the current financial turmoil. It was Milton Friedman’s philosophy that also contributed to the transformation of the West into a service economy.
Waging War on American Workers
by Stephen Lendman
Target one is America's middle class, endangered after decades of wealth shifts to super-rich elites besides most high-pay, good benefit jobs, offshored to cheap labor markets - a policy Washington's duopoly endorses. It's the most serious threat to middle America since attacks began in the 1970s.
On December 23, 1957, The Dan Smoot Report published novelist Taylor Caldwell's (1900 - 1985) article, titled "Honoria," the true story of a former great nation and lessons to be learned from its demise.
She explained how men seeking freedom became Pilgrims, endured terrible hardships, yet survived, prospered, and gained power. They established colonies, believed in God, hard work, public education, and transformed villages into towns and cities.
The Seduction of the Knowledge-Based Society
Jeff Gates
The most promising trend in geopolitics is the transition from hydrocarbon-based economies to knowledge-based societies. Leadership for that change is emerging from Arab nations.
The appeal of the Knowledge Society is apparent. Who could object to nations preparing their citizens for the 21st century? Yet unless knowledge is changed, the result could worsen an already dangerous situation.
The sharing of values and knowledge has long been the best way to bridge cultures and promote peace. That strategy is now essential to counter the success of those promoting The Clash of Civilizations.
Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are breaking new ground with education models that build on state-of-the-art information and communication technologies.
Fear and Loathing on Wall Street - The Ibanez Case Ruling
By Numerian posted by Michael Collins
[W]hat is surprising about these cases is … the utter carelessness with which the plaintiff banks documented the titles to their assets.(From the ruling) Carelessness is a polite word. The banks have acted with criminal recklessness. In these and similar cases that have cropped up around the country, it is becoming obvious that the big banks involved in securitizing mortgages during the past 15 years purposefully evaded local legal requirements for registering mortgages and accompanying borrower notes with a county recorder of deeds.
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