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| Taking a Closer Look at the Stories Ignored by the Corporate Media |
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Archive for the Month of June, 2005.
Viewing Economics NEWS articles 1 through 18 of 18.
- Here’s a basic moral value: taking someone’s money without their permission is stealing. Except in America, where, if you’re a corporation that takes away someone’s pension, it’s okay. With very little public outcry, we are letting corporate America dismantle the private defined-benefit pension system. At the same time, huge salary and pension benefits are lavished on executives. Remember, pensions are deferred compensation—people put off getting money in their paychecks today because of a promise that they would receive a specific amount of money (hence, the term “defined benefit”) many years later. It’s their money, not the companies’ money. - Rejoice! The world is saved! The governments of Europe have agreed that by 2015 they will give 0.7% of their national income in foreign aid. Admittedly, that's 35 years after the target date they first set for themselves, and it's still less than they extract from the poor in debt repayments. - The child poverty rate in the US has steadily risen every year from 2000, according to several recent reports and press releases from public policy institutes and government agencies.
- Intangible investment? Why didn't we think of that sooner! The trouble with the concept is that it produces intangible products, intangible profits, and intangible wages. Maybe the employees will get to enjoy an intangible sandwich someday.
- Re-igniting the medical malpractice overhaul debate, a new study by Dartmouth College researchers suggests that huge jury awards and financial settlements for injured patients have not caused the explosive increase in doctors' insurance premiums. The researchers said a more likely explanation for the escalation is that malpractice insurance companies have raised doctors' premiums to compensate for falling investment returns.
- Economic mobility - moving from one income group to another over a lifetime - has actually stopped rising in the United States, researchers say. Some recent studies suggest it has even declined over the last generation.
- The Department of Housing and Urban Development is leading the charge to deny assistance to the families who need it the most. - The US Labor Force: One Foot in the Third World
- The corporate world has certainly been successful in indoctrinating North Americans in the mentality of full-blown capitalism, convincing us to accept its harsh divide between rich and poor.
- Edward S. Lampert made $1.02 billion, while his firm, ESL Investments, raked in a 69 percent return on investment, largely due to Lampert’s deal-making in the merger of Kmart and Sears. While thousands of Kmart and Sears workers have lost their jobs the price of Kmart stock soared after the merger.
- David Cay Johnston, the invaluable New York Times reporter who specializes in our tax system, has come up with some staggering figures on what he calls "the hyper-rich," the wealthiest one-thousandth of the population, and their taxes.
- CAFTA is a minefield, with many deadly bombs buried in its thick brush of text. Yet, have you heard any major network or newspaper cry out? I have heard George Bush's best patriotic voice on radio in sound bites from speeches telling us what a boon this is to America, Central America and Freedom. Oh yeah, at least kiss us before you screw us. The speeches are his idea of foreplay.
- Several senators — millionaires, many of them — have reported earning substantial dividend income in 2004, benefiting greatly from President Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, according to financial disclosure reports made available yesterday.
- Right-wingers tell you why it can't work. We tell you why they're wrong. - Until about seven or eight years ago, in return for loyal service, retirees from big American firms could look forward to having their health care coverage and that of their spouse paid for by their company until death. Then the accountants and Ivy League business graduates started showing the boss how many millions could be saved by simply eliminating that perk.
- Geldof and Bono's campaign for philanthropy portrays the enemies of the poor as their saviours.
- If the idea of declaring bankruptcy has been on your mind recently, the time to act is now. The new bankruptcy law, signed by President Bush in April, is set to take effect in October of this year. The law makes it much more difficult, if not impossible, for people with unmanageable debts to get a fresh financial start in life.
- Cristofaro related a series of actions by local government officials and their hired New London Development Corporation thugs that amount to nothing less than outright intimidation, harassment and extortion.
Pages for June, 2005
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