September 1, 2012

MUST WATCH: Jazeera’s counting the cost takes on the banking system and the reality of banking.  Must Watch, simple, 25 min, explanation of an exceptional injustice.

From Lehman to Libor, scandal and even criminal activity have stalked the banking sector. Despite taking taxpayers money to survive the North Atlantic financial crisis, there is very little evidence the banks are actually using that money to help bolster economic growth.

That has many questioning the role of the banks, and it surprised us that our commercial banks are actually responsible for creating 97 per cent of money. The way they do that, they create money into existence with a few taps on a keyboard.

So, who is actually in charge of all the money? Are the bankers and the system out of control? And with banks failing the West, does Islamic finance have some answers to the world’s money troubles?

Joining Counting the Cost to discuss these issues are: Professor Jem Bendell of the University of Cumbria and Tarek El Diwany, a senior partner at the Islamic investment and finance consultancy Zest Advisory.

Having taken taxpayer money, the banks have been reluctant to loan money out. A problem entrepreneur David Fishwick had to deal with, as his clients could not buy his minibuses because they could not loan money from the banks. When he decided to turn his hand to opening a bank in his home town of Burnely, he quickly ran into a lot of red tape.

We speak to David Fishwick about his experiences and his decision to take on the banks and the system which regulates them, to set up his own small-time bank for everyday people.

He says: “It [trust] doesn’t exist any more [in the banking sector], but it does if you put social responsibility back into people, they do pay …. My little ‘bank’ is completely different from most banks …. We keep it in one big circle, a community bank that works for the community, that serves the community, that we get a 98 per cent payment rate on because it’s for the community.

If a bank is too big to fail, then it’s just too big to exist and it shouldn’t be there in the first place. If banks are kept small and they are run by capable people who are very comfortable with the amounts of money that are going in and out, we would have never gotten the problems that we have got at the moment. But the big problems that lie at the door of the banks: When people rob banks they go to prison, when banks rob people they get bonuses. That has to stop.”

5:58pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiWeSySajnNl
Filed under: Capitalism Banking United States of America USA Interest Social Injustice 
February 4, 2012
jonathan-cunningham: This is adjusted for inflation. I don’t think our education system is about education anymore.

jonathan-cunningham:

This is adjusted for inflation. I don’t think our education system is about education anymore.

(via stfuconservatives)

1:00pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiWeSyFteN40
(Notes: 5,588)
  
Filed under: Occupy Student Debt Wall Street Everything Together United States of America Capitalism injustice 
December 29, 2011
Extradition request for fugitive George Wright denied by Portugal

6:30pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiWeSyDzeYc9
(Notes: 118)
  
Filed under: Portugal United States Anti Terrorism Injustice Freedom Liberty Europe Political Persecution 
December 29, 2011
Fort Dix Five: 'If they did something, punish them. But they're innocent kids' - Guardian

The FBI claimed it had exposed a dangerous group of men in a massive ‘entrapment’ operation over an alleged plot to attack a US army base in New Jersey. But were they really terrorists?

I still remember when this case hit NJ…. it’s interesting to see a true intellectual/internationalist response.

1:00pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiWeSyDy-plw
(Notes: 164)
  
Filed under: United States of America Political Prisoners Terrorism New Jersey Cherry Hill Repression Federal Investigations FBI Capitalism Imperialism Framing Injustice 
December 28, 2011
Fake terror plots, paid informants: the tactics of FBI 'entrapment' questioned

Critics say bureau is running a sting operation across America, targeting vulnerable people by luring them into fake terror plots

6:06pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiWeSyDwWy-M
(Notes: 117)
  
Filed under: United States of AMerica Federal Government Investigations FBI Framing Injustice Persecution Police Surveillance State Monitoring Terrorism 
December 9, 2011
letmypeopleshow: Diego Rivera at the Museum of Modern Art MoMa was only two years old when Diego Rivera occupied it for the first time. It was the fall of 1931, during the Depression, and the museum brought the artist from Mexico to New York six weeks before his solo show to create what we now might describe as semi-site-specific works. On blocks of frescoed plaster, slaked lime, and wood, he painted five “portable murals”—some on themes from Mexican history (his famous Agrarian Leader Zapata); others on class inequity, and revolution. After the opening, RIvera added three more murals about social injustice in New York—or, as we might say now, the 99 percent.  That’s the theme of Frozen Assets, shown here, which looks awfully fresh for a 1931 painting. MoMA is reuniting it with other works from the original exhibition in “Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art,” opening November 13. Also featured are designs for Rivera’s Rockefeller Center murals, which were destroyed in 1934 after a scandal over the artist’s “unauthorized” depiction of Lenin.    ”Diego Rivera” is but one amazing show on art and politics at an institution built on oil money this fall. At the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, “Greetings from L.A.: Artists and Publics, 1950–1980” chronicles how artists took to the streets—and exploited the mass media— to support social and political movements advocating for feminism, peace, and more. The website documents works like The Peace Tower, a massive 1966 protest against the Vietnam War featuring hundreds of paintings sent from artists from around the world, and the elegiac performance In Mourning and Rage, staged by Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz-Starus in 1978.  How this might impress the Occupy Museums protestors who’ve branched off from Occupy Wall Street to picket MoMA and other museums isn’t clear, since their message seems to have morphed from a critique of cultural elitism to a collective sharing of information and empowerment. In which case they should do a field trip inside the museums too, where they will find (in addition to more Communist art) evidence of the cultural elitism they rightly detect—as well as many programs offering information and empowerment. Sometimes the radicals are on the inside. Which is to say, there are a lot of ways to occupy museums. At MoMA, Tony Shafrazi spray-painted Picasso’s Guernica in 1974 to get his protest against the Vietnam War on front pages around the world; that was a bad way. Occupy Museums has been deeply controversial in the art world regarding its targets and intentions. But initiating conversations with people outside the museum about cultural elitism, underpaid art handlers, and issues that keep people out of museums? Funny thing—that sounds just like the art inside the museum.  Museo Dolores Olmedo, Xochimilco, Mexico © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

letmypeopleshow:

Diego Rivera at the Museum of Modern Art

MoMa was only two years old when Diego Rivera occupied it for the first time. It was the fall of 1931, during the Depression, and the museum brought the artist from Mexico to New York six weeks before his solo show to create what we now might describe as semi-site-specific works. On blocks of frescoed plaster, slaked lime, and wood, he painted five “portable murals”—some on themes from Mexican history (his famous Agrarian Leader Zapata); others on class inequity, and revolution. After the opening, RIvera added three more murals about social injustice in New York—or, as we might say now, the 99 percent. 

That’s the theme of Frozen Assets, shown here, which looks awfully fresh for a 1931 painting. MoMA is reuniting it with other works from the original exhibition in “Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art,” opening November 13. Also featured are designs for Rivera’s Rockefeller Center murals, which were destroyed in 1934 after a scandal over the artist’s “unauthorized” depiction of Lenin.  

 ”Diego Rivera” is but one amazing show on art and politics at an institution built on oil money this fall. At the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, “Greetings from L.A.: Artists and Publics, 1950–1980” chronicles how artists took to the streets—and exploited the mass media— to support social and political movements advocating for feminism, peace, and more. The website documents works like The Peace Tower, a massive 1966 protest against the Vietnam War featuring hundreds of paintings sent from artists from around the world, and the elegiac performance In Mourning and Rage, staged by Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz-Starus in 1978. 

How this might impress the Occupy Museums protestors who’ve branched off from Occupy Wall Street to picket MoMA and other museums isn’t clear, since their message seems to have morphed from a critique of cultural elitism to a collective sharing of information and empowerment. In which case they should do a field trip inside the museums too, where they will find (in addition to more Communist art) evidence of the cultural elitism they rightly detect—as well as many programs offering information and empowerment. Sometimes the radicals are on the inside.

Which is to say, there are a lot of ways to occupy museums. At MoMA, Tony Shafrazi spray-painted Picasso’s Guernica in 1974 to get his protest against the Vietnam War on front pages around the world; that was a bad way. Occupy Museums has been deeply controversial in the art world regarding its targets and intentions. But initiating conversations with people outside the museum about cultural elitism, underpaid art handlers, and issues that keep people out of museums? Funny thing—that sounds just like the art inside the museum. 

Museo Dolores Olmedo, Xochimilco, Mexico
© 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

(via fylatinamericanhistory)

7:17pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiWeSyD1rQ5s
(Notes: 1,835)
  
Filed under: United States of America New york City Capitalism Imperialism Inequality Injustice Fascism 
November 17, 2011
Is it really the 99% vs the 1%? (Guardian)

When people in the United States are asked how US wealth is distributed, they think that the richest 20% should own up to 40% of national wealth.  That includes 90% of republicans surveyed.  In fact, the richest 20% own 85% of the national wealth.  Those surveyed also thought the bottom 120 million people should own around 10% of the national wealth.  The reality?  0.3%.

 

The richest 1% of the US population own one third of the US’s net worth.

 

In 2010, the average American earned $26,487 - down over $2,000 in real terms on 2006. That’s a drop of 5.27%, including inflation. If you were poor it’s been an even bigger drop - the 24 million least wealthy households in America saw their average income go down by 10% From $12,276 in 2006 to $11,034 in 2010.

 

Now, one in every seven Americans lives below the poverty line - that’s a record 46.2 million people (although it might actually be higher). 

• One in six Americans have no health insurance - 50 million people, a population twice the size of Texas (27m people). Of every 17 Americans, at least one will be earning below the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. 

  • 14.5% of Americans households are defined as “food insecure”. That means for every seven households, one will have trouble putting enough food on the table

 

What about taxes? The 400 wealthiest households paid $19.6bn in taxes in 2008 - the latest year we have data. That’s 1.9% of all the income tax the IRS collects. If you are in the top tax bracket, your tax rate is 35%. But it doesn’t quite work like that.

Imagine you are a billionaire and your income comes mostly from investments. Imagine you are Warren Buffet. You would end up paying a tax rate of under 20%. In fact, Buffett paid 17.4% tax last year. This is the “effective” tax rate.

If you earn between $100,000 and $200,000 you will be paying up to 25% effective tax rate - and that’s before payroll taxes kick in. The 400 richest tax returns surveyed by the IRS paid just 18.1% in 2008.

(SOURCE)

6:40pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiWeSyC3WJtn
(Notes: 11)
  
Filed under: America Capitalism Communism Imperialism Inequity Injustice Justice Materialism Slavery Social Socialism States United of 
June 28, 2011
"

Energy poverty is defined as having little or no access to electricity and relying on fossil fuels for daily activities, such as cooking and lighting. When most people think poverty, they think of malnutrition, world hunger, lack of access to clean water, and an array of other social problems involving poverty, but usually not involving energy. Rural villagers who suffer from energy poverty are actually taking the biggest hit of all forms of poverty. The number one killer of children under the age of five is pneumonia. It’s not water-borne diseases, AIDS, or any other seemingly obvious reason. Millions of children are dying every year from the basic necessity of light—every 20 seconds to be exact.

Using kerosene lamps for lighting and cooking with cow dung release toxic emissions that are directly linked to eye infections, lower respiration infections, and lung cancer. Inhaling the emissions of a kerosene lamp is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes in a single day, which can probably explain why two-thirds of lung cancer victims that are actually non-smokers. A single kerosene lamp emits one ton of carbon dioxide over the course of five years (or the equivalent from driving your car from Miami, Florida to Seattle, Washington); and in total, all kerosene lamps combined release 144 million tons of carbon emissions into atmosphere each year.

"

— http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/06/energy-poverty-indias-best-kept-secret.php

6:10pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiWeSy6YZrv4
(Notes: 13)
  
Filed under: Energy Poverty Social Justice Injustice Development Sustainability Human Rights 
November 9, 2010
Nobody from the CIA will be charged in connection with the destruction of videos of the interrogation of terrorist suspects in the years after the September 11 attacks, the US justice department said today.

Disgusting

4:13pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiWeSy1R2q9d
Filed under: CIA Spy Espionage United States Justice Injustice Corruption 
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