By HELAINE OLEN THE odds are good that you haven’t yet given up on your New Year’s resolutions and that one of them is to swear off those expensive cappuccinos and save money for your old age. That’s a typical suggestion… Read More ›
Economy
Profiting off hunger: Wall Street makes big gains over food price spikes
AFP Photo / Tony Karuba Powerful firms like Goldman Sachs have made hundreds of millions of dollars in food future trades. Critics accuse them of profiting off starvation and market manipulation, while traders claim their profits are due to increasing… Read More ›
Stacey Campfield, Tennessee GOP Lawmaker, Wants To Tie Welfare Benefits To Children’s Grades
By Nick Wing Tennessee state Rep. Stacey Campfield (R) introduced a bill this week seeking to make welfare benefits contingent upon the grades of a would-be recipient’s children. Campfield’s legislation, filed Thursday, would “require the reduction of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families… Read More ›
World’s 100 richest earned enough in 2012 to end global poverty 4 times over
AFP Photo / Ahmad Al-Rubaye The world’s 100 richest people earned a stunning total of $240 billion in 2012 – enough money to end extreme poverty worldwide four times over, Oxfam has revealed, adding that the global economic crisis is… Read More ›
The 13-Year War
by PAUL WALDMAN As we draw closer to the withdrawal in Afghanistan promised at the close of 2014, a look back at America’s longest war. In October 2001, George W. Bush told the country he was sending the American military to… Read More ›
Unemployed far outnumber job openings in every sector
The figure below shows the number of unemployed workers and the number of job openings by sector. Unemployed workers far outnumber job openings in every sector, underscoring the fact that the main cause of today’s persistent high unemployment is a… Read More ›
MLK Day: the Lessons of Pacifism & the Civil Rights Movement
Today is the celebration of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in the United States. While it is ostensibly celebrated to promote the Civil Rights Movement, one wonders why MLK, among all other more active and progressive civil rights… Read More ›
Homeless Man Choked to Death by Store Manager for Stealing Toothpaste
CVS – the once thought of drug and convenience store will now be known as the store that defends its manager’s rights to kill shoplifters…even those that are caught taking a single tube of toothpaste. Death for toothpaste. Would anyone ever exchange… Read More ›
Israel investing capital in disputed West Bank sites
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is advancing a plan to invest in places it considers part of its national heritage, including nine West Bank sites, the government said Monday in an announcement that could appeal to hard-line voters a week ahead of elections. It… Read More ›
The Right-to-Exploit
by ROBERT HANHAM Right-to-Work Laws as Weapons of Class War No sooner had Michigan’s ‘right-to-work’ (RTW) law passed, than supporters were out in force crowing about their success and the prospect of other states falling victim. Non-RTW states Alaska, Illinois,… Read More ›
Video: FBI knew of plot to kill Occupy Wall Street activists, remained silent
Only one month into the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations last year, plans were formulated to identify key figures in the movement and execute them with a coordinated assault using sniper rifles, new documents reveal.
The Sacred Cow of American Defense Spending
Would You Feel Safer With a Nuclear Missile Silo in Your Neighborhood? 2012 headlines were full of horrible depressing news: cuts on the federal, state, county and the city level. The nation was subjected to a full time diet of… Read More ›
Amnesty International’s latest arms trade campaign is colonialism with a kindly face
If you needed any further proof that Amnesty International is to the 21st century what rum-swigging bearers of the White Man’s Burden were to the 19th, look no further than its current campaign for a global arms trade treaty. Amnesty is… Read More ›
Matt Taibbi: Libor scandal biggest ‘Wall Street-related story of this year’
By Samantha Kimmey On the Current TV show Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer, Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi said that the underreported Libor scandal was the “the biggest story, Wall Street-related story, of this year.” “There’s been a whole spate of market… Read More ›
A projected 13.1 percent of workers will be unemployed at some point in 2013
New data show that 14.9 percent of the workforce was unemployed at some point in 2011, much higher than the official 2011 unemployment rate of 8.9 percent. How can this be? Each month, the official unemployment rate provides the share… Read More ›
The Red Phoenix 