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The 4 Big Ways That Insatiable Corporate Hunger for Profits Has Devastated American Life -- and the World Along with It

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Paul Buchheit - May. 19 (Special Report) - In this dream world of global capitalism, young people are going from zero income on the farm to a few dollars a day on a 12-hour factory shift, and as a result, based on the World Bank's poverty threshold of $1.25 per day, they're no longer "in poverty." So the media piles on praise for free markets. The Economist proclaimed that "poverty is declining everywhere." The Washington Post gushed that "a billion people have been lifted from poverty through free-market competition."

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Large Corporations Seek U.S.–European 'Free Trade Agreement' to Further Global Dominance

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Andrew Gavin Marshall - May. 13 (Special Report) - A corporate world order is emerging, and like any parasite, it is slowly killing off its host. Unfortunately, the "host" happens to be the planet, and all life upon and within it. So, while the extinction of the species will be the end result of passively accepting a corporate-driven world, on the other hand, it’s very profitable for those corporations and their shareholders.

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Obama, Cameron Promote Trade Deal Granting Corporations Political Power

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:44:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Zach Carter - May. 13 (News) - President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday pledged to pursue a broad trade agreement between the U.S. and European Union, amid growing domestic unrest with the Obama administration's plans to include new political powers for corporations in the deal.

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Why the TransPacific Partnership is a Scary Big (Trade) Deal

Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

yesmagazine.org - By Kristen Beifus - May. 09 (News Analysis) - It was hard for the Japanese journalist to believe me when I explained that there is little awareness of the TPP here in the United States, because our media has hardly covered the subject. The corporate powers granted in the TPP can override domestic laws on environmental health and safety, and labor and citizens’ rights. Not only that, but multinationals can claim that those domestic laws hamper free trade and sue member countries for millions of dollars. The TPP is in many ways an attempt to revive the stalled expansion of the World Trade Organization.

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Do visas for skilled foreigners shut out U.S. tech workers?

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

seattletimes.com - By Kyung M. Song, Janet I. Tu - May. 05 (Special Report) - Though he was then in his late 50s, Erickson figured the drumbeat of complaints from Microsoft and other tech companies about a dearth of good applicants promised an easy career switch. Nine months past his graduation, however, Erickson has yet to find full-time work. “When I saw my (philosophy) career was going to be over, I retrained myself,” Erickson, now 60, said. “What good is that if I’m not actually going to get a job?”

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How Two Secretive Global Trade Deals Will Further Enrich the American Elite

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Dean Baker - May. 02 (News Analysis) - the Obama administration is pursuing two major "free trade" agreements that in fact have very little to do with free trade and are likely to hurt those without the money and power to be part of the game. The deals in questions, the Trans-Pacific Partnership ( TPP) and the US-European Union "Free Trade" Agreement are both being pushed as major openings to trade that will increase growth and create jobs. In fact, eliminating trade restrictions is a relatively small part of both agreements

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Reinhart, Rogoff Backing Furiously Away From Austerity Movement

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Mark Gongloff - May. 02 (News Report) - Under steady attack after their seminal research was found to be riddled with errors, Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff are making a show of backing away from the austerity that their research encouraged. They claim that their views on austerity have never changed, but the record tells a different story. They're still trying to have it both ways -- advocating for government belt-tightening while trying to avoid being seen as political.

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As Bangladesh Toll Hits 400, Calls Grow to Grant Workers the Same Protections as Labels They Make

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 01 (News Analysis) - "We need to stand up and just say, 'You can bring anything you want into the United States, but you're not bringing it in if it was made by children or the workers are denied their right to organize.’ The lift that would give to the Bangladeshi labor movement would be enormous."

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2 More Grad Students Claim To Find Another Flaw In Reinhart-Rogoff Research

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Mark Gongloff - Apr. 30 (News Report) - Like Scooby-Doo villains, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff keep getting done in by meddling kids. First, University of Massachusetts-Amherst grad student Thomas Herndon shot holes in their influential research paper, "Growth In A Time Of Debt," by pointing out several mistakes and omissions the Harvard economists had made. Now, two PhD students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City have a new paper that they say finds another flaw in that same research.

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The Blowback from Interventionism

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Melvin A. Goodman - Apr. 27 (News Analysis) - American foreign policy remains locked in a cycle of violence, with the Obama administration failing to escape the neocon insistence on a swaggering “tough-guy-ism” abroad. That reliance on military intervention also comes with the cost of “blowback,

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Meet the 28-year-old Student Who Exposed Two Harvard Professors Whose Shoddy Research Drove Global Austerity

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Lynn Stuart Parramore - Apr. 18 (News Report) - Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have become famous in politic and economic circles. These two Harvard economists wrote a paper, “Growth in the Time of Debt” that has been used by everyone from Paul Ryan to Olli Rehn of the European Commission to justify harmful austerity policies.

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Paul Ryan's Austerity Agenda Relies on Bad Math, Coding Errors and a 'Significant Mistake'

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By John Nichols - Apr. 18 (News Analysis) - The paper the House Budget Committee chairman has used as the intellectual and statistical underpinning for his austerity agenda has been significantly discredited by the revelation that essential data was excluded from the study, leading "to serious errors that inaccurately represent the relationship between public debt and growth." The Harvard professors who produced the paper—which Ryan cited as recently as last month—have acknowledged their mathematical error. Now, the question is whether Ryan and

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Did Harvard Economists Make an Excel Error that Lead to Economic Austerity?

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

finance.yahoo.com - By Lauren Lyster - Apr. 17 (News Report) - Austerity has become almost like a four-letter word in some circles. It’s used to describe policies meant to reduce government spending and debt that may be painful in the here and now - measures such as cuts to social services--or that lead to job losse

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Big depositors in Cyprus to lose more than feared

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

MSN.com - By Michele Kambas of Reuters, Additional reporting by Ivana Sekularac, Gilbert Kreijger in Amsterdam - Mar. 30 (Breaking News) - Those with deposits under 100,000 euros will continue to be protected under the state's deposit guarantee. Cyprus' difficulties have sent jitters around the fragile single European currency zone, and led to the imposition of capital controls in Cyprus to prevent a run on banks by worried Cypriots and wealthy foreign depositors. Banks reopened Thursday after an almost two-week shutdown as Cyprus negotiated the rescue package. In the end, the reopening was largely quiet, with Cypriots queuing calmly for the 300 euros they were permitted to withdraw daily. The imposition of capital controls has led economists to warn that a second-class "Cyprus euro" could emerge, with funds trapped on the island less valuable than euros that can be freely spent abroad.

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Ex-White House Official Joins Group Fighting "Excessive" Online Privacy Laws

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Dana Liebelson - Mar. 29 (News Report) - As the Obama administration and tech company lobbyists chip away at the European Union's attempts to protect online privacy, a new pro-industry coalition has popped up to join the fray. Not quite two weeks ago, the Coalition for Privacy and Free Trade announced its existence. The group's senior academic adviser is Daniel Weitzner , who, less than two years ago, was working as the White House's deputy chief technology officer for internet policy. Weitzner tells Mother Jones that he joined the coalition because he wants to strengthen privacy laws while ensuring the free flow of information. He worked for the administration from March 2011 to August 2012, leading the development of the much-lauded Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, a blueprint that asserts Americans' right to control what happens to their online data. Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, calls the document "a significant achievement" and says that "Danny deserves a fair amount of credit for it." But, ...

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Beyond Nuclear and others take action to lower radioactivity allowed in food

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

beyondnuclear.org - Mar. 29 (News Report) - Beyond Nuclear, in coalition with other groups and individuals from Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network or FFAN, filed a petition with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to drastically reduce the amount of radioactive cesium permitted in food, from a ridiculous 1200 Bq/kg, to 5 Bq/kg (see why here, read why here). The Bq (Becquerel) is a measure of radioactivity. This week the FDA officially accepted the petition into its process, which means they are now accepting comments. Our petition asks for a binding limit of 5 Bq/kg of cesium 134 & 137 combined, in food, nutritional supplements and pharmaceuticals. This is necessary in the wake of the ongoing catastrophe at Fukushima,

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Like NAFTA, TPP would help corporations, but not people

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

thestand.org - By Raul Burbano, Kristin Beifus, Manuel PÉrez Rocha - Mar. 28 (Special Report) - TTPPxBorderhe TPP is a super-sized trade deal-expanding on so called “next generation” trade and investment deals that NAFTA countries have pursued in the wake of the stalemate at the World Trade Organization. This pluri-lateral agreement poses serious new threats to North American communities — threats that a tri-national movement of trade justice activists is preparing to fight in the lead-up to a possible July TPP negotiating round in Canada.

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Who Owns the Fish?

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

cironline.org - By Ariane Wu, Arthur Jones, Susanne Rust - Mar. 28 (Special Report) - Any commercial fisherman used to be able to fish in U.S. seas. Not anymore. Today, the right to fish belongs to a number of private individuals who have traded, bought and sold these rights in unregulated markets. This system, called "catch shares," favors large fishing fleets and has cut out thousands of smaller-scale fishermen. How did this happen?

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We're Measuring Energy Efficiency Wrong

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Chris Nelder - Mar. 23 (News Analysis) - It is widely assumed that over the coming decades, increased energy efficiency will help the world meet its energy needs and reduce carbon emissions. That may be true, but recent research suggests that energy intensity—a widely used way of measuring efficiency—isn't the right metric. Energy intensity is a simple ratio: energy use per dollar of GDP. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the energy intensity of the U.S. economy declined by 1.6 percent per year from 1985 to 2004, suggesting that we're doing more with less energy. Energy companies have embraced this idea: "Energy per unit of income as measured by GDP continues to fall, and at an accelerating rate," asserts BP . "This is true in our outlook to 2030 not only for the global average, but for almost all of the key countries and regions. The combination of energy efficiency gains and a long-term ...

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River full of dead, diseased pigs is just another food safety nightmare for China

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Susie Cagle - Mar. 14 (News Analysis) - One week after local residents first spotted them by a water treatment center, Chinese officials are still fishing dead pigs out of the Huangpu river. To date, they’ve used a dozen barges to pull 5,916 pigs out of the water. The pigs are believed to have originated from upriver farms after a series of investigations revealed illegal trade of meat harvested from diseased pigs. But don’t worry, the government says: The water’s fine!

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How I Was Offered My Very Own Safari

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Corbin Hiar - Mar. 12 (Investigative Report) - Mother Jones insisted that before my investigation of congressional conservation junkets went to print, I try everything I could to get a response from the colorful figure who launched and then left the shadowy foundation at the center of the story. So, after spending over four months reporting on ethically questionable trips arranged by the International Conservation Caucus Foundation, I got a hold of a man with a deep Southern drawl and—if he was who I thought he was—first-hand knowledge of ICCF's junkets. "Is this David Barron?" I asked. "This is," he said. After that came a long series understatements, the first of which was my own: "I've been trying to reach you in regards to your involvement with the International Conservation Caucus Foundation." My previous attempts to reach Barron had entailed, among other things, emailing several addresses I had for him and calling a series of listed and unlisted phone numbers associated with him using my Brooklyn cell phone number, ...

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Have You Heard of the TPP Yet? An Important Trade Agreement You Need to Know About

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

aflcio.org - By Celeste Drake - Mar. 11 (Special Report) - Most people simply have not heard of the TPP, nor do they know that it might be the last trade agreement the United States ever negotiates (unlike past agreements, this one will be open to new countries, whenever they want to join). So it is all the more important to get this one right. Why isn’t the press talking about this trade agreement? It’s certainly not because trade is boring or irrelevant, and it is definitely not because the debate is over.

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How H-1B Visas Are Screwing Tech Workers

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Josh Harkinson - Feb. 22 (Special Report) - A few years ago, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer informed hundreds of tech workers in its Connecticut R&D facilities that they'd soon be laid off. Before getting their final paychecks, however, they'd need to train their replacements: guest workers from India who'd come to the United States on H-1B visas. "It's a very, very stressful work environment," one soon-to-be-axed worker told Connecticut's The Day newspaper. "I haven't been able to sleep in weeks." Established in 1990, the federal H-1B visa program allows employers to import up to 65,000 foreign workers each year to fill jobs that require "highly specialized knowledge." The Senate's bipartisan Immigration Innovation Act of 2013, or "I-Squared Act," would increase that cap to as many as 300,000 foreign workers. "The smartest, hardest-working, most talented people on this planet, we should want them to come here," Sen. Marco Rubio, (R-Fla.) said upon introducing the bill last month. "I, for one, have no fear that this country is going ...

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Biggest US Climate Rally Ever Pushes Obama to Reject Keystone Pipeline

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Suzanne Goldenberg - Feb. 18 (Special Report) - This story first appeared in The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Tens of thousands of protesters descended on Washington DC on Sunday demanding Barack Obama shut down the Keystone XL pipeline project to show he is serious about taking action on climate change. A crowd that organizers put at 35,000, carrying placards in the shape of bright red stop signs, gathered at the Washington Monument on a bright, bitterly cold day for the march on the White House. The event, billed as the largest climate protest in US history, was intended as a show of force before Obama renders his decision on the pipeline project in the next few months. Continue Reading ...

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Kerry Misses the Keystone Point

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By William Boardman, - Feb. 14 (News Analysis) - The shadow play aspects of the public posturing around the Keystone pipeline make it difficult to focus on the underlying reality that matters most: whether exploiting tar sands, not only in Canada, but in the U.S. and other countries, really will mean "game over for the climate," as NASA scientist James Hansen has said.

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