NewsTrust - Poverty - Most Recent Stories

Rise Up or Die

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

billmoyers.com - By Chris Hedges - May. 21 (Opinion) - What has taken place in these sacrifice zones — in postindustrial cities such as Camden, N.J., and Detroit, in coalfields of southern West Virginia where mining companies blast off mountaintops, in Indian reservations where the demented project of limitless economic expansion and exploitation worked some of its earliest evil, and in produce fields where laborers often endure conditions that replicate slavery — is now happening to much of the rest of the country. These sacrifice zones succumbed first. You and I are next. Corporations write our legislation. They control our systems of information. They manage the political theater of electoral politics and impose our educational curriculum. They have turned the judiciary into one of their wholly owned subsidiaries. They have decimated labor unions and other independent mass organizations, as well as having bought off the Democratic Party, which once defended the rights of workers. With the evisceration of piecemeal and incremental reform — the primary role of liberal, democratic institutions — we are left defenseless against corporate power.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Why Austerity Kills: From Greece to U.S., Crippling Economic Policies Causing Global Health Crisis

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 21 (Interview) - In their new book, "The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills," economist David Stuckler and physician Sanjay Basu examine the health impacts of austerity across the globe. The authors estimate there have been more than 10,000 additional suicides and up to a million extra cases of depression across Europe and the United States since governments started introducing austerity programs in the aftermath of the economic crisis.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

GOPer Who Got Millions in Farm Subsidies Thinks the Poor Should Starve Rather Than Get Food Stamps

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Justin Doolittle - May. 21 (Opinion) - He fulminates about people who are allegedly "unwilling to work" sucking off the government teat with impunity. This is a patently dishonest representation of the SNAP program. Most people who receive food stamps cannot be dismissed as losers who are "unwilling to work." Nearly half (47%) of all food stamp recipients are children. Another 8% are 60 years of age or older. The "working poor" - people who live in a household with income from work - represent another 41%. Between children, the elderly, the working poor, and people who want a job but cannot find one - someone should tell Fincher that there are still more than 3 unemployed job seekers for every 1 opening

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

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."

NewsTrust Rating: 4.4 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Medicaid opposition underscores states' healthcare disparities

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

Los Angeles Times - By Noam N. Levey, Washington Bureau - May. 19 (Comment) - Medicaid opposition underscores states' healthcare disparities

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

How Latin Culture Got More Gay

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By HÉCTOR CARRILLO - May. 17 (Opinion) - Op-Ed Contributor: How Latin Culture Got More Gay

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Greek addicts turn to deadly sisha drug as economic crisis deepens

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Helena Smith - May. 17 (News Analysis) - Growing popularity of 'cocaine of the poor' in Athens has overwhelmed public health authorities already under strain Nobody knows which came first: the economic crisis tearing Greece apart or shisha, the drug now known as the "cocaine of the poor".

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

We need to talk about masculinity

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Laurie Penny - May. 17 (Opinion) - The crisis facing men and boys cannot be solved by reviving the tired stereotypes that oppress and constrain them We need to talk about masculinity. Across a country torn by recession and struggling to adapt to social change, men and boys are feeling lost and powerless, unsure what the future holds and what role they might play in it. Most feel as if they're not allowed to question what it means to be a man today – or discuss what it might mean tomorrow. The Labour MP Diane Abbott, launching a new campaign this week, is not the first person to kick up a fuss about this "crisis of masculinity". In a speech to the thinktank Demos on Thursday she said that millions of young men are in distress, acting out violently or sinking into depression. Unfortunately, the only solution many in the audience could offer is not giving men and boys more power over their own lives, but restoring their traditional power over women, as "breadwinners" and "male providers". Nobody seems to have bothered to ask ...

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Can Star Power Make New Orleans' Food Deserts Bloom?

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

All Things Considered - May. 16 (Special Report) - Actor Wendell Pierce, who stars in David Simon's Treme, is trying to combat New Orleans' food deserts by building convenience and grocery stores in the city's neediest areas. But a host of bureaucratic stumbling blocks still make it hard to get fresh, healthful foods to people living in these areas.

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

IT security in India under scrutiny after $45m cash machine heists

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - May. 15 (News Report) - Millions stolen after gang broke into two card-processing firms based in India and raised balances and withdrawal limits A breach of security at two payment card-processing companies in India that led to heists at cash machines around the world has reopened questions on the risks of outsourcing sensitive financial services to the country. Global banks that ship work to be processed in India, either in-house or to large IT services vendors, were already under pressure to step up oversight of back-office functions after a series of scandals last year. Last week, prosecutors in the United States said a global criminal gang stole $45m (£29.5m) from two Middle Eastern banks by breaking into the two card-processing companies based in India and raising balances and withdrawal limits. "India is exposed in two ways: the threat that the same theft could happen in India and the fact that the outsourcing industry will also get affected," said Arpinder Singh, partner and national director for fraud ...

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

How Baghdad Fuels Iraq's Sectarian Fire

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By SARAH LEAH WHITSON - May. 15 (Opinion) - Op-Ed Contributor: How Baghdad Fuels Iraq's Sectarian Fire

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Stop the Plunder of Africa

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

New York Times - By By KOFI ANNAN - May. 09 (Opinion) - Op-Ed Contributor: Stop the Plunder of Africa

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Stephen Hawking's support for the boycott of Israel is a turning point

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

The Guardian - By Ali Abunimah - May. 09 (Opinion) - Boycotting Israel as a stance for justice is going mainstream – Israelis can no longer pretend theirs is in an enlightened country A standard objection to the Palestinian campaign for the boycott of Israel is that it would cut off "dialogue" and hurt the chances of peace. We've heard this again in the wake of Professor Stephen Hawking's laudable decision to withdraw from Israel's Presidential Conference in response to requests from Palestinian academics – but it would be hard to think of a more unconvincing position as far as Palestinians are concerned. One of the most deceptive aspects of the so-called peace process is the pretence that Palestinians and Israelis are two equal sides, equally at fault, equally responsible – thus erasing from view the brutal reality that Palestinians are an occupied, colonised people, dispossessed at the hands of one of the most powerful militaries on earth. For more than two decades, under the cover of this fiction, Palestinians have engaged in ...

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Why Obamacare is oversold

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

Washington Post - By Robert J. Samuelson - May. 09 (Opinion) - It’s the great moral imperative behind the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”): People should not be denied health care because they can’t afford insurance. Health status and insurance are assumed to be connected, and opponents have often been cast as moral midgets, willing to condemn the uninsured to unnecessary illness or death. The trouble is that health status and insurance are only loosely connected. This suggests that Obamacare may result in more spending and health services but few gains in the public’s ...

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Is Cameron's Britain what we fought for in the war?

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

The Guardian - By Harry Leslie Smith - May. 09 (Opinion) - At 90 I'm too old to fight those who seek to wreck the civilisation we shed blood, sweat, and tears for in the second world war Every year, the spring rains fall hard and heavy to a parched and hungry earth. Life is reborn from the long slumber of winter. For me the beauty in this annual transformation stings as if I caught my finger on a thorn from a rose. These lengthening days remind me of another time, when I was a young man. Back then the sun's rays were just as warm and sensuous but the splendour of nature being reborn was tainted with death. It was 1945, and Europe was still caught in the dying grasps of a cruel and unforgiving world war . It was a conflict that consumed tens of millions of lives through military battles, air bombardment and pure and simple mass murder. For five years of war, through defeat and bitter struggle, the calendar changed from humid summers to crisp fall days, to the bitterness of winter and then back to the optimism of spring. As clocks in every household ...

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Your Retirement for a Bottle of Champagne: How Wall Street Fraudsters Ripped You Off, Again

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Lynn Stuart Parramore - May. 07 (Special Report) - LIBOR was, in the opinion of many, the con of the century. But is it a crime without punishment? About a month ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that a federal court judge had let several banks off the hook, dismissing claims that 16 banks targeted by lawsuits had broken federal antitrust laws by rigging LIBOR. As Matt Taibbi explained in his must-read article on the banking scandal, the federal judge bought the banks’ ridiculous blame-the-victim story that if cities and towns and other investors lost money over LIBOR rigging, it was their own fault.

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

What Health Insurance Doesn’t Do

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

New York Times - By By ROSS DOUTHAT - May. 05 (Opinion) - Op-Ed Columnist: What Health Insurance Doesn’t Do

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

We Decide How to Share Gains

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

Huffington Post - By Stan Sorscher - May. 02 (Opinion) - Multinational employers steadily move work offshore, and lay off thousands of workers. We've cut funding for education; student debt is over a trillion dollars. We've terminated pensions, weakened unions, made work more contingent and more precarious. Wal-Mart cuts hours to avoid paying for health care. Some elected officials demonize teachers, and public employees, and turn public opinion against any regular worker daring to hope for a higher standard of living. Globally, workplace insecurity and inequality are at historic levels.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.4 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Study Finds Health Care Use Rises With Expanded Medicaid

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

New York Times - By By ANNIE LOWREY - May. 02 (Research) - Study Finds Health Care Use Rises With Expanded Medicaid

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

'The Gilded Age' Statistics Corporations Don't Want Workers, or Anyone, to See

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

Common Dreams - By Jon Queally - May. 01 (News Report) - If there's one thing about what many are calling the "The New Gilded Age," it's that well-known corporations—not to mention less well-known, but extremely powerful ones—will fight extremely hard to keep secret just how lopsided the economic disparities have become in recent decades between low-paid workers in the society and the executive and ruling class that have reaped the words of a globalized, top-heavy economy. read ...

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

EU debates biopiracy law to protect indigenous people

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

The Guardian - May. 01 (News Report) - Pharmaceutical firms would need to compensate indigenous people for using their knowhow in creating new medicines The European parliament is debating a draft biopiracy law requiring industry to compensate indigenous people if it makes commercial use of local knowledge such as plant-based medicines. Under the law – based on the international convention on access to biodiversity, the Nagoya protocol – the pharmaceuticals industry would need the written consent of local or indigenous people before exploring their region's genetic resources or making use of their traditional knowhow. Relevant authorities would have the power to sanction companies that fail to comply, protecting local interests from the predatory attitude of big European companies. German firm patents South African herb The draft report on access to genetic resources by Green MEP Sandrine Bélier cites as an example a German pharmaceutical company's dealings in South Africa. Pelargonium sidoides, a variety of ...

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

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.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Exposed: The Billionaire-Backed Group Strong-Arming Parents into Destroying Their Kids' Public Schools

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

AlterNet - By Yasha Levine - Apr. 30 (Investigative Report) - The parents told me that a Los Angeles-based group calling itself Parent Revolution organized a local campaign to harass and trick them into signing petitions that they thought were meant for simple school improvements. In fact those petitions turned out to be part of a sophisticated campaign to convert their children’s public school into a privately-run charter — something a majority of parents opposed. At times, locals say, the Parent Revolution volunteers’ tactics were so heavy-handed in gathering signatures that they crossed the line into harassment and intimidation. Many parents were misled about what the petition they signed actually meant. Some told me that the intimidation with some of the undocumented Latino residents included bribery and extortion

NewsTrust Rating: 4.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

When Your Boss Steals Your Wages: The Invisible Epidemic That’s Sweeping America

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Lynn Stuart Parramore - Apr. 29 (Special Report) - Americans like to think that a fair day’s work brings a fair day’s pay. Cheating workers of their wages may seem like a problem of 19th-century sweatshops. But it’s back and taking a terrible toll. We’re talking billions of dollars in wages; millions of workers affected each year. A gigantic heist is being perpetrated against working people: they’re getting screwed on overtime, denied their tips, shortchanged on benefits, defrauded on payroll, and handed paychecks that bounce like rubber balls. A conservative estimate of unpaid overtime alone shows that it costs workers at least $19 billion per year

NewsTrust Rating: 4.6 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Explaining the upper crust’s preference for austerity economics

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

seattletimes.com - By Paul Krugman - Apr. 27 (Opinion) - At this point, the austerian position has imploded; not only have its predictions about the real world failed completely, but the academic research invoked to support that position has turned out to be riddled with errors, omissions and dubious statistics. Yet two big questions remain. First, how did austerity doctrine become so influential in the first place? Second, will policy change at all now that crucial austerian claims have become fodder for late-night comics?

NewsTrust Rating: 4.3 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer