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Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills

  • Austerity kills -- radical cuts destroy economies and lives, and the honest numbers and economics keep proving it.
  • Excerpted from "The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills"
  • How America Became a Third World Country (2013-2023)
  • The Real Cost of Austerity

David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu, Salon 

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of all reader supported Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

Sunday, May 19, 2013 | “I will never forgive them,” wrote 13-year-old Kieran McArdle to the Daily Record, a national newspaper based in Glasgow. “I won’t be able to come to terms with my dad’s death until I get justice for him.”

Kieran’s father, 57-year-old Brian, had worked as a security guard in Lanarkshire, near Glasgow. The day after Christmas 2011, Brian had a stroke, which left him paralyzed on his left side, blind in one eye, and unable to speak. He could no longer continue working to support his family, so he signed up for disability income from the British government.

Full story…

Related:

How America Became a Third World Country (2013-2023), Mattea Kramer and Jo Comerford‚ TomDispatch

  • Too few Americans -- with too little influence -- spoke up, and Washington didn’t listen. The rest of the story, as you well know, is history.
  • What a grim scene you have: a country investing in war in distant lands as it crumbles here at home.

The Real Cost of Austerity, Truthdig

  • It’s high time our elected officials started listening to the wisdom of economists like Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, who for months has been consistently warning us about the dangers of austerity. And once again, he’s been proved right.
  • Austerity debunked, Aljazeera
  • Everything We Know About What’s Happened Under Sequestration

 

Section(s): 

Guns vs. Butter

Exposing the Truth

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Chante Wolf

Amazon Warehouse Workers Sue Over Security Checkpoint Waits

  • Workers deserve to be paid for the time they spend waiting on the security line because it's not by choice -- and because "you drove God knows how far to this place, and you just worked 12 hours," Busk argued.
  • The Morning Call’s Amazon Sweatshop Probe

Dave Jamieson, Huffington Post

Thanks to Evergreene Digest reader Tom Dooley for this contribution. 

If you like reading this article, consider contributing a cafe latte to all reader-supported Evergreene Digest--using the donation button above—so we can bring you more just like it.

05/08/2013 | Whenever he clocked out after his 12-hour shift at an Amazon warehouse, Jesse Busk had one more critical task to perform before he could hop into his car and head home to sleep: Pass through the sprawling warehouse security checkpoint.

The purpose of the checkpoint was to prevent workers like Busk from pilfering electronics or other pricey goods from the Amazon stock. The process deeply annoyed Busk, but not because of any indignity he may have felt in being checked for contraband. What bothered him was the time it required after an exhausting day -- up to 25 minutes, all of it unpaid.

Full story…

Related:

The Morning Call’s Amazon Sweatshop Probe, Ryan Chittum, Columbia Journalism Review

 

Section(s): 

Special Project | The Fight for the American Dream, Week of May 12, 2013

  • "The top 1-percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles," Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz concludes, "but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99-percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1-percent eventually do learn. Too late."
  • 11 New Items including:
    • Standing up to the big banks
    • The Real Cost of Austerity
    • Target handbook unlawfully discouraged union activity, NLRB says
    • The Housing Market Recovery Is ‘A Complete Hoax’
    • How the Rich Benefited From the Recovery
    • Bail-out is out, bail-in is in: time for some publicly-owned banks,
    • Austerity debunked
    • The terrible cost of Washington’s wars
    • The Question of Socialism (and Beyond!) Is About to Open Up in These United States
    • The World Trade Organization's "Papal" Conclave
    • The Confiscation of Bank Savings to “Save the Banks”

David Culver, Ed., Evergreene Digest

Adam Zyglis

Standing up to the big banks, Rob, Occupy Our Homes

Three brave Michigan families are standing up to the banks that ravaged our economy, and they need your support!

The Real Cost of Austerity, Truthdig

  • It’s high time our elected officials started listening to the wisdom of economists like Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, who for months has been consistently warning us about the dangers of austerity. And once again, he’s been proved right.
  • Everything We Know About What’s Happened Under Sequestration

Target handbook unlawfully discouraged union activity, NLRB says, Julie Beck, Inside Counsel 

  • Store must hold another union election, company must revise certain policies
  • Costco CEO: Raise The Minimum Wage To More Than $10 Per Hour

The Housing Market Recovery Is ‘A Complete Hoax’ Truthdig

Five Star Institute economist Mark Lieberman has shown that banks are keeping more than 7 million homes off the market in this manner in order to “reduce listings, create the illusion of ‘scarcity,’ and push up prices,” Whitney reports. The housing market recovery, then, is “a complete hoax.”

How the Rich Benefited From the Recovery, Les Leopold, AlterNet / Truthdig

  • (While Most of Us Got Nothing)
  • Austerity debunked

Bail-out is out, bail-in is in: time for some publicly-owned banks, Ellen Brown, Web of Debt / Nation of Change

  • “[W]ith Cyprus . . . the game itself changed. By raiding the depositors’ accounts, a major central bank has gone where they would not previously have dared. The Rubicon has been crossed.”   —Eric Sprott, Shree Kargutkar, “Caveat Depositor
  • Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever

 

Drew Sheneman

 

 

Austerity debunked, Aljazeera

The terrible cost of Washington’s wars, Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site

  • The vast resources wasted and the incalculable human suffering inflicted by the bloated US military and intelligence apparatus pose the urgency of building a genuine mass movement against militarism and war.
  • Sequester Cuts

The Question of Socialism (and Beyond!) Is About to Open Up in These United States, Gar AlperovitzTruthout

  • With Americans' interest in socialism rising, we need to seriously consider alternative designs to the current system, argues Alperovitz, in this practical critique of some known models.
  • Can Civilization Survive Capitalism?

The World Trade Organization's "Papal" Conclave, Robin Broad, Triple Crisis 

  • At some point, we are going to have to move to a global governance system where trade is the “servant” of a global economy that works for communities, workers, and the environment.
  • Potato Chip Capitalism

The Confiscation of Bank Savings to “Save the Banks” Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research

 

Section(s): 

The Real Cost of Austerity

  • It’s high time our elected officials started listening to the wisdom of economists like Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, who for months has been consistently warning us about the dangers of austerity. And once again, he’s been proved right.
  • Austerity debunked
  • Everything We Know About What’s Happened Under Sequestration

Truthdig

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of all reader supported Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

Flickr/401(K) 2013

May 7, 2013 | For those pushing austerity as the solution to America’s economic ills, here’s a reality check: According to a new study, austerity policies have cost the U.S. roughly 2.2 million jobs.

In the 46 months since the recession ended, federal, state and local governments have cut approximately half a million jobs, a study by Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney at the Brookings Institution found. After other recessions since 1970, the government typically hired about 1.7 million workers.

Reports such as this one show that it’s high time our elected officials started listening to the wisdom of economists like Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, who for months has been consistently warning us about the dangers of austerity. And once again, he’s been proved right.

Full story…

Shutterstock illustration of American candle burning.

Related:

Austerity debunked, Aljazeera

 

Everything We Know About What’s Happened Under Sequestration, Theodoric Meyer, ProPublica

May 7, 2013 | When the annual White House Easter Egg Hunt faced cancellation this year due to the package of mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration, the National Park Service kicked into high gear. It rescued the event 2014 held since 1878 2014 with money from “corporate sponsors and the sale of commemorative wooden eggs,” according to the Washington Post.

Section(s): 

Target handbook unlawfully discouraged union activity, NLRB says

  • Store must hold another union election, company must revise certain policies
  • Costco CEO: Raise The Minimum Wage To More Than $10 Per Hour

Julie Beck, Inside Counsel

If you like reading this article, consider contributing a cafe latte to all-reader supported Evergreene Digest--using the donation button in the above right-hand corner—so we can bring you more just like it.

May 3, 2013 | The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is continuing to crack down on employee handbooks. Its latest target was, well, Target.

Confirming the ruling of an administrative law judge, the board recently found that a Target store on Long Island, N.Y. violated the National Labor Relations Act with its handbook, which discouraged protected union activity. Specifically, the board frowned upon a no-solicitation policy that banned distribution of literature and other soliciting for commercial purposes, personal profit or non-sanctioned charities. The NLRB said that workers could “reasonably construe” the policy to prohibit union solicitation as well.

Full story…

Related:

Costco CEO: Raise The Minimum Wage To More Than $10 Per Hour, Bonnie Kavoussi, Huffington Post

  • "At Costco, we know that paying employees good wages makes good sense for business," Jelinek said in a statement. "We pay a starting hourly wage of $11.50 in all states where we do business, and we are still able to keep our overhead costs low."
  • Minimum Wage: Who Decided That Hard-Working Americans Should Fall Behind?

 

 
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Shut down the Chamber of Commerce

Pro Labor Alliance Inc. shared Shut The Chamber's photo.

 

A chemical safety bill in 2009 aimed to strengthen safety standards at fertilizer depots like the one that exploded in West, Texas recently, killing dozens of first responders and leveling a nursing home. 

 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called it a "key vote" that year, and spent millions to defeat it. The bill passed the House and died in the Senate.

 

 

Related:

Texas Blast Recalls Chemical Safety Bill Sunk by Business Lobby, Mark Drajem, Bloomberg 

Apr 29, 2013 | As lawmakers pushed a bill to tighten U.S. security standards on chemical factories, fertilizer depots and water-treatment plants in 2009, they faced a formidable opponent: the U.S. business community, led by the US Chamber of Commerce and the American Farm Bureau.

 

 

 

Section(s): 

Special Project | The Fight for the American Dream, Week of May 5, 2013

  • "The top 1-percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles," Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz concludes, "but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99-percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1-percent eventually do learn. Too late."
  • 8 New Items including:
    • Austerity Can Kill You - Literally
    • Sequestration Effects: Cuts Sting Communities Nationwide
    • It All Turns On Affection
    • Matt Taibbi | Sequester Makes Me Want to Strangle Both Sides
    • Costco CEO: Raise The Minimum Wage To More Than $10 Per Hour,
    • February employment report masks depth of US jobs crisis
    • Yes, The Alternative is Democratic Socialism
    • Minimum Wage Myths: Poverty Doesn’t Create Jobs

David Culver, Ed., Evergreene Digest

Mike Thompson

 

Austerity Can Kill You - Literally, Julien Mercille, Truthout

A major new study examines the impacts of austerity on health care in Europe, focusing on Greece, Spain and Portugal, which have adopted rigid fiscal austerity policies. Its findings are worrying. Expenditure cuts in those countries have led to increased "strain on their health-care systems" while "suicides and outbreaks of infectious diseases are becoming more common in these countries, and budget cuts have restricted access to health care."

Sequestration Effects: Cuts Sting Communities Nationwide, Amanda Terkel & Sam Stein, Huffington Post

The grips of sequestration are just now beginning to be felt and the effects are already quite dramatic.

It All Turns On Affection, Wendell E. Berry, National Endowment for the Humanities 

How Plutocracy Crushes Affection

Matt Taibbi | Sequester Makes Me Want to Strangle Both Sides, Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

  • There are so many variables that neither side can possibly know the true outcome of a failure to make a deal – which means the only certainty is that what we're watching is irresponsibility on an epic scale.
  • Book Excerpt | "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free"
  • The Ignorance Caucus

Costco CEO: Raise The Minimum Wage To More Than $10 Per Hour, Bonnie Kavoussi, Huffington Post

  • "At Costco, we know that paying employees good wages makes good sense for business," Jelinek said in a statement. "We pay a starting hourly wage of $11.50 in all states where we do business, and we are still able to keep our overhead costs low."
  • Minimum Wage: Who Decided That Hard-Working Americans Should Fall Behind?

February employment report masks depth of US jobs crisis, Andre Damon, World Socialist Web Site

  • In reality, the jobs gained are a drop in the bucket compared to those lost during the recession. In the downturn that started in 2008, the US economy lost 8.9 million jobs, and if previous economic trends had continued, another 5.9 million jobs would have been added. Since the end of 2009, the economy has added only 5.7 million jobs.
  • Who are the Job Creators?

Yes, The Alternative is Democratic Socialism, Scott Tucker, Socialist Webzine

  • Democratic socialists favor the extension of democracy into the realm of the economy. And we do not take the recurrent cycles of capitalist boom and bust for granted, accompanied by erosion of civil liberties at home and by imperial adventures abroad.
  • Viral Video Shows the Extent of U.S. Wealth Inequality
  • Series | Socialism: Theory & Practice, Part 1

Minimum Wage Myths: Poverty Doesn’t Create Jobs, Lee Egerstrom, Minnesoa2020

  • Even under the proposals before legislative bodies, the working poor will remain poor, especially since their incomes and household purchasing power has ripped away in recent years. 
  • However, increasing wages will better help them meet basic living needs and ease pressure on strained social safety nets.
  • Who are the Job Creators?

 

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