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robertogreco + wealth   214

Fables of Wealth - NYTimes.com
"ethics in capitalism is purely optional, purely extrinsic. To expect morality in the market is to commit a category error. Capitalist values are antithetical to Christian ones… Capitalist values are also antithetical to democratic ones…

…neither entrepreneurs nor the rich have a monopoly on brains, sweat or risk. There are scientists — and artists and scholars — who are just as smart as any entrepreneur, only they are interested in different rewards.

…“Poor Americans are urged to hate themselves,” Kurt Vonnegut wrote in “Slaughterhouse-Five.” And so, “they mock themselves and glorify their betters.” Our most destructive lie, he added, “is that it is very easy for any American to make money.” The lie goes on. The poor are lazy, stupid and evil. The rich are brilliant, courageous and good. They shower their beneficence upon the rest of us."
politics  classwarfare  poverty  lies  incompatibility  democracy  kurtvonnegut  finance  wallstreet  1%  policy  government  jobcreation  wealth  psychopathy  morality  ethics  motivation  science  art  corporations  corporatism  corporateculture  businessschool  business  entrepreneurship  christianity  capitalism  2012  williamderesiewicz  from delicious
12 days ago by robertogreco
Affluent Foreign-Born Parents in N.Y. Prefer Public Schools - NYTimes.com
"In New York, the affluent typically send their children to private schools. But not the foreign-born affluent. In a divergence, a large majority of wealthy foreign-born New Yorkers are sending their children to public schools, according to an analysis of census data.

There are roughly 15,500 households in the city with school-age children where the total income is at least $150,000 and both parents were born abroad. Of those, about 10,500, or 68 percent, use only the public schools, the data show.

That is nearly double the rate of American-born parents in the city in the same income bracket."
immigrants  foreign-born  2012  diversity  publicschools  chilren  schools  wealth  income  education  parenting  nyc  from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco
Capitalism only creates misery – we need a system that puts human wellbeing first | Comment is free | The Guardian
"…appeal to give up pursuit of wealth isn't an automatic vote-winner. But the alternative to the pursuit of riches is pursuit of a richer vision: neither austerity nor excessive wealth, but rather "sufficiency plus", where needs are met, & then some, while a fuller understating of human welfare is championed.

Having less can be more. Too much choice is not liberating. There is something to be said for rhythms of life, for patience & delayed gratification, where everything isn't available instantaneously. Seasons are enjoyed because they aren't there all year round. 50-hour weeks come at the expense of family & friends. That's if we have a job at all.

As well as robbing us of our lives, the system pits us against one another in an endless quest for more, which fuels greater inequality, dissatisfaction and unfulfilment—for both the winners & losers. We feel left behind our neighbours & other countries if we don't better ourselves economically. We have forgotten who the economy is for."
socialism  paradoxofchoice  choice  patience  delayedgratification  simplicity  sustainability  environment  progressive  progressivism  materialism  humanism  jonathanbartley  economics  policy  politics  uk  well-being  consumerism  wealth  greenparty  marxism  capitalism  from delicious
january 2012 by robertogreco
Rising Share of Americans See Conflict Between Rich and Poor | Pew Social & Demographic Trends
occupywallstreet  ows  poverty  2012  inequality  disparity  politics  trends  pew  surveys  us  wealth  from delicious
january 2012 by robertogreco
Unhappy childhoods afflict one in 10 youngsters, finds Children's Society | UK news | The Guardian
"The prime minister has already made a commitment to broadening the nation's understanding of quality of life, saying memorably that it was time "we admitted that there's more to life than money, & it's time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB – general wellbeing".

However, material wealth does appear to affect a child's happiness, a finding that echoes a recent Unicef report that claimed British children were caught in a "materialistic trap".

…as young as 8 were "aware of the financial issues their families face"…"Children who do not have clothes to 'fit in' with peers are more than three times likely to have low well-being than those that do. Around a quarter say they often worry about the way they look. Unhappiness with appearance increases with age & is greater among girls."

School also brings many children down. One in 10 children…are unhappy about their relationships with teachers, & one in six are unhappy about the amount they feel they are being listened to at school."
society  safety  relationships  sadness  2012  schools  learning  well-being  happiness  wealth  materialism  children  uk  from delicious
january 2012 by robertogreco
Now serving Los Angeles
"Nanna mobile app was created privately for a high profile family in Los Angeles. The app was tailored for 4 nannies, 7 kids and 5 parents to communicate and exchange alerts and updates. The parents can track categories such as pickup/dropoff, calendar, medication and finding playmates. At the end of the day, nannies can summarize all the entries and send to the parents in a formatted email. As part of my research, I spent 3 days with the family to observe in their natural environment rather than in a formal research setting."

[via: http://storkbitesman.blogspot.com/2012/01/nanna.html ]
interactiondesign  communication  children  parenting  disney  wealth  nannies  iphone  ios  applications  from delicious
january 2012 by robertogreco
xkcd: Money
money  xkcd  economics  visualization  economy  finance  infographics  inequality  wealth  wealthdistribution  us  world  2011  data  statistics  comparison  toshare  classideas  class  from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco
Rafael Viñoly on a Sunday | Blogs | Archinect
"At a time when masses of people are protesting wealth inequality, or protesting, oh, the dismantling of schools like Cooper Union, it seems more than immodest to talk about the "one indulgence" of owning nine pianos. Or three homes. (How's that sustainability side of the business doing?) But at least he didn't mention the private jet (or did he have to tighten the belt?)

Meanwhile, some seem to be saying that perhaps Viñoly would benefit from a little more cover from the spotlight. All of this ostentatious display of wealth could draw scrutiny of Viñoly's period of building for the Argentine junta. There's that little detail that hangs over Viñoly's head—the busy period when he "was so concentrated on the work," he "almost didn’t notice the politics." Remember?"
rafaelviñoly  architecture  architects  wealth  disparity  2011  consumptions  incomegap  argentina  thesoulless  inequality  the99%  class  javierarbona  from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco
Finding Freedom in Handcuffs | Common Dreams
"And as norms mutate and change, as the world is steadily transformed by corporate forces into one of a small cabal of predators and a vast herd of human prey, these elites seamlessly replace one set of “values” with another. These elites obey the rules. They make the system work. And they are rewarded for this. In return, they do not question.

Those who resist—the doubters, outcasts, renegades, skeptics and rebels—rarely come from the elite. They ask different questions. They seek something else—a life of meaning. They have grasped Immanuel Kant’s dictum, “If justice perishes, human life on Earth has lost its meaning.” And in their search they come to the conclusion that, as Socrates said, it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong."
chrishedges  2011  ows  occupywallstreet  timetomoveon  elite  wealth  charity  resistance  inequality  disparity  society  us  privilege  culture  from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco
The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian
"Our common treasury in the last 30 years has been captured by industrial psychopaths. That's why we're nearly bankrupt."

"In their book Snakes in Suits, Paul Babiak and Robert Hare point out that as the old corporate bureaucracies have been replaced by flexible, ever-changing structures, and as team players are deemed less valuable than competitive risk-takers, psychopathic traits are more likely to be selected and rewarded. Reading their work, it seems to me that if you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a poor family, you're likely to go to prison. If you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a rich family, you're likely to go to business school.

This is not to suggest that all executives are psychopaths. It is to suggest that the economy has been rewarding the wrong skills."
economics  economy  politics  inequality  wealth  occupywallstreet  georgemonbiot  uk  neoliberalism  psychopathy  risktaking  rewards  2011  from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco
G.D.P. Doesn’t Measure Happiness - NYTimes.com
"What these societies have in common is that rather than striving to be the biggest they instead aspire to be constantly better. Which, in the end, offers an important antidote to both the rhetoric of decline and mindless boosterism: the recognition that whether we are falling behind or achieving new heights is greatly determined both by what goals we set and how we measure our performance."
scandinavia  nordiccountries  economics  via:anthonyalbright  2011  well-being  happiness  growth  gdp  improvement  society  capitalism  competition  davidrothkopf  measurement  carolgraham  nicolassarkozy  josephstiglitz  bhutan  jeffreysachs  us  china  development  post-development  stability  sustainability  prosperity  wealth  australia  canada  singapore  japan  netherlands  norway  sweden  denmark  luxembourg  europe  fiscalresponsibility  humanism  from delicious
october 2011 by robertogreco
Why More Americans Suffer From Mental Disorders Than Anyone Else - Alice G. Walton - Life - The Atlantic
"That mental health disorders are pervasive in the United States is no secret. Americans suffer from all sorts of psychological issues, and the evidence indicates that they're not going anywhere despite (or because of?) an increasing number of treatment options…

The WHO has come up with vast catalogues of mental health data, which they are constantly updating. See how the U.S. compares to other countries:"
mentaldisorders  mentalhealth  psychology  us  comparison  2011  trends  international  depression  eatingdisorders  substanceabuse  drugs  pharmaceuticals  society  wealth  inequality  disparity  from delicious
october 2011 by robertogreco
prosthetic knowledge: A Thousand Cuts
"A time-based sculpture / time-lapse video in a gallery garden - the words ‘MIDDLE CLASS’ made in ice, melting throughout the day. Uses an audio extract from Bernie Sanders’ filibuster speech on corporate greed"
berniesanders  middleclass  2011  greed  us  policy  capitalism  wealth  politics  money 
october 2011 by robertogreco
FYIFV - Wikipedia
"FYIFV (standing for "Fuck You, I'm Fully Vested") or FYIV[1] is a piece of early Microsoft jargon that has become an urban legend: that employees whose stock options were fully vested (that is, could be exercised) would occasionally wear T-shirts or buttons with the initials "FYIFV" to indicate they were sufficiently financially independent to give their honest opinions and leave any time they wished.

In internal usage at Microsoft, it was meant metaphorically to describe intransigent co-workers. In press usage and popular culture, it is often used to imply a predatory business culture reaching even to the programmers."
microsoft  history  attitude  honesty  work  businessculture  behavior  money  wealth 
october 2011 by robertogreco
What diversity means « Snarkmarket
"…if you’re broke or have less education, your child’s more likely to go undiagnosed/misdiagnosed & be treated as slow or mentally retarded…even if you get the “right” diagnosis, the therapies offered & your ability to take advantage of them will vary wildly depending on your resources. Maybe especially time.

…just as autism stories overwhelmingly focus on children, not adults, they also overwhelmingly focus on the wealthy, not the poor…& the link between autism & poverty is extraordinary once a child becomes an adult — what “independence” means in that context is very different.

This is also to say that while all these additional considerations are important, fuck that shit. Because autism does cut across class, race, gender, sexual identity & physical ability, etc…because of that, it changes what we mean by diversity, what kinds of diversity count, what diversity we ought to care about, & how we think about all of these issues of identity & privilege taken all together."
autism  aspergers  timcarmody  2011  poverty  class  race  diversity  gender  wealth  independence  childhood  parenting  adulthood  privilege  identity  education  diagnosis  from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco
Does Money Make You Unhappy? | Wired Science | Wired.com
"I’m genuinely puzzled by our failure to spend money properly. In general, human intuition improves with experience – it gets better as we put in those 10,000 hours of practice, so to speak. And yet, this doesn’t appear to be true when it comes to our intuitions about the pursuit of happiness. After all, we’ve all got extensive experience with pleasure. We know exactly what we enjoy. Nevertheless, this abundance of experience doesn’t lead to better purchases over time. Either psychologists can’t measure happiness or human beings with disposable income are very confused."
economics  psychology  money  happiness  wealth  2011  jonahlehrer  spending  decisionmaking  well-being  paradox  from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco
The Blog : How to Lose Readers (Without Even Trying) : Sam Harris
"Many of my critics pretend that they have been entirely self-made…seem to feel responsible for their intellectual gifts…freedom from injury & disease…fact that they were born at a specific moment in history. Many appear to have absolutely no awareness of how lucky one must be to succeed at anything in life, no matter how hard one works. One must be lucky to be able to work. One must be lucky to be intelligent, to not have cerebral palsy, or to not have been bankrupted in middle age by the mortal illness of a spouse.

Many of us have been extraordinarily lucky—& we did not earn it. Many good people have been extraordinarily unlucky—& did not deserve it. & yet I get the distinct sense that if I asked some of my readers why they weren’t born w/ club feet, or orphaned before the age of 5, they would not hesitate to take credit for these accomplishments. There is a stunning lack of insight into the unfolding of human events that passes for moral & economic wisdom in some circles."

[via: http://lukescommonplacebook.tumblr.com/post/9573656199/ ]
culture  economics  policy  money  taxes  politics  samharris  objectivism  libertarianism  luck  unlucky  life  illness  bankruptcy  society  religion  belief  selfishness  wisdom  class  wealth  incomegap  wealthdistribution  warrenbuffett  2011  sharing  socialism  democracy  goodfortune  morality  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
Nonformality | The revolt of the young
"From revolutions and protests to riots and unrests: young people are taking their fight for the future to the streets. Intergenerational contracts have become obsolete, with many young people feeling robbed of their future in the light of the employment crisis, a damaged environment and social inequality. Observers and activists describe a world awakening with rage, and a revolt of the young that has only just begun. But what will happen next?"
2011  unrest  politics  policy  generations  generationalstrife  classwarfare  economics  environment  inequality  disparity  unemployment  youth  arabspring  crisis  wealth  awakening  engagement  uk  chile  egypt  tunisia  zizek  manuelcastells  wolfganggründiger  future  pankajmishra  dissent  revolt  revolution  algeria  iraq  iran  morocco  oman  israel  jordan  syria  yemen  bahrain  greece  spain  españa  portugal  iceland  andreaskarsten  change  protests  riots  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
World of Class Warfare - Warren Buffett vs. Wealthy Conservatives - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 08/18/11 - Video Clip | Comedy Central
"Warren Buffett's op-ed is a thoughtful treatise on the advantages the super-wealthy currently enjoy at the hands of the tax code, or to put it another way, "class warfare."<br />
<br />
"World of Class Warfare - The Poor's Free Ride Is Over: The government could raise $700 billion by either taking half of everything earned by the bottom 50% or by raising the marginal tax rate on the top two percent."<br />
<br />
[That's from the second part here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---the-poor-s-free-ride-is-over ]
classwarfare  humor  dailyshow  jonstewart  warrenbuffett  poverty  us  foxnews  budget  debt  wealthdistribution  wealth  2011  policy  taxes  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
Memex 1.1 » Cameron and the feral rich
"There was a time — round the time when his young son died and he was running for office — when Cameron seemed to have the makings of a rounded human being. But it turns out to have been an illusion. What’s happened is that the shallow, oily, polished PR-flack that he used to be has reappeared. And he’s running a corrupt, morally-compromised, untruthful administration that is more divisive than anything we’ve seen since Thatcher at her peak."
uk  2011  london  riots  morality  noblesseoblige  wealth  immorality  davidcameron  humanity  corruption  greed  hypocrisy  criminality  government  class  rulingclass 
august 2011 by robertogreco
Marcel Claude en la UC - Resumen on Vimeo
"Aquí les dejo un pequeño resumen de lo que fue la conferencia del economista Marcel Claude el pasado viernes 1 de julio en la Casa Central de la UC. Actividad organizada por la Asamblea de Estudiantes Movilizados."
2011  chile  politics  policy  economics  marcelclaude  protests  education  healthcare  socialism  history  copper  industry  wealth  poverty  inequality  naturalresources  wealthdistribution  wealthdistrubution 
august 2011 by robertogreco
These riots reflect a society run on greed and looting | Seumas Milne | Comment is free | The Guardian
"David Cameron has to maintain that the unrest has no cause except criminality – or he and his friends might be held responsible"; "While bankers have publicly looted the country's wealth & got away with it, it's not hard to see why those who are locked out of the gravy train might think they were entitled to help themselves to a mobile phone. Some of the rioters make the connection explicitly…Most have no stake in a society which has shut them out or an economic model which has now run into the sand. It's already become clear that divided Britain is in no state to absorb the austerity now being administered because three decades of neoliberal capitalism have already shattered so many social bonds of work and community. What we're now seeing across the cities of England is the reflection of a society run on greed – and a poisonous failure of politics and social solidarity. … We're starting to see the devastating costs of refusing to change course."
politics  uk  poverty  crime  inequality  2011  london  riots  wealth  greed  davidcameron  economics  neoliberalism  society  banking  finance  wealthdistribution  wealthdistrubution 
august 2011 by robertogreco
Profits must no longer go to the few at the top | Simon Hughes | Comment is free | The Observer
"Activity, training and employment has to be on offer in every region of the country"

"A responsible economy is necessary for a responsible society. Building local, regional and national economies which provide the opportunity for all to participate in for fair reward will build much stronger communities. This will counter the appeal of the gangs and the get-rich-quick merchants. Other people and activity must now capture the energies and abilities of a generation that has greater potential than any we have had before."
simonhughes  employment  unemployment  disparity  wealth  uk  london  2011  riots  politics  policy  economics  greed  via:preoccupations  training  education  inequality  equality  society  wealthdistribution  wealthdistrubution 
august 2011 by robertogreco
An Open Letter to David Cameron’s Parents « Nathaniel Tapley
"Why did you never take the time to teach your child basic morality?<br />
<br />
As a young man, he was in a gang that regularly smashed up private property. We know that you were absent parents who left your child to be brought up by a school rather than taking responsibility for his behaviour yourselves. The fact that he became a delinquent with no sense of respect for the property of others can only reflect that fact that you are terrible, lazy human beings who failed even in teaching your children the difference between right and wrong. I can only assume that his contempt for the small business owners of Oxford is indicative of his wider values.<br />
<br />
Even worse, your neglect led him to fall in with a bad crowd…"
uk  riots  london  davidcameron  2011  borisjohnson  corruption  wealth  politics  government  parenting  class  worstkindofthugs  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
These Guys Will Stop You From Killing Your Boss | Mother Jones
"So why have top execs (and/or their boards) become such security nuts? One factor involves the need to do business in the developing world—WPG claims it can provide services in 70 countries—but that doesn't explain the domestic demand. Ferraro chalks it up to paranoia. "I get the calls," he says. "They say, 'Oh my God, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal, the sky is falling!'" The tendency of business leaders to "think over the horizon and anticipate problems" is causing them to act like they're in Mexico City or Baghdad, Ferraro says. Besides, why not play it safe when shareholders are picking up the tab? Since 2006, when publicly traded companies began disclosing corporate perks, spending on CEO security has increased an average of 15 percent a year. (Michael Dell's compensation package, for instance, includes $1.2 million for security.)"
class  security  inequality  executiveprotection  wealth  2011  superrich  thecominginsurrection  middleagesallaroundus  wealthdistribution  wealthdistrubution  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
Christopher Newfield: Was the Innovation Economy Killed by the Debt Debate?
"What kind of a country sanctions the top-25 hedge fund managers earning $22 billion personally? What kind of country cuts services to people who would need 250 years to earn the salary a CEO earns in one year -- so that CEO can pay lower taxes than his secretary?<br />
<br />
Our political discourse has successfully shamed people out of asking these questions. But when they do, the answer to what kind of country we are is: not a country that fairly rewards hard work, individual creativity or pulling together to solve shared problems. Any belief in the general benefits an innovation economy are mocked by current levels of inequality, fueled by a mania for tax avoidance, much like that which created poverty amid the aristocratic plenty of pre-revolutionary France.<br />
<br />
Until policymakers can support both innovation jobs and levels of equality that spell mutual respect, the majority will not vote to pay for the economic renewal we need."
christophernewfield  economics  us  politics  inequality  wealth  wealthdestruction  taxes  government  policy  stem  innovation  2011  nationaldebt  debtcrisis  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
There is a context to London's riots that can't be ignored | Nina Power | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
"As Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett point out in The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, phenomena usually described as "social problems" (crime, ill-health, imprisonment rates, mental illness) are far more common in unequal societies than ones with better economic distribution and less gap between the richest and the poorest. Decades of individualism, competition and state-encouraged selfishness – combined with a systematic crushing of unions and the ever-increasing criminalisation of dissent – have made Britain one of the most unequal countries in the developed world."
london  uk  violence  politics  policy  riots  2011  ninapower  inequality  society  crime  imprisonment  mentalillness  equality  disparity  wealth  selfishness  individualism  competition  unions  wealthdistribution  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
Standard & Poor's Downgrade: How Debt Has Defined Human History - Speakeasy - WSJ
"in the Middle Ages…merchants had to develop reputations for scrupulous integrity—not just always paying their debts, but forgiving others’ debts if they were in difficulties, & being generally pillars of their communities. Merchants could be trusted w/ money because they convinced others that they didn’t think money was the most important thing…“credit,” “honor,” & “decency” became the same thing…<br />
<br />
For much of human history, the great social evil…was the debt crisis. The masses of the poor would become indebted to the rich…lose flocks & fields, begin selling family members into peonage & slavery…uprisings…Periods dominated by credit money, where everyone recognized that money was just a promise, a social arrangement, almost invariably involve some kind of mechanism to protect debtors…<br />
<br />
…since 1971, we did exactly the opposite. Instead of setting up great overarching institutions designed to protect debtors…[we] protect creditors."
culture  politics  history  economics  money  debt  1971  2011  middleages  medieval  credit  integrity  usuary  honor  decency  slavery  peonage  creditors  debtors  bankruptcy  debtforgiveness  wealth  disparity  debtceiling  society  imf  relgion  s&p  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
Students Pressure Chile to Reform Education System - NYTimes.com
"Segments of society that had been seen as politically apathetic only a few years ago, particularly youth, have taken an unusually confrontational stance twrd government & business elite, demanding wholesale changes in education, transportation & energy policy, sometimes violently…<br />
<br />
last Friday, Mr. Piñera noted Chileans were witnessing a “new society”…people “feel more empowered & want to feel they are heard.”…rebelling against “excessive inequality” in country…[w/] highest per capita income in Latin America but also…one of most unequal distributions of wealth…<br />
…protests leaders are also pushing for constitutional change to guarantee free, quality education from preschool through high school & a state-financed university system that ensures quality & equal access…<br />
<br />
“For many years our parents’ generation was afraid to demonstrate, to complain, thinking it was better to conform to what was going on. Students are setting an example without the fear our parents had.”
chile  politics  reform  education  equity  equality  disparity  sebastiánpiñera  2011  protest  protests  activism  change  apathy  engagement  empowerment  income  incomegap  wealth  latinamerica  access  policy  energy  transportation  wealthdistribution  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
Geoffrey West: The surprising math of cities and corporations | Video on TED.com
"Physicist Geoffrey West has found that simple, mathematical laws govern the properties of cities -- that wealth, crime rate, walking speed and many other aspects of a city can be deduced from a single number: the city's population. In this mind-bending talk from TEDGlobal he shows how it works and how similar laws hold for organisms and corporations."
geoffreywest  cities  companies  corporations  biology  walkingspeed  walking  crime  crimerates  population  wealth  organisms  2011  urban  urbanism  urbanization  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
JOURNAL: Central Planning and The Fall of the US Empire - Global Guerrillas
"…extreme concentration of wealth at the center of our market economy has led to a form of central planning. The concentration of wealth is now in so few hands and is so extreme in degree, that the combined liquid financial power of all of those not in this small group is inconsequential to determining the direction of the economy. As a result, we now have the equivalent of centralized planning in global marketplaces. A few thousand extremely wealthy people making decisions on the allocation of our collective wealth…

The result of central planning in the US has finally hit the wall. The list of problems is endless…misallocations range from the dangerous $600 trillion derivatives market to the destruction of US middle class (by exporting jobs & substitution of income with debt).

The end result is that our economic & political system has become very fragile. All it will take is is one extremely bad decision and the cascade of failure that follows will catch everyone off guard."

[UPDATE: Conversation here too: https://plus.google.com/107033731246200681024/posts/D6SwChze4Vd ]
johnrobb  us  collapse  incomegap  disparity  wealth  2011  centralplanning  government  corruption  decisionmaking  policy  politics  economics  class  markets  fragility  finance  globalization  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
A Story More Important than Debt Limit Kabuki | Informed Comment
"The reason that the Republicans deliberately destroyed the balanced budget and created unprecedented government debt was precisely in hopes that at some point they could use the debt as an excuse to destroy social security, medicare, and myriads of educational and health programs. They represent rich people, and the rich don’t want to be having to bear their fair share of the national burden. What better way to get out of having to pay those pesky taxes than making sure the government doesn’t do anything for anyone but the rich.<br />
<br />
So everything unfolding in Washington was planned out in a room in 2001, and is going according to plan."
juancole  crisis  2011  2001  wealth  wealthy  debtlimitkabuki  debtceiling  debtcrisis  government  classwarfare  rich  budget  budgetcuts  taxes  finance  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
How Our Economy Was Overrun by Monsters and What to Do About It - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review
"The economy is a social construction, built and re-built every day, with every tiny decision we make. No, the average Joe and Jane don't demand designer playhouses — but they do demand the stuff that make the super-rich, well, super-rich. J-Lo perfume, fast-fashion, oil — lots and lots of oil — and all the mass-made "product" lining the shelves of exurban big-box stores. The inevitable ultimate consequences of demand that fails to weigh human, social, natural, and personal costs of such so-called "goods" are public "bads": unemployment, inequality,pollution, isolation — and capital flowing upwards faster and faster. Designer playhouses aren't a first-order consequence of our preferences, but they probably are a last-order consequence, an ultimate result…<br />
Our monsters are reflections of us."
2011  umairhaque  economics  debtceiling  consumerism  consumption  extravagance  wealth  materials  us  society  desire  eudaemonia  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
The Ideas of Norway's Young Victims Also Draw Praise and Criticism - NYTimes.com
"In the five days since the deadly attacks in Norway, the world has paid a huge amount of attention to the ideas of Anders Behring Breivik — as he no doubt intended when he posted a manifesto online before setting off on his killing spree.<br />
<br />
As my colleague Nicholas Kulish reports, the attacker’s ideology has already entered into the political debate in several European countries — including Sweden, Italy and France — where nationalist politicians opposed to immigration were forced to denounce some of their party members who suggested that, while the killings were repulsive, the killer’s fear and hatred of Muslim immigrants was understandable or even inevitable.<br />
<br />
A good deal less attention has been paid to the ideas of the dozens of people he killed, among them young members of a Norwegian political party, who were attending a summer conference at a camp ground on Utoya…"
2011  norway  utoya  politics  johnnichols  robertmackey  auf  eksilpedersen  groharlembrundtland  jonasgahrstore  israel  palestine  policy  wealth  tolerance  multiculturalism  foreignaid  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
Why the Wealthiest Americans Are the Real 'Job-Killers' | Economy | AlterNet
"None of this is particularly complex. In 1978, the top 1 percent of the ladder took in just under 9 percent of the nation's income, leaving a bit more than 91 percent for the rest of us. In 2007, the year before the crash, they took in 23.5 percent, leaving just 76.5 percent for the rest of the population to split up.
They banked most of that income, whereas we would have spent it. The fact that we're broke means that businesses are facing less demand for their goods and services than they otherwise would, and have less need to hire a bunch of employees. And that dynamic explains why it's the wealthiest Americans who are the real “job killers.”"
greed  wealth  economics  jobs  wealthdistribution  savings  us  taxes  2011  jobcreation  unemployment  consumption 
july 2011 by robertogreco
Why the Wealthiest Americans Are the Real 'Job-Killers' | Economy | AlterNet
"None of this is particularly complex. In 1978, the top 1 percent of the ladder took in just under 9 percent of the nation's income, leaving a bit more than 91 percent for the rest of us. In 2007, the year before the crash, they took in 23.5 percent, leaving just 76.5 percent for the rest of the population to split up.<br />
They banked most of that income, whereas we would have spent it. The fact that we're broke means that businesses are facing less demand for their goods and services than they otherwise would, and have less need to hire a bunch of employees. And that dynamic explains why it's the wealthiest Americans who are the real “job killers.”"
greed  wealth  economics  jobs  savings  us  taxes  2011  jobcreation  unemployment  consumption  wealthdistribution  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
oftwominds: Complexity and Collapse
"The most obvious features of recent political and financial "solutions" are their staggering complexity and their failure to fix what's broken. The first leads to the second…<br />
<br />
The healthcare reform fixes nothing, while further burdening the nation with useless complexity and cost…<br />
<br />
Here is the "problem" which complexity "solves": it protects Savior State fiefdoms and private-sector cartels from losses.  State fiefdoms and cartels have one goal: self-preservation…<br />
<br />
Complexity works beautifully as self-preservation, because it actually expands the bureaucratic power of fiefdoms and widens the moat protecting cartels…<br />
<br />
Put another way: in the competition with the private sector for scarce capital, the State and corruption always win…<br />
<br />
Real solutions require radically simplifying ossified, top-heavy, costly systems…<br />
<br />
The single goal is preserving the revenue and reach of concentrated power centers…<br />
<br />
But complexity does have an eventual cost: collapse."
complexity  policy  statusquo  via:kazys  politics  corruption  collapse  power  wealth  cartels  bureaucracy  specialinterests  fiefdoms  systems  restart  selfpreservation  inefficiency  health  healthcare  finance  self-reliance  dependence  privatesector  corporatewelfare  2011  charleshughsmith  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
Society | Vanity Fair — Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
"The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, 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."
society  politics  economics  psychology  money  history  inequality  disparity  wealth  via:preoccupations  josephstiglitz  2011  opression  classwarfare  income  inequity  greed  alexisdetocqueville  self-interest  concentrationofwealth  policy  power  control  revolt  taxes  wealthdistribution  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
An Essay by Tibor Kalman » Changethethought™ ["FUCK COMMITTEES (I believe in lunatics)"]
"It’s about the struggle btwn individuals w/ jagged passion in their work & today’s faceless corporate committees, which claim to understand the needs of the mass audience, & are removing the idiosyncrasies, polishing the jags, creating a thought-free, passion-free, cultural mush that will not be hated nor loved by anyone. By now, virtually all media, architecture, product & graphic design have been freed from ideas, individual passion, & have been relegated to role of corporate servitude…Creative people are now working for the bottom line…<br />
<br />
…modest solution: Find the cracks in the wall…very few lunatic entrepreneurs who will understand that culture & design are not about fatter wallets, but about creating a future…understand that wealth is means, not an end. Under other circumstances they may have turned out to be like you, creative lunatics. Believe me, they’re there & when you find them, treat them well & use their money to change the world."
tiborkalman  culture  creativity  money  corporatism  wealth  idiosyncracy  lunatics  passion  unschooling  deschooling  art  design  architecture  1998  iconoclasm  cv  radicals  yearoff  gamechanging  lcproject  alternative  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
SpeEdChange: Pygmalion
"There has always been a tension in the US btwn expressed ideal of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society - you know…and the reality on the political ground, which is that "our leadership" would find things "much easier" if we were all "white, protestant, straight, northern Europeans."<br />
<br />
Actually not.<br />
<br />
They don't want that. If everyone were "the same" the "leadership class" would not know at-a-glance who belonged & who did not. So, what they want is for everyone "else" to waste enormous effort trying to be like them, while they race comfortably ahead…<br />
<br />
You know, there's a reason great universities crave diversity in their student bodies (exclude Harvard, Princeton, & Penn from that group because…social class finishing schools): It is because, education, like societies, work best - makes the greatest strides - when there is neither "Common Core Knowledge" nor "Common Culture."…<br />
<br />
We don't need E.D. Hirsch, Jr, Bill Gates, and Arne Duncan making Eliza Doolittle's out of us."
commoncore  irasocol  pygmalion  2011  diversity  edhirsch  kipp  colonialism  deschooling  unschooling  schooliness  properness  identity  whiteness  history  literature  universities  colleges  learning  education  instruction  decolonization  billgates  arneduncan  elizadoolittle  georgebernardshaw  class  wealth  power  control  cities  homogeneity  language  speech  fordenglishschool  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
Think Tank: The 'Veritas' About Harvard - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education
"Harvard spent the money [dramatically increased endowment] on many things. But not a dollar went to increasing the number of undergraduates it chose to bless with a Harvard education…<br />
<br />
…the true currency of elite higher education is admissions, not financial aid…<br />
<br />
That's because the real priority of elite higher education, as the receding tide of money has exposed, is the greater glory of elite higher education and the administrators and faculty members who work there. That's where all the money went, and that's where, now that some of the money turns out to have never existed in the first place, it needs to come from…<br />
<br />
An institution truly dedicated to teaching students has natural limits on how much money it needs. At some point, the land and space and professors suffice.<br />
<br />
An institution dedicated to accumulating more money and prestige? There are no limits to those needs. They can never be satisfied."
education  teaching  economics  academia  harvard  ivyleague  management  endowment  2011  highereducation  highered  elitism  class  society  havesandhavenots  money  finance  greed  wealth  access  from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco
SpeEdChange: The art of seeing (Part III) Visiting Delphi
"…we must help students find their own work/study environments, rather than organize that for them. That we must help them discover what creates "privacy" for themselves, rather than enforce group silence…help students learn to construct their own scheduling systems…<br />
<br />
When I say I want our students to be creators, not consumers, I mean it. I want to "graduate" students who are capable of creating their own workplaces, their own learning habits, and most importantly, their own solutions to their problems and the problems of our world…<br />
<br />
We must create environments which support creation of the new. If our school design remains "the shelf" - rooms lined up according to age and/or pre-determined topic... If our school schedule remains "the shelf" - time lined up by topic and pre-determined function... If our assessment measures what we expect rather than what might be imagined... we are failing to see the future and we are - very literally - blinding our students."
irasocol  2011  education  future  unschooling  deschooling  democraticschools  democracy  innovation  problemsolving  elibroad  arneduncan  billgates  statusquo  wealth  privilege  learning  self-directedlearning  self-directed  technology  lcproject  schools  schooling  schooldesign  kinect  open  openness  from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco
¿En qué país vivimos los chilenos? | CIPER Chile CIPER Chile » Centro de Investigación e Información Periodística
"El 10% de los chilenos tiene ingresos promedio que superan los de Noruega, mientras que los ingresos del 10% más pobre son similares a los de los habitantes Costa de Marfil. La gran mayoría tiene, en promedio, menos ingresos que los angoleños. Pese a que el PIB de Chile superó los 200.000 millones de dólares el año pasado, los niveles de desigualdad demuestran que no basta con el crecimiento para alcanzar el desarrollo."
chile  politics  inequality  disparity  incomegap  incomes  wealth  2011  poverty  policy  economics  wealthdistribution 
june 2011 by robertogreco
Denis Diderot quotes
“In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice. Those who have money will display it in every imaginable way. If their ostentation does not exceed their fortune, all will be well. But if their ostentation does exceed their fortune they will ruin themselves. In such a country, the greatest fortunes will vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Those who don't have money will ruin themselves with vain efforts to conceal their poverty. That is one kind of affluence: the outward sign of wealth for a small number, the mask of poverty for the majority, and a source of corruption for all.”
denisdiderot  mony  wealth  poverty  economics  motivation  talent  virtue  will  capitalism  marxism  ostentation  affluence  corruption  power  disparity  inequality  incomegap  diderot  from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco
Bill Maher’s “Real Time” education debate failure - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post
"…a more important consideration of ranking and American exceptionalism may be the following data from David Morris about where the U.S. does rank No. 1:

• CEO pay compared to average worker pay.
• Income for top 0.1%
• Military spending
• Prisons per 100,000 population
• Murders per 100,000 population
• Health care costs as % of GDP
• Infant mortality per 1000 live births
• (As a reverse number one, meaning we are at the bottom) Social spending on families as % of GDP
• % children living in poverty, compared to like countries
• % experiencing homelessness from 1990-2006, compared to like countries

These are some of our exceptionalities because it is what we tolerate. To be blunt, we have corrosive and negative attitudes — as well as contradictory attitudes — about education because we do not want to face the fact of our country, the inequity and the real accountability that should be aimed at the top."
teaching  politics  policy  us  exceptionalism  2011  paulthomas  davidmorris  priorities  wealth  inequality  scapegoating  education  publicschools  poverty  from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco
Twitter / @Boris Anthony: …future unevenly distributed, financial returns based on maintaining past...
"future unevenly distributed, financial returns based on maintaining past. Rock stars = conservatives (preservatives?)"
borisanthony  conservatism  conservatives  finance  money  economics  progressive  future  disparity  inequality  hierarchy  power  wealth  from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco
Tax property, not people, for a fairer society | Business | The Guardian
"Levies on land values do not depress or distort wealth creation and are easy to assess, cheap to collect and hard to avoid"<br />
<br />
"So not only do we get a tax that is easy and cheap to collect, it would be difficult for the super rich to avoid with their offshore trusts and company ownership structures, and it would also lower the value of the asset that is stifling social mobility – property."
2011  taxes  taxation  propertytax  property  land  society  fairness  wealth  power  control  vat  europe  oecd  lvt  landvaluetax  from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco
Meritocrats by Tony Judt | The New York Review of Books
"Universities are elitist: they are about selecting the most able cohort of a generation and educating them to their ability—breaking open the elite and making it consistently anew. Equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are not the same thing. A society divided by wealth and inheritance cannot redress this injustice by camouflaging it in educational institutions—by denying distinctions of ability or by restricting selective opportunity—while favoring a steadily widening income gap in the name of the free market. This is mere cant and hypocrisy."<br />
<br />
[via: http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2011/05/03/easter-reading.php ]
education  culture  uk  politics  cambridge  equality  opportunity  highereducation  highered  injustice  hypocrisy  wealth  inheritance  society  2010  ability  meritocracy  freemarkets  incomegap  economics  capitalism  elitism  tonyjudt  from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco
The Historic Election: Four Views by Ronald Dworkin, Mark Lilla, and David Bromwich | The New York Review of Books
"Capitalist utopianism and unqualified loathing for all that remains of the welfare state are the dispositions that now unite the Republican Party from the bottom up. George Orwell wrote in The Road to Wigan Pier that while it might be too much to hope for economic equality, he liked the idea of a world where the richest man was only ten times richer than the poorest. Bertrand Russell in Freedom versus Organization wrote that since money is a form of power, a high degree of economic inequality is not compatible with political democracy. Those statements did not seem radical seventy years ago. Today no national politician would dare assent to either."

[via: http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2011/05/03/easter-reading.php ]
capitalism  2010  georgeorwell  bertrandrussell  inequality  incomegap  wealth  economics  us  policy  poverty  inequity  politics  freedom  democracy  incompatibility  welfarestate  republicans  washingtonstate  elections  ronalddworkin  marklilla  davidbromwich  from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco
OK Do | See, think, do pt. 5 – Skill
"As the division between work and leisure is blurred, we face a dilemma, as there is no more clear equation. We are what we do. Our identity is shaped by a passion for our work, and in the things we produce, not only the things we consume. Money is a means, not an end. It is what we do with a budget that matters, as big money can not ensure high-quality results; only skill and passion can.<br />
<br />
Skill of living is the new wealth. This is wealth produced and consumed through both labour and leisure. It is skill demonstrated in the choices we make, the ideas we believe in, the works we create and the lives we live."
okdo  tuomastoivonen  leisure  work  leisurearts  well-being  happiness  change  democracy  divisionoflabor  history  money  life  living  glvo  blurriness  values  cv  slow  workslavery  passion  livework  worklive  worklifebalance  consumerism  consumption  materialism  postconsumerism  freedom  independence  unschooling  deschooling  lcproject  capitalism  marxism  anarchism  wealth  from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco
prosthetic knowledge — First Impressions by Jenny Holzer
jennyholzer  truisms  power  hierarchy  people  society  humanism  quotes  money  wisdom  torture  freedom  choice  taste  inheritance  government  humor  social  behavior  surplus  wealth  anger  hate  elite  revolution  alienation  labor  life  pain  morals  selfishness  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
Economist's View: Increasing Taxes on the Wealthy is Unfair???
"The immorality is based upon the idea that the wealthy earned every penny they received and it would be immoral to take it away and give it to those who didn't toil as hard, as effectively, or at all (you know, the people whose wages have not kept up with their productivity). The arguments against the idea that pay at the top reflects merit alone are well known -- the contention hardly passes the laugh test -- and I won't repeat them here. But anyone who thinks the reward for crashing the financial sector ought to be unimaginable wealth should rethink their ideas."
taxes  budget  debt  2011  morality  right  left  income  wealth  policy  politics  trickledowneconomics  economics  money  society  wealthdistribution  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
Enriching Executives, at the Expense of Many - NYTimes.com
"Mr. Meyer’s favorite pay-and-performance comparison pits Statoil against ExxonMobil. Statoil, which is two-thirds owned by the Norwegian government, pays its top executives a small fraction of what ExxonMobil pays its leaders. But Statoil’s share price has outperformed Exxon’s since the Norwegian company went public in October 2001. Through March, its stock climbed 22.3 percent a year, on average, Mr. Meyer notes. During the same period, Exxon’s shares rose an average of 11.4 percent annually, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index returned 1.67 percent, annualized."<br />
<br />
"OTHER aspects of Statoil’s governance also appeal to Mr. Meyer. Its 10-member board includes three people who represent the company’s workers; management is not represented on the board. In addition, Statoil has an oversight group known as a corporate assembly, something that is required under Norwegian law for companies employing more than 200 workers…"
salaries  ceos  oil  stockholders  incentives  governance  boardmembers  executivepay  norway  exxonmobile  statoil  performance  pay-and-performance  2011  us  inequality  wealth  incomegap  income  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
Freedom, Autonomy, and Happiness
"Why haven’t Americans become much happier even though they became much richer? I really think there’s something to the idea that the way we’ve lived and worked as we’ve  become richer hasn’t had much payoff in an increased sense of autonomy. There’s a left-wing version of this argument that stresses a sort of enslavement by false consumer desire, an imagined loss of worker’s rights, and so forth. There’s something to this. But I’m stewing up version of the argument that stresses barriers to self-employment, the debt loads and like-it-or-not rootedness encouraged by the American cult of homeownership, that sort of thing. Consider this a preview."
williwilkinson  davidbrooks  thesocialanimal  happiness  autonomy  left  self-employment  homeownership  workers  enslavement  dept  wealth  rootedness  freedom  commitment  cv  ratrace  racetonowhere  wageslavery  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
Boston Review — David Bollier and Jonathan Rowe: The 'Illth' of Nations
"Current beliefs about economic freedom emerged in West during 17&18th centuries…entrepreneurs were challenging the remnants of feudalism, & private property stood as a symbol of freedom against arrogant royal rule. …yesterday’s answer became today’s problem. Today it is private property, as embodied in corporation, that has become arrogant…solution is not all-encompassing state—authoritarian “we” that has been the reactive refuge of Left. Regulation there must be; but there must also be a different kind of property—common property—that exists alongside the market, providing a buffer against its excesses & producing what the corporate market can’t.<br />
<br />
As market culture intrudes ever-deeper into daily life—from public spaces to the inner lives of kids— there is a yearning for space that is beyond the reach of buying & selling. People might not use the word “commons;” but they seek increasingly what it represents—community, freedom, & the integrity of natural & social processes."
economics  anarchism  marxism  via:javierarbona  davidbollier  freedom  jonathanrowe  illth  growth  property  perspective  commons  privateproperty  we  autoritarianism  left  politics  policy  commonproperty  excess  scarcity  abundance  future  wealth  culture  society  progress  community  intefrity  social  distribution  markets  marketfundamentalism  local  gdp  work  prosperity  well-being  affluence  income  incomegap  redistribution  taxes  taxation  wealthdistribution  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% | Society | Vanity Fair [via: http://scudmissile.tumblr.com/post/4314478188/of-all-the-costs-imposed-on-our-society-by-the-top]
"Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1% of the people take nearly a quarter of nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret."<br />
<br />
"Of all the costs imposed on our society by top 1%, perhaps the greatest is this: the erosion of our sense of identity, in which fair play, equality of opportunity, & a sense of community are so important. America has long prided itself on being a fair society, where everyone has an equal chance of getting ahead, but statistics suggest otherwise: the chances of a poor citizen, or even middle-class citizen, making it to the top in America are smaller than in many countries of Europe. The cards are stacked against them. It is this sense of an unjust system w/out opportunity that has given rise to conflagrations in Middle East: rising food prices and growing and persistent youth unemployment simply served as kindling."
inequality  politics  economics  government  wealth  josephstiglitz  2011  society  insecurity  revolution  rebellion  instabiity  us  protests  wealthdistribution  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
Tax the Super Rich now or face a revolution Paul B. Farrell - MarketWatch
"1. Warning: Super Rich want tax cuts, creating youth unemployment… 2. Warning: rich get richer on commodity prices, poor get angrier… 3. Warning: Global poor ticking time bomb targeting Super Rich… 4. Warning: Next revolution coming across ‘Third World America’… 5. Warning: Super Rich must be detoxed of their greed addiction… 6. Warning: Politicians infected by Super-Rich Delusion, revolution"
politics  economics  taxes  us  superrich  wealth  2011  thirdworldamerica  poor  poverty  unemployment  disparity  incomegap  global  rich  youth  revolution  paulfarrell  greed  instabiity  greatdepression  greatrecession  greatrepression  commodities  food  wealthdistribution  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
'Remigration' Imagines a City With No Workers | Art Beat | PBS NewsHour | PBS
"Imagine a city occupied exclusively by the upper class. High rents and property costs have pushed out construction workers, public school teachers, subway operators and other middle- and lower-wage earners.<br />
<br />
'Remigration,' a short film which can be viewed online as part of ITVS' 'Futurestates' series, imagines how this scenario might play out in San Francisco in the not-too-distant future.<br />
<br />
Director Barry Jenkins explores this idea of extreme gentrification from the point of view of a couple who have been forced to move inland from San Francisco after a job loss and family illness. The city seeks out Kaya and his wife, Helen, to test a new program that entices working-class laborers back to the city with fair wages and the promise of a college scholarship for their young daughter -- in exchange for taking up blue collar work.<br />
<br />
"Futurestates" asks filmmakers to imagine how current events could play out 20-30 years from now and to explore that idea through short narrative film…"
gentrification  fiction  future  futurism  hypergentrification  migration  barryjenkins  sanfrancisco  via:bldgblog  remigration  futurestates  cities  urban  urbanism  class  society  wealth  segregation  globalwarming  labor  2011  wealthdistribution  from delicious
march 2011 by robertogreco
Billionaire self-pity and the Koch brothers - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
"This is exactly the psychological affliction that leads Wall Street plunderers and tycoons and billionaires to see themselves as the victims of the resentful lower-classes and the "radical egalitarians" who run the U.S. Government.  Even as they get richer and everyone else gets poorer, even as the very few remaining restraints on their political power are abolished, even as the disparities in wealth and power grow ever-larger, they become increasingly convinced that everything is stacked against them, that there is a grand conspiracy to deprive them of what is rightfully theirs.  All of this could be confined to a fascinating, abstract psychological study if not for the fact that the people who think this way exercise the most political power and continue to exercise more and more."
kochbrothers  glenngreenwald  self-pity  politics  policy  us  2011  wealth  economics  power  influence  control  unions  socialunrest  from delicious
march 2011 by robertogreco
Losing Our Way - NYTimes.com
"So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers & police officers, & generally letting the bottom fall out of quality of life here at home.<br />
Welcome to America in the 2nd decade of 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, human fallout from the Great Recession & long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply…<br />
<br />
Overwhelming imbalances in wealth & income inevitably result in enormous imbalances of political power. So corporations & very wealthy continue to do well. The employment crisis never gets addressed.…wars never end…& nation-building never gets a foothold here at home.<br />
<br />
New ideas & new leadership have seldom been more urgently needed."<br />
<br />
"This is my last column for NYTimes…I’m off to write a book & expand my efforts on behalf of working people, the poor & others struggling in our society."
politics  economics  us  2011  bobherbert  ge  barackobama  disparity  wealth  power  greed  society  classwarfare  richeatpoor  poverty  middleclass  class  from delicious
march 2011 by robertogreco
LRB · Perry Anderson · Lula’s Brazil
"Contrary to a well-known English dictum, stoical if self-exonerating, all political lives do not end in failure. In postwar Europe, it is enough to think of Adenauer or De Gasperi, or perhaps even more impressively, Franco. But it is true that, in democratic conditions, to be more popular at the close than at the outset of a prolonged period in office is rare. Rarer still – indeed, virtually unheard of – is for such popularity to reflect, not appeasement or moderation, but a radicalisation in government. Today, there is only one ruler in the world who can claim this achievement, the former worker who in January stepped down as president of Brazil, enjoying the approval of 80 per cent of its citizens. By any criterion, Luiz Inácio da Silva is the most successful politician of his time."
brasil  politics  brazil  lula  democracy  policy  slavery  history  class  society  inequality  approval  latinamerica  hierarchy  poor  wealth  socialempowerment  empowerment  2011  disorder  government  personality 
march 2011 by robertogreco
Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness -- New York Magazine
"I almost became a professional philosopher," Martin Seligman says. "I had a fellowship to Oxford. I turned it down."…<br />
<br />
"My education was Wittgensteinian," he continues. I’d heard this about Seligman too—how fascinated he was by Ludwig Wittgenstein, a famous depressive who nevertheless told his landlady as he was dying, Tell them it’s been wonderful. Seligman’s interested in many famous depressives—Lincoln, Oppenheimer. He identifies himself as a depressive, too. "But in retrospect," he continues, "I think Wittgenstein suborned three generations of philosophy, including mine, by telling us that what we wanted to do was puzzles and that somehow by solving puzzles, problems would get solved. I spent 40 years struggling out of that mode."<br />
<br />
Seligman spent almost as long struggling out of the mode of traditional psychology… It is Seligman’s contention that psychology’s emphasis on pathology has marginalized the study of well-being."
happiness  psychology  philosophy  culture  well-being  martinseligman  wittgenstein  positivepsychology  politics  2006  chrispeterson  selfhelp  danielgilbert  shanelopez  babyboomers  malcolmgladwell  georgewbush  pathology  talben-sahar  lottery  wealth  despair  depression  maximizers  satisficers  optimism  pessimism  from delicious
march 2011 by robertogreco
VIDEO: America Is NOT Broke | MichaelMoore.com
"400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.…<br />
<br />
America ain't broke! The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it's one person, one vote, and it's the thing the rich hate most about America -- because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!<br />
<br />
Madison, do not retreat.  We are with you. We will win together."
economy  wealth  income  michaelmoore  inequality  incomegap  economics  classwarfare  us  wisconsin  2011  budget  budgetcuts  finance  society  unions  collectivebargaining  from delicious
march 2011 by robertogreco
Robert Reich (How Democrats Can Become Relevant Again (And Rescue the Nation While They're At It))
"Republicans offered Democrats two more weeks before the doomsday shut-down. Democrats countered with four. Republicans held their ground. Democrats agreed to two.<br />
<br />
This is what passes for compromise in our nation’s capital.<br />
<br />
Democrats have become irrelevant. If they want to be relevant again they have to connect the dots: The explosion of income and wealth among America’s super-rich, the dramatic drop in their tax rates, the consequential devastating budget squeezes in Washington and in state capitals, and the slashing of public services for the middle class and the poor."
2011  democrats  neoliberalism  robertreich  class  wealth  budget  wisconsin  policy  politics  economics  disparity  incomegap  society  unions  power  education  wealthdistribution  from delicious
march 2011 by robertogreco
Where Children Sleep by James Mollison
children  comparison  international  books  sleep  art  photography  world  global  via:cervus  jamesmollison  wealth  disparity  incomegap  poverty  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
History: What are the greatest challenges of our generation? - Quora
Rate of Technological Change…ill-equipped to deal with such blindingly fast change.<br />
<br />
Energy. Depending on fossil fuels is bad for the economy, the environment, & politics.<br />
<br />
Environment. Between global warming, melting ice caps, forest depletion, species extinctions and numerous other issues, the environment is changing faster (& more negatively) than at any other point in human history…<br />
<br />
Water. The scarcity of fresh water for consumption & agriculture is going to be a major source of conflict btwn & w/in nations.<br />
<br />
Education. Taking a USA-centric perspective, our increasingly fragile education system will challenge many generations to come, as this will have a direct correlation to the economic, political, & social health of the US.<br />
<br />
Creativity / Innovation…<br />
<br />
Overpopulation. Too many people in the world, not enough resources.<br />
<br />
Wealth Distribution. The graphic below is from 1992. No doubt, it's even more of a gap now."
future  present  climatechange  energy  peakoil  economics  education  politics  policy  overpopulation  wealth  disparity  inequality  water  environment  deforestation  technology  change  creativity  classideas  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
How to Build a Progressive Tea Party | The Nation
"American citizens should ask themselves: I work hard and pay my taxes, so why don’t the richest people and the corporations? Why should I pick up the entire tab for keeping the nation running? Why should the people who can afford the most pay the least? If you’re happy with that situation, you can stay at home and leave the protesting to the Tea Party. For the rest, there’s an alternative. For too long, progressive Americans have been lulled into inactivity by Obama’s soaring promises, which come to little. As writer Rebecca Solnit says, “Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky…. Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency.” UK Uncut has just shown Americans how to express real hope—and build a left-wing Tea Party."<br />
<br />
[Related: http://www.thenation.com/article/158280/ten-step-guide-launching-us-uncut ]
politics  policy  us  uk  teaparty  ukuncut  usuncut  uncut  taxes  activism  progressive  government  tarp  bailout  deficit  2011  johannhari  grassroots  protest  finance  wealth  incomegap  disparity  inequality  corporations  corporatism  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
The Tipping Point | Coffee Party
"Years from now, we will think of February 2011 as the tipping point in America’s great awakening. After all the warnings and wake-up calls, this be will remembered as the time when the American people decided to come together, confront the plutocracy that plagues our republic, and do something to change the economic inequality / instability that has grown from it. There is a tide. If you don't yet feel it, here are Ten Wake Up Calls that we predict will help define February 2011 in America.  The more people who get involved, the more meaningful it will be.  So, please share this page with others who may still need a reason to wake up and stand up."<br />
<br />
1 Egypt; 2 Bob Herbert's Challenge To America; 3 The Protest & the Prank Call in Wisconsin; 4 Johann Hari's article in The Nation; 5 It's the Inequality, Stupid; 6 The Great American Rip-off; 7 BP makes US sick; 8 House of Representatives run amok; 9 The Stiglitz Deficit-reduction Plan; 10 Tax Week, April 11 to 17, 2011."
2011  tippingpoint  us  politics  policy  plutocracy  change  gamechanging  egypt  bobherbert  matttaibbi  bp  corporations  corporatism  capitalism  corruption  campaignfinance  josephstiglitz  johannhari  inequality  disparity  incomegap  taxes  crisis  banking  finance  government  bailouts  foreclosures  unions  unionbusting  wisconsin  deficits  deficitreduction  teaparty  coffeeparty  kochbrothers  havesandhavenots  money  wealth  influence  power  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
Robert Reich (The Republican Shakedown)
'You can’t fight something with nothing. But as long as Democrats refuse to talk about the almost unprecedented buildup of income, wealth, and power at the top – and the refusal of the super-rich to pay their fair share of the nation’s bills – Republicans will convince people it’s all about government and unions.'
politics  economics  us  money  policy  axes  wealth  rich  robertreich  2011  republicans  democrats  government  unions  disparity  incomegap  wealthdistribution  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
Plutocracy Now: What Wisconsin Is Really About
"It's not clear how this will get turned around. Unions, for better or worse, are history…<br />
<br />
And yet: The heart & soul of liberalism is economic egalitarianism. Without it, Wall Street will continue to extract ever vaster sums from the American economy, the middle class will continue to stagnate, & the left will continue to lack the powerful political & cultural energy necessary for a sustained period of liberal reform.…<br />
<br />
Over the past 40 years, the American left has built an enormous institutional infrastructure dedicated to mobilizing money, votes, & public opinion on social issues, & this has paid off with huge strides in civil rights, feminism, gay rights, environmental policy, and more. But the past two years have demonstrated that that isn't enough. If the left ever wants to regain the vigor that powered earlier eras of liberal reform, it needs to rebuild the infrastructure of economic populism that we've ignored for too long."
politics  left  us  policy  plutocracy  wealth  power  income  finance  wallstreet  unions  future  egalitarianism  history  reform  change  wisonsin  2011  disparity  stagnation  society  taxes  incomegap  labor  middleclass  wealthdistribution  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
It's the Inequality, Stupid | Mother Jones
"Eight charts that explain everything that's wrong with America."
politics  economics  government  society  infographics  wealth  income  us  classideas  plutocracy  corruption  inequality  disparity  incomegap  incomes  unemployment  taxes  taxation  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
Robert Reich (The Republican Strategy)
"These three aspects of the Republican strategy – a federal budget battle to shrink government, focused on programs the vast middle class depends on; state efforts to undermine public employees, whom the middle class depends on; and a Supreme Court dedicated to bending the Constitution to enlarge and entrench the political power of the wealthy – fit perfectly together.<br />
They pit average working Americans against one another, distract attention from the almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and power at the top, and conceal Republican plans to further enlarge and entrench that wealth and power.<br />
What is the Democratic strategy to counter this and reclaim America for the rest of us?"
politics  labor  economics  us  2011  republicans  robertreich  policy  taxes  unions  government  disparity  kochbrothers  supremecourt  antoninscalia  clarencethomas  scotus  teaparty  money  influence  wealth  democracy  corruption  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
Schooling the World | The White Man's Last Burden [Trailer: http://vimeo.com/14344025]
"If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it?

You would change the way it educates its children.

The U.S. Government knew this in the 19th century when it forced Native American children into government boarding schools. Today, volunteers build schools in traditional societies around the world, convinced that school is the only way to a "better" life for indigenous children.

But is this true? What really happens when we replace a traditional culture's way of learning and understanding the world with our own? Schooling the World: The White Man's Last Burden takes a challenging, sometimes funny, ultimately deeply disturbing look at the effects of modern education on the world's last sustainable indigenous cultures.

"Generations from now, we'll look back and say, 'How could we have done this kind of thing to people?'""

[via: http://steelemaley.posterous.com/placticity-global-movements-and-bioregion-cha ]
education  unschooling  deschooling  colonialism  imperialism  westernworld  westernschools  schooling  schools  us  global  documentary  film  reform  wealth  prosperity  sustainability  2011  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? | Rolling Stone Politics
"So there you have it. Illegal immigrants: 393,000. Lying moms: 1. Bankers: 0. The math makes sense only because the politics are so obvious. You want to win elections, you bang on the jailable class. You build prisons & fill them with people for selling dime bags & stealing CD players. But for stealing a billion $? For fraud that puts a million people into foreclosure? Pass. It's not a crime. Prison is too harsh. Get them to say they're sorry, & move on. Oh, wait—let's not even make them say they're sorry. That's too mean; let's just give them a piece of paper w/ a government stamp on it, officially clearing them of the need to apologize, & make them pay a fine instead. But don't make them pay it out of their own pockets, & don't ask them to give back the money they stole. In fact, let them profit from their collective crimes, to the tune of a record $135 billion in pay & benefits last year. What's next? Taxpayer-funded massages for every Wall Street executive guilty of fraud?"
economics  finance  politics  us  policy  corruption  wallstreet  crime  2011  fraud  matttaibbi  wealth  discrimination  favoritism  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
When Democracy Weakens - NYTimes.com
"As the throngs celebrated in Cairo, I couldn’t help wondering about what is happening to democracy here in the US. I think it’s on the ropes. We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only.<br />
<br />
While millions of ordinary Americans are struggling with unemployment & declining standards of living, the levers of real power have been all but completely commandeered by the financial & corporate elite. It doesn’t really matter what ordinary people want. The wealthy call the tune, & the politicians dance.<br />
<br />
So what we get in this democracy of ours are astounding & increasingly obscene tax breaks & other windfall benefits for wealthiest, while bought-&-paid-for politicians hack away at essential public services & social safety net, saying we can’t afford them. One state after another is reporting that it cannot pay its bills. Public employees across the country are walking the plank by the tens of thousands…Medicaid…is under savage assault from nearly all quarters."
bobherbert  policy  us  politics  wealth  disparity  egypt  democracy  oligarchy  standardofliving  poverty  class  2011  revolution  budget  budgetcuts  government  corruption  power  elite  money  wealthdistribution  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
Interactive | State of Working America
"Use the sliders on the timeline to select a timespan, and see how growth in average income was shared between the richest 10% and the other 90% of Americans. All figures are in 2008 dollars."
wealth  us  economics  trickledownmyass  disparity  therichgetricher  it'sbroken  money  policy  charts  graphs  classideas  labor  work  productivity  incomegap  income  timeline  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
Social Class, Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy — Psychological Science
"Recent research suggests that lower-class individuals favor explanations of personal and political outcomes that are oriented to features of the external environment. We extended this work by testing the hypothesis that, as a result, individuals of a lower social class are more empathically accurate in judging the emotions of other people. In three studies, lower-class individuals (compared with upper-class individuals) received higher scores on a test of empathic accuracy (Study 1), judged the emotions of an interaction partner more accurately (Study 2), and made more accurate inferences about emotion from static images of muscle movements in the eyes (Study 3). Moreover, the association between social class and empathic accuracy was explained by the tendency for lower-class individuals to explain social events in terms of features of the external environment. The implications of class-based patterns in empathic accuracy for well-being and relationship outcomes are discussed."
empathy  wealth  economics  society  behavior  class  well-being  from delicious
january 2011 by robertogreco
Inequality: The rich and the rest | The Economist
Viewed from this perspective, the right way to combat inequality and increase mobility is clear. First, governments need to keep their focus on pushing up the bottom and middle rather than dragging down the top: investing in (and removing barriers to) education, abolishing rules that prevent the able from getting ahead and refocusing government spending on those that need it most. Oddly, the urgency of these kinds of reform is greatest in rich countries, where prospects for the less-skilled are stagnant or falling. Second, governments should get rid of rigged rules and subsidies that favour specific industries or insiders. Forcing banks to hold more capital and pay for their implicit government safety-net is the best way to slim Wall Street’s chubbier felines. In the emerging world there should be a far more vigorous assault on monopolies and a renewed commitment to reducing global trade barriers—for nothing boosts competition and loosens social barriers better than freer commerce."
inequality  income  economics  capitalism  poverty  disparity  wealth  policy  from delicious
january 2011 by robertogreco
Equality, a True Soul Food - NYTimes.com
"inequality…undermines social trust & community life, corroding societies…humans…become stressed when they find themselves at bottom of hierarchy.<br />
<br />
…stress leads to biological changes…physical ailments…& social ailments like violent crime, mutual distrust, self-destructive behaviors & persistent poverty…<br />
<br />
…humans are not all equal in ability…will always be some who are more wealthy…But inequality does not have to be as harsh, oppressive & polarized as is in US today. Germany & Japan have attained modern, efficient economies w/ far less inequality & far fewer social problems…<br />
<br />
“Inequality is divisive, & even small differences seem to make important difference”…not just poor who benefit from the social cohesion that comes with equality, but the entire society.<br />
<br />
…as we debate national policy in 2011 — from estate tax to unemployment insurance to early childhood ed — let’s push to reduce the stunning levels of inequality…seem profoundly unhealthy, for us & for our nation’s soul."
inequality  us  wealth  society  health  well-being  socialsafetynet  equality  japan  germany  2011  policy  politics  money  hierarchy  trust  community  behavior  from delicious
january 2011 by robertogreco
Income Inequality and the 'Superstar Effect' - NYTimes.com
"CAPITALISM relies on inequality…pay disparities steer resources [people] to where they would be most productively employed.<br />
<br />
In poor economies, fast economic growth increases inequality…Inequality spurs economic growth by providing incentives …pulls best & brightest into most lucrative lines of work, where most profitable companies hire…<br />
Yet increasingly outsize rewards accruing to nation’s elite…threaten to gum up incentive mechanism. If only a very lucky few can aspire to a big reward, most workers are likely to conclude it's not worth effort to try…odds aren’t on their side.<br />
Inequality has been found to turn people off…measurably less satisfied w/ jobs…more likely to look for another…winner-take-all games tend to elicit much less player effort & more cheating…<br />
<br />
…How much inequality is necessary?…economy grew even faster 1951-80, when inequality declined…<br />
US is rich country w/ most skewed income distribution…Americans are less economically mobile…"
economics  disparity  wages  labor  growth  us  capitalism  incentives  motivation  wealth  elite  elitism  winnertakeall  work  inequality  mobility  finance  sports  wealthdistribution  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
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