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| From 2011-10-06 Occupy Portland |
Occupy Economics from Softbox on Vimeo.
On November 13th 2011, economists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst drafted an open statement to the Occupy Wall Street movement pledging their support. Since then, more than 250 economists from around the world have added their names. Read more at econ4.org
It’s been a long and winding road, but at long last and just hours before my hard deadline, here it is.
There are two versions to choose from. The only difference is the size, the content is the same
Oversized Wall Calendar
A. F. Litt - 2012 Calendar
$23.99
Product Information
Keeping track of important dates on your calendar is easy when you can view 12 months of inspiring images that reflect your personal interests. Our high-quality calendar has oversized date boxes providing plenty of room to write in important events.
Wall Calendar
A. F. Litt - 2012 Calendar
$17.99
Product Information
Keeping track of important dates on your calendar is easy when you can view 12 months of inspiring images that reflect your personal interests. Our high-quality calendar is printed on thick 100lb cover weight paper and adds impact to any room.
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| From 2011-11 (Nov) |
On Howard Kurtz’s Reliable Sources this morning, Kurtz was asking if the media was over-hyping and over-blowing the consequences of the “Super Committee's” failure to come up with a debt reduction plan.
He asks if all these “terrible things” that may happen as a result of this failure are “just media hype?”
In these teasers for the segment, it seemed to me that he was missing the real punch line here, but after a weak panel discussion on the topic, he did get to the point I feel needs to be made.
The real story here is how the failure of the “Super Committee,” which was set up to actually succeed without a lot of the procedural chains that bind the rest of Congress, brings into sharp relief the fact that, in Kurtz’s words, “nobody seems to be able to get anything done in Washington.”
He points out how this failure “highlight[s] the utter dysfunction of Washington.”
To me, this is the real story here. Of course Congress will find a way to avert the “disaster” of across the board budget cuts, of course tax codes will remain ridiculously full of loop holes for the richest individuals and corporations… Of course the traditional and non-traditional media will make a lot of noise about small political maneuvers that distract everyone from the real issues and problems facing our country and binding our system…
Nothing much will change. Few real problems will be solved (or even mentioned), problems manufactured for use as political weapons will be howled about…
And nothing much will change.
This is the story that is not being covered.
I saw this quote earlier, from Andrew Sullivan, explaining the Occupation and Tea Party movements…
"The theme that connects them all is disenfranchisement, the sense that the world is shifting deeply and inexorably beyond our ability to control it through our democratic institutions. You can call this many things, but a “democratic deficit” gets to the nub of it. Democracy means rule by the people—however rough-edged, however blunted by representative government, however imperfect. But everywhere, the people feel as if someone else is now ruling them—and see no way to regain control."
The system has become nearly impossible to change. The far right’s reaction is to just break it. The left wallows in ineptitude. The center rolls its eyes and simmers in a weak broth of futility.
For awhile, I’ve been thinking that if I ever took a sign to an Occupation event, it would be this:
What is the solution? Well, there are no big universal fixes. But this is the conversation that we need to be having.
Finally, I loved this quote from Kurtz this morning: “miillions and millions unemployed and that is becoming an old story and that does bother me.”
Exactly. It should bother everyone.
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| Source: The Dish by Andrew Sullivan |
The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast:
The graphs above need no more elaboration. What they show is that, at a time of soaring public debt, corporate and personal taxes are at historic lows, while wages are in the toilet but corporate profits, after tax, have never been as healthy as they currently are, as a share of the economy.
...
Does this seem to you to be an era in which the president knows nothing about business and needs to get out of the way of the great American job-making machine by, er, cutting taxes even further? Or does it seem an era in which global corporations can make serious global money even when domestic workers are suffering, and where the obvious primary worry for any government would be the collapse of demand and risk of deflation at home?
