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(You may want to play the video for background ambiance while you read…)
Good evening, America, and welcome to the seven o’clock news.
Representatives of the striking Chicago Teachers Union have entered their fourth day of negotiations with school officials. Wealthy financiers behind Rahm Emanuel who are pushing for school reform have hit the airwaves, and are advising listeners to sign an online petition demanding the teachers go back to work. Emmanuel has reportedly been contemplating filing a legal injunction to that effect.
The US Treasury department has announced the sale of its majority stake of insurance giant AIG, indicating that the federal bailout was a model of success.
On Tuesday Public Intelligence, a non-profit dedicated to the free access to information, released a map of sixty-four unmanned drone bases on US soil, including 12 locations housing Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles, which can be armed.
In Greece, amid continuing mass protests, unions are calling for a general strike on September 26 in response to new demands by the credit rescuers for further austerity cuts of $14.8 billion that would result in further wage and pension cuts. Troika demands on loan stipulations sent Greek bank stocks up 15% in Wednesday’s trading.
US census figures released this week show that one in five American children were living in poverty in 2011, and that median household incomes had dipped 1.5% from 2010. Fifteen percent of the nation was living in poverty, and income disparity has increased to levels not seen since 1967. While not all reports are in, so far the US shows a more unequal economy than Uruguay, Argentina and Bangladesh according to 2010 figures. Within the figures there was also an increase in the share of aggregate income for the top 1% saw a jump of 6%.
Forty-six million Americans lived in poverty, the highest number in the fifty-three years since poverty statistics began being tracked; real median household incomes for neither blacks nor non-white Hispanics have yet recovered to their pre-2001 recession all-time highs.
On Wall Street, stocks are advancing in anticipation of an expected announcement by Ben Bernanke of another round of quantitative easing. The DJIA is now back to the pre-recession high of January, 2008.
The Unknown Blogger, with her trademark brown paper shopping bag with the cut-out eye and mouth holes pulled over her head, was quoted as shriek-blogging upon reading the report: “AND HOW THE FUCK DO YA THINK THE 2012 FIGURES WILL LOOK, ASSHOLES?!?”
In response to the slaying of the American ambassador to Libya, US drones and two American naval destroyers have been deployed to the Libyan coast. Both the USS Laboon and USS McFaul are equipped with satellite-guided Tomahawk cruise missiles that can be programmed to hit specific targets.
Sources are reporting that in what may prove to be a national trend, Austin police infiltrators have been accused of complicity in felony arrests last December at the Port of Houston shut down. In advance of the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street in NYC on September 17, the International Human Rights Clinic is calling on Mayor Bloomberg to to stop the pattern of abusive policing of Occupy Wall Street protests.
The National Hurricane Center is forecasting that tropical storm Nadine will reach hurricane status later today. Haiti’s 360,000 homeless are still trying to recover from Isaac. Tent cities were destroyed, crops ruined, and brought an increase of water-borne disease like cholera.
In breaking news of significance concerning the Presidential election: …uh…….film at eleven.
(cross-posted at kgblogz.com)
53 Comments
Nice roundup, wendydavis.
Thanks for the tease. That film at eleven better be good :)
Who is this Unknown Blogger? I looked it up and there are several on the toobz but they don’t match the clues. Would it be out of line to ask if you, erm, I mean she, takes off the shopping bag when she types?
Hmmm, wonder if the comment I just tried to post is in moderation? It’s not showing up but WordPress is also telling me that I am trying to post a duplicate.
The film at eleven, methinks, is a dodge. Null; an empty set; zip; MEGO-worthy…
Unknown Blogger ID…erm…umm…can I take the Fifth on that fer now, darlin’?
Nothin’ in my Edit window with the comment bubble thingie…I dunno.
Was yer comment on the crude and inflammatory side?
(I sure hope so, lol!)
Nice to see ya, dear carol.
It wasn’t crude and inflammatory by my standards or maybe even by everyone else’s . . . you can see it in my Activity, as if it had been posted. Very strange . . .
Hey, wd–
Go, girl! As you probably know, most of these topics are “right down my alley.”
I will definitely have further comment, this evening. But for now, please allow me to link to the article, “The Most Unequal Countries In The Developed World,” Business Insider, April 18, 2011:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-unequal-countries-in-the-developed-world-2011-4?op=1
If only the 7 O’clock News did report the topics you’ve covered.
Of course, I am very sorry about the deaths of our Embassy personnel in Libya. But, the further tragedy will be this terrible incident will become the MSM’s cause celebre, and a distraction from all the really pertinent or pressing issues that should be covered, during a presidential election.
Highly recommended.
Blue
Oh, let me point out (since some folks won’t follow the link), the United States is listed as 4th most unequal country in the developed world.
I have seen 3rd, not so long ago. Am still searching for a ranking for 2012.
Blue
Have we beat India yet?
Prolly in here; too sleepy yet to read straight.
“The higher the Gini coefficient, the more unequal the country. A positive annual change means the country is becoming more unequal.
Source: OECD”
“#16 Estonia
Gini coefficient: 0.31
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: NA
#15 Poland
Gini coefficient: 0.31
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: NA
#14 Korea
Gini coefficient: 0.32
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: NA
#13 Canada
Gini coefficient: 0.32
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Positive 0.4%
#12 Greece
Gini coefficient: 0.32
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Negative 0.3%
#11 Japan
Gini coefficient: 0.33
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Positive 0.4%
#10 New Zealand
Gini coefficient: 0.33
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Positive 0.9%
#9 Australia
Gini coefficient: 0.34
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Positive 0.6%
#8 Italy
Gini coefficient: 0.34
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Positive 0.4%
#7 United Kingdom
Gini coefficient: 0.34
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Positive 0.8%
#6 Portugal
Gini coefficient: 0.36
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Negative 0.2%
#5 Israel
Gini coefficient: 0.37
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Positive 0.6%
#4 United States
Gini coefficient: 0.38
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Positive 0.5%
#3 Turkey
Gini coefficient: 0.41
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Negative 0.3%
#2 Mexico
Gini coefficient: 0.48
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Positive 0.2%
#1 Chile
Gini coefficient: 0.5
Annual change in the Gini coefficient mid-1980s to late 2000s: Negative 0.5%”
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-unequal-countries-in-the-developed-world-2011-4?op=1#ixzz26Nora4gt
I don’t know what everyone’s so upset about. At least we’re not as bad as Turkey, Mexico, or Chile. I mean we are still comparing against the lowest common denominator right? Because nothing says exceptionalism than when your standard of comparison is the worst of the worst.
USA, USA, USA!
Well, the new data show that we can be happy for Uruguay, Argentina and Bangladesh, so…there’s that.
I really wasn’t shocked, but I admit I was so enraged that this was the only form I could bring the message in.
Add in the Reuter’s piece: ‘U.S. banks told to make plans for preventing (next) collapse’ with ‘Quelle Surprise…’ (‘banks will jimmy/trick the clearinghouse requirements, FDIC yawns’), shake, and pour…Tada!
This stuff won’t be reigned in until *we* stop it.
That cheered me right up. I can hardly wait for the 8 o’clock news.
thanks for the links.
Quelle surpise indeed.
These folks are always wrong and always surprised by how wrong they are.
The level of incompetence and corruption (LIBOR) is beyond imaginable.
Comrade, the worst is only a matter of perspective.
USA USA Gott shed his grace und zee!
Heh. To tell the truth, last night I tried re-writing ‘America Once Beautiful’ with some of this stuff…I got so depressed I bailed on it, went for the more detached way. For.Now.
This just came in from Paul Craig Roberts on the Op-ed Newsletter. I know you think he’s dickish, but he takes the data, plus some from the Shadow Stats guy (behind a paywall sometimes), and does a similar rant, but with more knives.
I think they *exactly* knew, tambershall. Every step of the way the CFTC waffles when the banks yowl. Ya’d think ‘the banks really do own the place’.
Duh.
p.s. The CFTC announced a while back that they’d backstop the deals on the clearinghouses, too, implying/promising that the benefit to the American public would be that they would be under regulatory guidelines. Ha!
Take the blue pill, dear. Or turn yer radio off. ;o) And remember, no matter what, it’s still a Beautiful World!
(You’re welcome.) ;oP
Just for completeness, interesting comments from site (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-unequal-countries-in-the-developed-world-2011-4?op=1#ixzz26Nz8MJb5)that should be mentioned:
” dxm on Apr 18, 4:30 PM said:
The Gini coefficient for the US seems low unless the OECD has better data than the UN and CIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality) which peg US at 0.4 and 0.45 respectively.
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SN on Apr 19, 9:00 AM said:
First, these numbers are low. Check the wikipedia page for gini scores or CIA World Fact book. U.S. gini score is something like .468 (or in common depiction 46.8). Also, the change since 1980 has not been 5% but rather 5 points on the Gini scale which is far more than 5%. Gini scale is geometric (like richter scale). So, to the commenter who is snarky on Canada. It turn out that Canada’s is meaningfully more equal in its income distribution than the U.S. Also, different topic, but social mobility rates are much higher in Canada in than the U.S. the correlation between a parent’s income and their adult child’s income is 1/2 as strong as the correlation between a parent’s income and their adult child’s income in the US (and the UK).”
There are other factors at play.
However I disagree with the comments assessment on Canada.
There is no significant difference between Canada and the US in terms of the perspectives of the populace.
Canada’s healthcare will become for-profit. Harper already fired the first salvo by limiting funds to it. Thus starving it. And thus making it worse. Then their propaganda that privatization will improve things makes more sense and most Canadians will embrace this fiction. And yes, they will. Just like they embraced tax cuts for corporations and the rich so they can be “competitive”. Just like their income inequality is soaring. Just like the guns instead of butter: ya, they’re buying more fighter/bomber jets instead of feeding the starving kids on their street. (Remind you folks of anyone???)
They’re privatizing left and right, … see their education system, it’s pushing full force into privatization. They’re behind us, but they’re catching up real fast.
Many of the schools are being run by religious institutions (aka the best business model in the world for the 1%er religious folks), and they don’t pay taxes, on the property and any profit they make from these schools and the buildings they buy and then rent out. Yup, all tax free. With the tax-free profit, they buy even more properties and pay no taxes on that. I mean talk about the best scam ever. And Canadians, just like Americans, blissfully unaware.
Here are the numbers: http://www.islandnet.com/~luree/churchta.htm. Data is a little old, but I will try to hunt down the new numbers. But they still apply, and are much worse now.
Income Inequality? In “socialist” Canada? No, it can’t be … oh wait …
Top Canadian CEOs make average worker’s salary in three hours of first working day of year
Top Canadian CEOs making Average Canadian’s yearly salary by Noon, says study
“By noon today, Canada’s top CEO’s will have made what most Canadians take an entire year to earn.
The current Canadian Government is paying that same rate $90,000 per day to look at ways to eliminate public sector jobs. Jobs that the 99% depend on to provide services like food inspection, environmental research, Canadian Pension Plan, Old Age Security and EI Claims processing etc…
Quietly and while people are not paying attention instead of improving Canada Pension Plan (CPP) benefits the government is raising the age at which an individual can claim full benefits. People waiting to the age of 70 to receive their CPP will receive 42% more than those that start receiving at 65.”
(Who does this remind you of???)
And they have a nice housing bubble too. And nobody is doing a damn thing about it. (Who does that remind you of???)
Booyah, we’re all Americans now.
There is no significant difference between the perspectives of Americans and Canadians. They are essentially the same. They’re following in our path, and at a much faster pace.
Heard that.
It’s all just perspective. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Vancouver: The Last of the Really Great Real Estate Bubbles
http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/11/vancouver_the_l_1.html
Exactly.
Here is a list of 150 countries. To sort them by GINI coefficient of distribution of wealth, click on the little triangles above the right-hand column. Out of 150 countries, the USA ranks fifth from the bottom.
The graphic at this Wikipedia article explains the GINI coefficient, but the graphic is particularly helpful.
Did you happen to wonder about the AIG Bailout Worked link? It’s Interfluidity calling Bullshit. Pretty funny metaphors, to boot. (We say ‘tavooch’ in our house, which is Ute for ‘rabbit’, don’t ask why…)
That first link was from 2000 data, though, no? It’s laid out better than my link above, though. ;o)
No it’s not.
Otherwise, yes, the genocide is universal.
You see, that’s what we need a good depression for every now and then – to moderate the extremes. I don’t follow PCR, so I don’t know how he’s revised his theory since thinking Reaganomics “recovered” crapitalism, but I doubt it’s much. Here’s an amusing synopsis from Wikipedia:
Oh my goodness! Bonkers. That capitalist A-Merkin good will has got to be here somewhere. Nope, no good will over there. Ha ha. Maybe under here?
It was good to live in the empire for twenty years. Doofuses.
http://larouchepac.com/node/23888
False flag in which Stevens was just collateral damage?
Who wants to be “ambassador” to the intended mess the Empire intends to make out of Syria?
The Ben Bernank is on the case now:
Wonder what it might look like now had they actually crammed down mortgages? Oh…the Big Banks’ balance sheets might look a bit more…scraggly?
Chris Stevens “received an M.S. degree from the National War College in 2010.”
That was the Shadow Stats guy you quoted, and yes. I think he’s another case of Fox turned Gamekeeper, although I only read him now and again if the title of his piece intrigues me.
He ended with (and I think he, or Shadow Stats dude meant ‘dispensable’, not ‘indispensable’ above, though: old men?):
I presumed that Stevens’ background was CIA or military intelligence of some sort. He’s not the moneybags donator that ends up as ambassador to Britain or France. He was no Pamela Churchill Harriman in other words.
It’s not *just* that I’m almost constitutionally unable to go there, but:
On the face of it, it’s illogical that even were there a false flag attack considered, it would include killing Stevens. His bio reads that he’s been immensely helpful to ‘the process’ the US aided in Libya.
Aaaand…Mike Whitney on ‘Canada;s housing bubble set to burst’.
The premis is always that greed is the insurmountable motive here. That’s wrong. Has PCR been saying anything about the unsustainability of crapitalism? Doesn’t anyone in his milieu talk about population reduction?
This attack is already being seized upon as helpful to the idea of increased American involvement in the Middle East–since Americans have been largley un-sympathetic to regime change in Syria despite all the busllshit press invoking “humanitarianism.” The narrative is being shaped by this event.
The Oligarchy counts upon us “not [being] able to go there.”
I do not know whether it was a false flag, but having grown up in the United States of Operation Northwoods, the United States of Gulf of Tonkin, the United States of Yellow Cake from Niger–I would be a credulous fool not to suspect a government now in the hands of an Oligarchical Looting System that constantly plays one side off the other in order to effect global hegemony through our ignorance and credulity.
I refuse not to go there. It is my belief that none of this would have been possible if Americans had been willing to face the unbelievable. In short, I refuse to listen to this twaddle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Hj-Y6o6ec
What did Shakespeare teach you about the powerful, conspiracy and court intrigue Wendy? He were no dummy.
Dunno, Ludwig, but he may be getting there. As a former mega-cheerleader for capitalism, this seems to be a sea-change. A friend who consider himself to be an anarcho-communist loves is stuff. I’m a newbie to both, *and* to PCR.
Chris Steven’s life for Iran? If necessary, they’d do him.
Thank you, WD, for your news highlights of the day.
Situation
Normal
All
Fucked
Up.
rec’d not just for the diary but for the comments.
Arrgh. You may be right, I may be too naive. Here’s an extremely nuanced (imo) by Vijay Prashad I saw at Counterpunch. It helps my understanding that he sees Jabril as embracing neoliberalism, as well as being a creature of the West.
Dunno quite what the term ‘political Islam is. ‘Dignity’ seemed a bit deeper than ‘face’ (Japanese) to me. But the burn might be similar, especially in the scheme of…what’s the opposite of realpolitick?
Welcome, bootsie. SNAFU, all right. The numbers speak for themselves, but further our arguments, eh? And they aggravate the sense of fair play that seems silly to consider now, but…
Good comments, yes, as so often here.
While on a soak break, I considered your take on that thinking as cost/benefit analysis (no moral compunctions to consider) and remembered as stunner I’d read the other day by (ye gods and little fishes) Cass Sunstein about the subject. Folks like him can make ya think of tumbrels…
Islam: a Marxist analysis
Thank you, comrade dear. I’ll read it in the mornin’. And g’night. ;o)
Thanks for the left-paging, mod. If it’s Kit, I used your post in the Houston Port Shutdown link. ;o)
Ludwig–
Not sure. (Or is that snark, Comrade?) Since India and China aren’t OCED members, they probably are not ranked.
I do know that China enacted a considerable raise in their minimum wage months (or maybe about one year) ago. And that the Chinese government is doing much more to intervene in their housing bubble, giving relief to many of the Chinese. (As opposed to the O administration’s grossly insufficient program).
Blue
Thanks, wd.
As it turned out, got back too late to try and dig this up.
Blue
Thanks, tambershall, for taking time to do what I should have done, earlier.
Yeah, it’s a real shame when we’re keeping company with the likes of Chile, Mexico, and Turkey.
And when the PTB get finished with the “Grand Bargain,” we’ll have a LOT MORE IN COMMON with Chile, when it comes to our social safety net.
Blue
Isaiah 88-
That makes two of us. :-)
Blue
Hey, wigwam–
I’ll take it that your “exactly” refers to Libya. The MSM is always lookin’ for “anything,” to avoid any meaningful discussion of social and economic issues, before an election.
Thanks for the links you provided, which I’ve bookmarked for future reference and use.
Blue
Much more shocking than the GINI coefficients are the actual median-wealth numbers, which are available at this post by letsgetitdone. He shows all of the top 36 countries. The USA ranks 24th from top. Here for comparison are the other English speaking countries. Read it and weep:
* 1 Australia $221,704
* 6 United Kingdom $121,852
* 10 Ireland $100,351
* 12 Canada $89,014
* 17 New Zealand $68,726
* 24 USA $52,752
Barry Ritholtz put this piece together for Labor Day, before this census report was published. Great charts over time, but nothing past 2010…but the trends are past revealing. (Is there such a thing?)
He said he chose ‘the middle class’ to examine since that’s who the politicians
cry crocodile tears forare wont to aim their rhetoric toward, for obvious reasons.This is the essence of his presentation:
I’d quibble about his ‘costs of basics’, since Americans go into debt for far too many bright, shiny baubles that have zip to do with need, but it’s not hard to say that when their personal ‘wealth’ was over-stated during the big bubbles…they probably assumed that it would keep increasing. American Dream Con Game. Blow Up the Teevee. (hope it’s the right one; too early for sound yet here)
I’m sorry I missed this yesterday, F. Campbell. I understand why you have that extra bit of fortitude. I have it for other things, especially exploring the dark side of torture, the people US drones murder, a host of other things. And I can these killings as an inevitable reaction to US imperialism and neoliberal theft of resources that God mistakenly put in the lands of brown and black people around the globe.
Economic and environmental terrorism (and a next-gen COINTELPRO aimed at them) First Americans.
I grabbed a thought from Crossed Crocodiles about R2P for Bill Purdue’s great post:
‘…
Stark.
The current relevant Gini info was actually in the post’s links; no biggie.
Tonite on the NewsHour, David Brooks said three times: “Romney’s going down.”
Yup, “romney’s going down.”
Bet your sweet bippie: “Romney’s going down.”
So, time for team Obama to recognize the fact and start trying to build a majority in the House and maximize the Senate so that we can do some nation building here stateside.