economy

From The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/business/for-economists-saez-and-piketty-the-buffett-rule-is-just-a-start.html?_r=1

Other great stories from the Inter-web!!  – R.T.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/16/puppy-protection-act-michigan-breeders-puppy-mills_n_1428512.html

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/13/150567665/newark-mayor-enters-fire-in-come-to-jesus-moment?sc=tw

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17679417

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/us/antibiotics-for-livestock-will-require-prescription-fda-says.html

Wednesday, April 18

As deadline looms for low-income and middle class families, mass march and rally shine a light on the companies and CEOs whose Tax Day never comes

BOSTON – Upwards of 1,500 Massachusetts taxpayers took to the streets of Boston’s Financial District Tuesday, Tax Day, to demand major corporations and the wealthiest 1% pay their fair share to fund our communities. The massive demonstration came as part of a growing, nationwide wave of discontent against big corporations, the rich, and politicians who have created an economic emergency for the 99% through rampant tax dodging.

As deadlines loomed for millions of low-income and middle class families across Massachusetts, dozens of neighborhood-based actions called out major corporate tax dodgers whose “Tax Day” never seems to come. Fed-up residents from Dorchester to the North Shore later converged on the Financial District, calling out the Hub’s most egregious corporate tax dodgers – General Electric, State Street, Bank of America, Fidelity, Verizon and Wells Fargo. Demonstrators presented the infamous gang of tax dodgers with overdue bills for billions in unpaid tax subsidies, handing the invoices to masked “corporate pigs” bearing the logos of offending corporations.

Advocates called for a new, fairer tax system where our hard-earned tax dollars are no longer spent on unnecessary wars and corporate welfare, but instead invested in the vital job creation, healthcare, transit and education programs that keep our communities healthy and sustainable.

“We need these tax dodgers to understand that we’re fed up, and we won’t stand for it anymore,” said Lissy Romanow, who came to the rally with a large group of fellow Lynn residents. “Working families have been carrying an increasing burden for too long – it’s time for big corporations and the 1% to do their part to fund our communities.”

More than 30 community, labor and peace groups joined together for the #99TaxDay of action – including MASSUNITING, Right to the City, City Life/Vida Urbana, Massachusetts AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org and OccupyBoston. The diverse coalition was prompted to action by a new report from the non-partisan Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy and Citizens for Tax Justice, which reveals that many Bay State corporations are amongst the worst tax dodgers in America. The tax dodging policies of these companies have drained millions from the Massachusetts economy – forcing mass layoffs, slashing vital services, and closing schools and community centers.

“These corporations don’t care one bit about the services people depend on – whether it’s roads that need to be fixed or teachers in our schools,” said Tyrek Lee, Vice President of 1199 SEIU Massachusetts. “We’ve had enough of their tax dodging. It’s time that companies like GE and State Street pay their fair share, just like the rest of us do.”

By Jean McMurray

A recent visitor to the Worcester County Food Bank exclaimed, “I had no idea how big of an operation this was and everything that goes on inside to help people with food.” Two other recent visitors, a mother and her young son, also did not know what to expect when they came to the Food Bank. The stress was visible in her face and in her voice as she spoke. We offered them a seat in the office while a co-worker went to get a box of food containing cereal, peanut butter, rice, pasta, and a variety of canned goods. We also included some fresh fruits and vegetables. We spent some time talking about the food pantry in her neighborhood that could help her in the future as well as where she could go for help in applying for SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. She thanked us and seemed relieved. As my co-worker went to place the food in her car, the little boy took his took his mother’s hand and said with a smile, “Look Mommy we’re rich again.”

All of the donations entrusted to the Food Bank during the course of a year have an immediate impact as the need for our services continues to be a reality for too many people in Worcester County. With unemployment at 8 percent in Worcester County, food is a fundamental need that people are struggling to meet. With the recession and the slow economic recovery, the Food Bank is distributing more food than ever before to its network of partner agencies including food pantries, community meals sites, and shelters.

In fiscal year 2011, the Food Bank and its network helped over 83,000 people, including 32,000 children under the age of 18. Every day, we speak with individuals and families experiencing economic and emotional hardship. People like the man who has been unemployed for a long time, his savings are gone and he’s eaten very little in the past three days and the husband and wife who work and care for elderly parents and their young children. Every day, we also appreciate hearing from thoughtful people who offer meaningful gifts in the form of food, funds, and volunteer time.
Although these economic times remain uncertain and difficult, the community’s support of the Food Bank has been steadfast and heartwarming. The Food Bank is only able to provide help because of the tremendous support we receive from many individuals, businesses, foundations, and organizations as well as the state and federal government.

This past year, over 335 volunteers provided nearly 5,000 hours of volunteer service in the Food Bank’s warehouse sorting through food donations, while checking for food safety. Hundreds of food donors contributed a total of 5.8 million pounds of food, which is enough food for approximately 86,000 meals a week. Of the food distributed by the Food Bank, the two highest categories were fresh fruits and vegetables and protein in the form of meat, fish, and poultry.
The community’s support sustains our efforts to be a reliable source of good food to our network of partner agencies and the people they assist at Thanksgiving and throughout the year. Help and hope are precious gifts at any time of year for a parent trying to provide for their family or a senior citizen trying to meet their basic needs.
As an organization, the Food Bank is an efficient network of agencies and a resourceful public-private partnership. However, over the last three years, we have been challenged by unprecedented demand and uncertainty over available food resources. Throughout the region, we have seen a 12 percent increase in the number of people helped since 2008.

As the U.S. Congress makes difficult decisions this year about our national priorities, it is imperative that they do not take food away from Americans in need. We must remember the families in Worcester County who are facing hunger and the important role that nutrition programs play in their health and well-being, especially for vulnerable children and seniors. Any loss in federal support for federal nutrition programs, like SNAP, due to budget cuts or as part of the deficit reduction plan would make it harder for families to recover from the recession and would result in a gap for food that will be difficult for the Food Bank to fill.

With unemployment still high, investing in anti-hunger programs is not only the right thing to do but also makes fiscal sense, as these programs allow us to care for our neighbors, build our communities and lead to savings in healthcare and education down the road.

Everyone can help protect the federal nutrition programs from cuts as Congress moves forward to implement the Budget Control Act of 2011. Our legislators need to know that the problem of hunger is solvable and an issue of social justice that we care about. Everyone can contribute to ending hunger by contacting their legislators about the harmful cuts to nutrition assistance programs and encouraging them to pass a budget that addresses the deficit while safeguarding safety net programs that protect our neighbors in need.

Becoming an anti-hunger advocate is easy to do by visiting Feeding America’s Hunger Action Center at www.hungeractioncenter.org or the Food Research and Action Center, www.frac.org. By signing up at one of these websites, you receive action alerts on federal issues affecting hungry Americas that can be forwarded to your members of Congress with a click of a mouse and you learn about federal programs that bring relief to the millions of America struggling with hunger, including the 33,000 households who turned to the Food Bank and its network of partner agencies in 2011 for help with feeding their families.

If you have been to the Worcester County Food Bank, then you know, like all of our visitors, that it is a unique place, a place where the community comes together to make incredible things happen – one advocate, one volunteer, one dollar, and one pound of food at a time. If you have not been to the Food Bank, we invite you to come visit us sometime soon, so you can see firsthand what we do and how the generosity of so many people is at work in the community.

Interesting website. MassCityStats collates public safety, economic development, education and fiscal management data from the State of Massachusetts.

The folks from Pioneer generate a lot of unbiased information.

http://www.masscitystats.org/index.php

This could be sumptin’ for Worcester City Councilor Tony Economou. I think there’s a category called “forclosure abuse”! Take a seat, Tony, and peruse!!!

A  letter from filmmaker Michael Moore …

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

Friends,

On this day 25 years ago, in 1987, I became a filmmaker. It was around ten in the morning and the first-ever roll of Kodak 16mm film for my first-ever movie was loaded into my friend’s camera to shoot the very first scene of ‘Roger & Me.’ I had no idea on that morning in Flint, Michigan what my life would be like after that, or what would happen to Flint, or to General Motors. It all felt fairly ominous, though — after all, GM, which was posting record profits at the time, was closing its first Flint factory (the first of what would become many) and unemployment in Flint had officially been listed as high as 29%. Surely things couldn’t get much worse.

That morning, 25 years ago today, a group of autoworkers had come together on the lawn of the soon-to-be-closed Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac assembly plant to raise their voices against the closing — and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Great Flint Sit-Down Strike, which had begun at that very factory. That strike, in 1936-37, was actually an occupation. Hundreds of workers took over the factories in Flint and refused to leave for 44 days until GM capitulated and recognized their union. The strike inspired thousands of other workers across the country to stage their own occupations and, before you knew it, in the years to follow, factory workers were paid a living wage, with benefits, vacations, and a safe working place.

The middle class and the American Dream were born 75 years ago today, on February 11, 1937, the day the Flint workers won their struggle. And for the next 44 years, working people everywhere got to own their own homes, send their kids to college and never worry about going broke if they got sick. That belief, that life would be good if you were a good citizen and a hard worker, now seems out of reach for nearly half the country which is either living in or near poverty. Perhaps people wouldn’t mind it as much if the burden were being evenly shared. But everyone knows that’s not the case.

In a time of record personal bankruptcies, record home foreclosures, record family and student debt, there are a group of people having the best years of wealth and profit ever recorded in human history. And it is those very people who have made the decisions to export our jobs, to decimate unions, to make college unaffordable, to start wars and to pay themselves with gluttonous joy while paying little or no tax — this is the 1% that has created the burden so many Americans (and people around the world) now share.

And so, 75 years after the victory in Flint, the battle is now being fought all over again. But this time it’s not just about getting paid a dollar an hour, or having Sunday off, or reducing the chance of your hand being crushed in the metal stamping machine. This time, the stakes are even greater: Who is going to own America and control the basic functions of our democracy — the richest 1% who buy the politicians to get what they want, or the 99% who don’t have much these days and live in anxiety or fear of what’s around the bend.

I believe that justice will win out again, in the end, just as it did 75 years ago today in Flint in 1937.

I have no special plans to mark this day of anniversaries other than to post a short story I wrote called ‘Gratitude.’ You may have read it in my book, but if not, here it is to freely download and enjoy:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/gratitude

If you’d like to hear me read it in my own voice, click here:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/gratitude-audio

It tells, in part, the story of that day I first placed that roll of Kodak film into a movie camera. I am proud of the town I was born in, and I’m proud of my uncle who participated in the Sit-Down Strike. I am grateful to those of you who have gone to my movies over the years, and I thank all of you who have been inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement to speak up on behalf of the 99%.

There’s no turning back now. Onward!

Yours,

Michael Moore

From The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/occupy-movement-regroups-laying-plans-for-the-next-phase.html?_r=1

Great piece from latimes.com   – R. T.

http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-brooks-decline-20120201,0,2025634.story

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Friends,

This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and goals of the movement. It was attended by 40+ people and the discussion was both inspiring and invigorating. Here is what we ended up proposing as the movement’s “vision statement” to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

We Envision: [1] a truly free, democratic, and just society; [2] where we, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus; [3] where people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making; [4] where we learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others; [5] where we secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments; [6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit all, not just the privileged few; [7] where we provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings; [8] where we value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible; [9] where we work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.

The next step will be to develop a specific list of goals and demands. As one of the millions of people who are participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement, I would like to respectfully offer my suggestions of what we can all get behind now to wrestle the control of our country out of the hands of the 1% and place it squarely with the 99% majority.

Here is what I will propose to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

10 Things We Want
A Proposal for Occupy Wall Street
Submitted by Michael Moore 

1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).

2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.

3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.

4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.

5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.

6. Reorder our nation’s spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.

7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans all of the time.

8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.

9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job. (For any U.S. businesspeople freaking out at this idea because you think workers can’t run a successful company: Germany has a law like this and it has helped to make Germany the world’s leading manufacturing exporter.)

10. We, the people, must pass three constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have. These include:

a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.

b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.

c) A constitutional amendment that will act as a “second bill of rights” as proposed by President Frankin D. Roosevelt: that every American has a human right to employment, to health care, to a free and full education, to breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food, and to be cared for with dignity and respect in their old age.

Let me know what you think. Occupy Wall Street enjoys the support of millions. It is a movement that cannot be stopped. Become part of it by sharing your thoughts with me or online (at OccupyWallSt.org). Get involved in (or start!) your own local Occupy movement. Make some noise. You don’t have to pitch a tent in lower Manhattan to be an Occupier. You are one just by saying you are. This movement has no singular leader or spokesperson; every participant is a leader in their neighborhood, their school, their place of work. Each of you is a spokesperson to those whom you encounter. There are no dues to pay, no permission to seek in order to create an action.

We are but ten weeks old, yet we have already changed the national conversation. This is our moment, the one we’ve been hoping for, waiting for. If it’s going to happen it has to happen now. Don’t sit this one out. This is the real deal. This is it.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Yours,
Michael Moore

By Michael Moore, filmmaker

October 27, 2011

Friends,

Twenty-two years ago this coming Tuesday, I stood with a group of factory workers, students and the unemployed in the middle of the downtown of my birthplace, Flint, Michigan, to announce that the Hollywood studio, Warner Bros., had purchased the world rights to distribute my first movie, ‘Roger & Me.’ A reporter asked me, “How much did you sell it for?”

“Three million dollars!” I proudly exclaimed. A cheer went up from the union guys surrounding me. It was absolutely unheard of for one of us in the working class of Flint (or anywhere) to receive such a sum of money unless one of us had either robbed a bank or, by luck, won the Michigan lottery. On that sunny November day in 1989, it was like I had won the lottery — and the people I had lived and struggled with in Michigan were thrilled with my success. It was like, one of us had made it, one of us finally had good fortune smile upon us. The day was filled with high-fives and “Way-ta-go Mike!”s. When you are from the working class you root for each other, and when one of you does well, the others are beaming with pride — not just for that one person’s success, but for the fact that the team had somehow won, beating the system that was brutal and unforgiving and which ran a game that was rigged against us. We knew the rules, and those rules said that we factory town rats do not get to make movies or be on TV talk shows or have our voice heard on any national stage. We were to shut up, keep our heads down, and get back to work. Click to continue »

By Chris Horton

A retired construction worker in northern Maine, a leader in his town, says that we’re headed for a revolution, that things are getting so bad because most people are so stupid that they believe the lies they’re told and don’t really care, but he hopes things keep getting worse and worse for them until they’ve paid the price for being so stupid, and when the revolution comes he’ll sit and watch the rich folk being carted through the streets and laugh while their heads roll.

I asked if he knew any of the stupid people he was talking about, and after some thought he confessed he couldn’t name one, “but believe me, they’re out there!”

A tattooed young man with a hardened face in Northern Vermont – with roots in Massachusetts – talked about all the jobs he’d done and how he hadn’t been able to find work since he got out of prison two years ago. Says he’ll never touch marijuana again because it’s ruined his life. I asked him how many people he knew in Northern Vermont who were involved with the marijuana business. His answer: everyone I know. Would things ever get better? No, people are too stupid.

Crossing the highlands of New Brunswick on Highway 108, the sign said 138 km – 86 miles – to the next gas station. I checked my gas gauge and kept driving. No houses, no crossroads, no stores, just a road through the woods. Or what used to be woods; apart from a few tall trees here or there and sometimes a thin screen of trees on both sides of the road, the forest, for 86 miles, had been stripped bare. Sometimes I could see ridgelines three, five or more miles away, and even from a distance I could see that they too had been stripped bare.

About 50 miles in I stopped at a log building with a sign saying “halfway camp.” There were some men sitting out front and I asked them for coffee. They did up some instant for me and offered me a donut, no charge, and we talked some. The Irving Family they said owned all these woods, owned the provincial legislature and the paper mills and newspapers, TV stations and the gas stations and just about everything else around. There would be houses along the road soon because they were done with the woods for now. Did these guys think this was OK? H*** no but lots of folks like the Irvings because they’ve made everything so green. Did they know any such people? No, they couldn’t say they did. Click to continue »