he U.S. has reached Peak Jobs–at least the sort that can support a household.
There has long been a quasi-magical belief in the U.S. that capitalism's intrinsic dynamic of creative destruction will always create more jobs than it destroys. The evidence is compelling that this belief is no longer reality-based.
Please examine these charts of employment, keeping in mind that only full-time jobs can support households and pay sufficient taxes to fund entitlements paid by payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare) and pay enough income taxes to support the rest of government.
Full-time jobs: the number of full-time jobs is essentially unchanged from 1999 while the U.S. population has increased 28%.
Koch Brothers and Boehner Plot to Take Down – or Over – the Government
The government shutdown and debt ceiling crises is getting wilder and more dangerous by the day. Here's writings, if true, showing very rich right-wing extremism at work behind Boehner:
“The Koch Brothers and other right-wing billionaires who provoked the government shutdown and now are angling for an even more devastating credit default see themselves as the people who deserve to rule the United States without interference from lesser citizens, especially those with darker-colored skin. Their “masters of the universe” world view is that they or their daddies or their daddies’ daddies were the ones who “built America” and, thus, it’s their right to tear down the remarkable edifice of U.S. law, politics and economics created over the past two-plus centuries — if the country’s less-deserving inhabitants insist on raising taxes on the rich to fund programs benefiting the poor and the middle class. Oil billionaires David and Charles Koch. That is what we’re watching now, what might be called the Koch Brothers’ “Samson Option,” pulling down the temple to destroy their enemies even if doing so is also destructive to them and their fortunes…Now, in 2013, the Republican Right has doubled down on that strategy, merging a government shutdown with an impending credit default in an effort to extort more concessions from Obama and the Democrats. But the larger goal is to create a new constitutional structure in which the Right, regardless of its minority status, gets to dictate what the federal government can and cannot do. To make this strategy work, however, requires a readiness to play Samson and to pull down the temple on your enemies as well as yourself. That appears to be the extreme option that the Koch Brothers and their fellow right-wing billionaires have chosen. If they can’t rule America, they will reduce the country to economic rubble through a fiscal crisis and a premeditated financial collapse. Then, perhaps out of the rubble, a chastened American people will emerge to accept their subordinate position in this new plutocratic structure. In the future, they will know better than to do something that the Koch Brothers and their right-wing friends don’t like. All that stuff about a government of the people, by the people and for the people will finally have perished from the earth.
When I read this interview I was stunned. I have never thought much of Scalia. Like Clarence Thomas I have always thought of him as first and foremost an ideologue, and as with Thomas there are also growing ethical issues involving him. But I really had no idea how very inappropriate it is for this man to be an Associate Supreme Court Justice. This is like having your crazy un! cle oversee your rearing of your children. Read this interview and ask yourself: Would I even like to have this man as a neighbor?
This is why it matters who wins the Presidency, and why voting is important.
When I read this interview I was stunned. I have never thought much of Scalia. Like Clarence Thomas I have always thought of him as first and foremost an ideologue, and as with Thomas there are also growing ethical issues involving him. But I really had no idea how very inappropriate it is for this man to be an Associate Supreme Court Justice. This is like having your crazy un! cle oversee your rearing of your children. Read this interview and ask yourself: Would I even like to have this man as a neighbor?
Miriam Carey is the latest victim. She deserved to live, not die. More on her below.
Incidents occur daily across America. Blacks and Latinos are most vulnerable. Police shoot innocent suspects for any reason or none all.
Rarely are officers or their superiors held accountable. On average, US police kill one or two people daily. Most often, incidents go unnoticed.
Violence in America is systemic. Previous articles discussed it. America glorifies wars. It does so in the name of peace.
It has by far the highest homicide rate among all developed nations. It’s obsessed with owning guns.
Violent films are some of the most popular. So are similar video games. Peace, stability and security are convenient illusions. Imperial wars and domestic violence crowd them out.
Communities, neighborhoods, schools, work places, commercial areas and city streets are affected. Driving while black is dangerous.
A 1999 ACLU report discussed it. Titled “Driving While Black: Racial Profiling On Our Nation’s Highways,” it said:
It’s longstanding practice in America. In 1967, dozens of witnesses told Kerner Commission members that “stopping of Negroes on foot or in cars without obvious basis” was a key reason for riots the previous summer in cities across America.
The Fourth Amendment assures “(t)he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
The Eight Amendment prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.”
What’s crueler than state-sponsored cold-blooded murder.
The Fifth Amendment prohibits “depriv(ing) (anyone) of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
The 14th Amendment forbids states from “depriv(ing) any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” It affirms “equal protection of the laws.”
Police across America spurn constitutional and US statute laws. They do so with impunity. According to ACLU:
More than 600 scientists gathered in the Netherlands for a global food security conference, described as the first of its kind.
Organisers said science could help end uncertainty surrounding efforts to meet the food needs of future generations.
They added that, until now, there were many policy debates on food security but there was no scientific forum for researchers to share knowledge.
The next food security conference will be held in the US in 2015.
“A really key message from the conference for us is that we have got lots of estimates about needs of population growth etc, but at the moment we are so uncertain of the exact numbers – the uncertainty is really very high,” said conference co-chairman Ken Giller, professor of plant production systems at Wageningen University.
“We talk about the current population being seven billion, moving to 9.2 billion in 2050 and the estimate is that we need to increase production 70% or more.
“But there are many different ways of addressing that. If we don't know what the problem is then we can't get started in addressing them.”
People want to believe medical science gives us, at any given moment, the best of all possible worlds.
And of course, the best of all possible worlds must have its enemies: the quacks who sell unproven snake oil.
So let’s look at some facts.
As I’ve been documenting in my last several articles, the medical cartel has been engaged in massive criminal fraud, presenting their drugs as safe and effective across the board—when, in fact, these drugs have been killing and maiming huge numbers of people, like clockwork.
I’ve cited the review, “Is US Health Really the Best in the World?”, by Dr. Barbara Starfied (Journal of the American Medical Association, July 26, 2000), in which Starfield reveals the American medical system kills 225,000 people per year—106,000 as a direct result of pharmaceutical drugs.
