Long-Term Unemployment Is Elevated Across All Education Groups

Heidi Shierholz Economic Policy Institute
Elevated long-term unemployment for all groups, like we see today, means that today’s long-term unemployment crisis is not due to something wrong with these workers, it is due to the fact that businesses across the board simply haven’t needed to significantly increase hiring because they haven’t seen demand for their goods and services pick up enough to warrant it.

Plowed Under

Jocelyn C. Zuckerman The American Prospect
Across the northern plains, native grassland is being turned into farmland at a rate not seen since the 1920s. The environmental consequences could be disastrous.

All the Presidents’ Bankers: Nomi Prins on the Secret History of Washington-Wall Street Collusion

Aaron Mate, Amy Goodwin, Nomi Prins Democracy Now!
In her new book, All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, Nomi Prins traces the hundred-year history of collusion between Washington and Wall Street. Prins reveals how a small number of bankers have played critical roles in shaping a century’s worth of financial, foreign and domestic policy in the United States including the Federal Reserve, the response to the Great Depression, and the founding of the IMF and the World Bank.

The Great Cost Shift Continues: State Higher Education Funding After the Recession

Robert Hiltonsmith, Tamara Draut Demos
Since the founding of public higher education, our nation has moved progressively toward expanding the doors of access. But in the last generation, we have moved in the opposite direction. State higher education funding on a per-student basis is lower today than it was in 1980. Federal financial aid no longer provides grants robust enough to defray the rising cost of college.

Culinary Union Workers Strike Rally Nears Full-On Strike

Jacqui Heinrich ABC Action News 13
More than 1,000 members of Culinary Union Local 226 (UNITE HERE) picketed downtown Las Vegas on Saturday, April 12. Contracts covering 10 downtown casinos are expired, as well as Brady Laundry. Major Strip casinos, including those owned by MGM Resorts and Caesar's, were settled in recent months. In addition to picketing, workers queued up from 8am until 7pm to sign up for strike relief benefits and strike picket shifts.

Friday Nite Videos -- September 13, 2013

Portside
Stephen Colbert takes exception to Vladimir Putin's Op-Ed. Revving Up Brain Skills. Dante de Blasio. A Million Years Before 'Lucy,' There Was 'Ardi.' Glee Fan Flash Mob.

Revving Up Brain Skills

Brain training games claim to boost your mental skills, but research has shown they don't make young people smarter. Now a custom-designed computer game has found success in older adults, improving players' short-term memory and attention

A Million Years Before 'Lucy,' There Was 'Ardi'

More than a million years older than "Lucy," some nearly complete skeletons of Ardipithecus ramidus and thousands of associated fossils provide the most detailed snapshot of our earliest upright ancestors.