Portside

Two reports on a recent Oxford University study that predicts that nearly one-half of existing jobs in the United States will be replaced by robotic machines in the next generation. Plus, a video of a related lecture by an MIT economist who specializes in the impact of technology on employment.

The chained CPI has risen to walk among us again in the muttering and jawboning around the government shutdown/debt limit standoff and the search for an exit. We're hearing again about a "grand bargain" on the government deficit -- never mind that the deficit is falling, not rising.

"It's really hard for me to feed my two kids and struggle day to day,Do you think this is fair, that I have to be making $8.25 when I've worked for McDonald's for ten years?" (Nancy Salgado addressing McDonald's USA President Jeff Stratton's speech at the Union League Club of Chicago.)

Definitely go out and buy Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to Americas Public Schools by Diane Ravitch. Reign of Error lays out step by step the relentless thirty year drive to either centralize the education of the young - on one hand - or divest it entirely into privatized hands on the other. Finally, the two sides have joined forces on a strategy that simultaneously does both. (Deborah Meier)

We will, no doubt, be needing roads - urban, local and interstate - for the foreseeable future, despite their negative effects. The good news is that we are now heading toward a transportation ecosystem that is far more varied and useful. Rather than encouraging more cars, more trucks, more pollution, less interpersonal connection and more privatized space, people throughout the country are radically changing travel and interpersonal connection.

The billionaire conservatives join the ranks of business interests trying to rein in the GOP's base, but it has turned into an unstoppable force.

Those of us on the far left (particularly those of us with well-worn armchairs) should cast off the cynical approach of simply waiting for these campaigns to collapse due to the “inevitable” betrayal of the labor bureaucracy. . . Our go-to slogan shouldn’t be “I told you so,” but “organize or die”--because that’s the reality of the labor movement in the US today.

Mexican leftists have flocked to support teachers’ unions in their protests against proposed education reforms. But by overlooking the unions’ undemocratic features and lack of popular support, the left weakens the fight against neoliberalism.