Portside

The Panama Papers illuminate a key aspect of why the system isn’t working–because globalization has allowed the capital and assets of the 1 % (be they individuals or corporations) to travel freely, while those of the 99 % cannot. I think we’re heading towards a root to branch re-evaluation of how our market system works–and doesn’t work.

Former Massey Energy Company CEO was sentenced to a year in prison. He was convicted of misdemeanor conspiracy for willfully violating mine safety standards at Upper Big Branch Mine, West Virginia. 29 men died in the explosion in 2010.

This recently unearthed text portrays the life of a 19th Century African American who spent much of his life in prison. Joy James guides us through this "startling," yet "instructive" book.

Does it matter that stretches of "Miles Ahead"— a gun-rattling, squealing-tire car chase included — came out of the filmmakers’ imagination rather than Davis’s life? Purists may howl, but they’ll also miss the pleasure and point of this playfully impressionistic movie.

The saga of Mary Virginia Farmer; Obama overcomes; Trump's triumph; Popping bubbles; Indian voting rights; KonMari

Sanders believes that the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 led to the formation of banks that became “too big to fail,” contributed to the financial crisis in 2008—and will lead to another crisis without corrective legislation. And he has a strong argument, one that can be effectively made using Citigroup, the two-century old bank that has a history of wreaking havoc on itself and the economy when it mixes commercial banking with with investment banking.

 The Panama Papers reveal the widespread use of shell corporations in the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, and Panama. Historically, North American investors prefer tax havens in the Caribbean or Panama, with an estimated 54 percent of offshore investments going to those areas.   The release of the Panama Papers should give a strong boost to US and global campaigns to crack down on these global secrecy jurisdictions and practices.

Response to Ethan Young, 2016 is Unique. https://portside.org/2016-04-02/not-chicago-1968-berlin-1932-2016-unique

By the year 2000, the government ran on ever-larger deficits. It all came to a screeching halt in 2014, when Puerto Rico’s debt was degraded to junk status and the island was effectively shut out of the financial markets. The fiscal and economic predicament has had a devastating impact on the working and middle classes.

The debate this election cycle about how to shore up the American middle class and the longer-term worry that automation will chip away at the labor market both miss a more proximate and pressing reality: knowledge work, including tech jobs, are already being shipped overseas. What happened to manufacturing jobs a generation ago is now being repeated in the knowledge economy, linking the fates of the professional class and the working class together.