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The Unhappy Marriage of Economics and Health Care

Gerald Friedman Unions for Single Payer Health Care
For 40 years, many economists' have promoted increasing cost sharing through higher copayments and deductibles, the replacement of fee-for-service payment systems with capitation as in Health Maintenance Organizations, and competition where multiple insurers offer a variety of plans catered to individual consumer's interests and in competition with each other. These practices have produced the worst of all worlds, rising costs along with restrictions on access.

Inspired by Freedom Riders, Workers Plan Caravans to Walmart Convention

Josh Eidelson The Nation
Following a five-day organizing training and strategy summit in Birmingham, members of the labor group OUR Walmart, a non-union organization backed by the United Food & Commercial Workers union, will announce a plan to send civil rights movement–style caravans of workers from around country to converge at the retail giant’s June 7 annual shareholder meeting.

Authorization for Use of Military Force: a blank check for war without end

Michael Shank and Matt Shankworth The Guardian
The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed after the attacks of 11 September 2001, and provides the legal cornerstone for the so-called US "war on terror". It allows the US government to wage war at anytime, any place and on anyone deemed a threat to national security – with remarkably little evidence needed.

Li Ka-Shing’s Dockers Accept Pay Offer to End Longest Strike

Simon Lee and Jasmine Wang Bloomberg Businessweek
Port workers at billionaire Li Ka- shing’s Hongkong International Terminals Ltd. ended the longest strike at Hong Kong’s container terminal as they accepted a 9.8 percent wage increase, resolving a dispute that damaged the city’s reputation as a trade hub.

Li Ka-Shing’s Dockers Accept Pay Offer to End Longest Strike

Simon Lee and Jasmine Wang Bloomberg Businessweek
Port workers at billionaire Li Ka- shing’s Hongkong International Terminals Ltd. ended the longest strike at Hong Kong’s container terminal as they accepted a 9.8 percent wage increase, resolving a dispute that damaged the city’s reputation as a trade hub.

Dodging Corporate Taxes - Big Time

That $9.2 billion tax bill that Apple dodged in cooking up a scheme this week to finance a $55 billion stock buyback for its shareholders would have been enough to make unnecessary all of the major budget cuts in the sequester. That's not counting the tax dodges of Bank of America, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, FedEx, General Electric, Honeywell, Merck, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Verizon.

Powerball Trip

Matthew Vaz In These Times
How a proposal for a socially conscious lottery panicked corporations and birthed the 9-figure jackpot.