Why Chicago Won't Go Bankrupt - And Detroit Didn't Have To

Saqib Bhatti In These Times
Detroit's bankruptcy wasn't inevitable. Neither is Chicago's. But the austerity hawks don't want you to know that...When cities and states borrow money by issuing bonds, the lenders are typically high-wealth individuals, who purchase the bonds to get a tax break. It is a perverse system through which, rather than paying their fair share in taxes, the wealthy are instead able to lend that money to us, charge us interest for it, and then claim a further tax break on it.

books

`Rise of the Robots' and `Shadow Work'

Barbara Ehrenreich New York Times Book Review
Even the most expensively educated - Lawyers, radiologists and software designers, among others - have seen their work evaporate to India or China. Tasks that would seem to require a distinctively human capacity for nuance are increasingly assigned to algorithms, like the ones currently being introduced to grade essays on college exams.

books

Harvey on Harvey: The Most Dangerous Book I Ever Wrote

David Harvey Reading Marx's Capital With David Harvey
In defining a clear and comprehensive anti-capitalist politics and offering rational and compelling reasons for operating as anti-capitalists, highly readable Marxian scholar David Harvey goes beyond listing contradictions of capital to engage in a systematic account of the web of 17 relationships for what are usually treated as isolated aspects of crisis. Many of the contradictions are manageable, but some in combination also contain the seeds of systemic catastrophe.

food

Ugly Food Gets Attractive

Dan Mitchell Time.com
Less than beautiful produce can be an attractive and economical supply source

Wrong-Way Obama?

William Greider The Nation
He may be leading us toward economic catastrophe.

labor

The Cost of a Decline in Unions

Nicholas Kristof New York Times - Op-Ed
In this article Kristof acknowledges he was wrong about unions - As unions wane in American life, it’s also increasingly clear that they were doing a lot of good in sustaining middle class life — especially the private-sector unions that are now dwindling. "To understand the rising inequality, you have to understand the devastation in the labor movement,” says Jake Rosenfeld, a labor expert at the University of Washington and the author of “What Unions No Longer Do.”
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