Portside

Only one country comes even close to delivering the good life in a sustainable way: Vietnam succeeds on six social indicators — including a life expectancy above 65 years and providing sufficient nutrition — while staying within its limit on every environmental threshold except carbon emissions.

The bonds of memory and today’s vast disparities in wealth and well-being tell us that we must continue the struggle launched by workers and by King in the spring of 1968. Today, more people live in poverty in America than in 1968. Now as then, the majority of the poor are “white” but poverty’s heaviest concentration is among people of color, especially young people and women. Poverty exists in part because most of the new jobs in Memphis, as in America, do not pay a living wage.

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The president says it's been a "tough time" for top aide accused of domestic violence, but has nothing to say about his ex-wives who say they suffered at his hands

Student debtors were, in many, many cases, persuaded to make poor financial decisions by their own government — which, as the owner of their debts, now stands to profit from those mistakes. By wiping the slate clean, Uncle Sam wouldn’t just improve the macroeconomy, but also increase its fairness, and reduce racial inequality.

How much has really improved for black people in the U.S. since 1968?

Following his US fact-finding mission, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights concluded extreme poverty in the US “is a political choice made by those in power. With political will, it could readily be eliminated.”

Ex- Bush official confesses. President George W. Bush would have ordered the war even without United Nations support. "That led to a war that resulted in catastrophic losses for the region and the United States-led coalition, and that destabilized the entire Middle East". This should not be forgotten, since the Trump administration is using much the same playbook to create a false impression that war is the only way to address the threats posed by Iran.

Written one week before the current Wall Street tumble, economist Nomi Prins writes: Watch out. Even in the seemingly best of times, neglecting Wall Street is a dangerous idea. With a rag-tag Trumpian crew of ex-bankers and Goldman Sachs alumni as the only watchdogs in town, it’s time to focus, because one thing is clear: Donald Trump’s economic team is in the process of making the financial system combustible again.

During the Cold War, the supposed threat of Communism was the justification for super-sized budgets and a continuous stream of wars and interventions-some overt, others covert or proxy-none of which had anything to do with defending the United States-and none of which ended in victory. These were sold to the American people as being fought to "defend freedom" or "support democracy." After the Cold War ended it became more difficult to justify such a massive military.