Skip to main content

Profits Over Pupils: Philadelphia's True Priorities

George Bezanis From the Teacher's Desk
Should public school educators be as optimistic about the coming year as the rising stock prices of our numerous Fortune 500 corporations? Not so fast. As those entities earning record profits continue to shirk their responsibilities, the District is forced to balance its budget on the backs of the only individuals they have some sort of control over - their teachers.

Overthrow the Speculators

Chris Hedges Truthdig
We can wrest back control of our economy, and finally our political system, from corporate speculators only by building local movements that decentralize economic power through the creation of hundreds of publicly owned state, county and city banks.

Wall Street Moving in on American Dream

Mary Ellen Podmolik Chicago Tribune
The arrival of national landlords has raised questions about the long-term effects on mom-and-pop landlords, neighborhoods and affordability.

Tidbits - November 14, 2013

Portside
Reader Comments - More on the AFL-CIO; NFL Bullying; Vets and Peace; Seattle Socialists Win; Obamacare; Babies; Announcements - Organizing Walmart & Fast Food Industry - New York - Nov 19; Fighting Back Against Wall St. - NYC - Nov 25; Mark Rogovin To Be Inducted Into the Illinois Labor History Society's Labor Hall of Honor; 'Spies Of Mississippi' preview - NYC - Dec 15; Audio available -The Hidden History of Workplace Resistance: U.S. Autoworkers Speak Out;

Book Review: Capitalism Gone Wild

Michael Hirsch The Indypendent
Review of George Packer's "The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America." This American life is a mess. As responsible as they were for instigating the Great Recession, Wall Street and the securities industry were not the business centers solely at fault for the lead-up to the collapse. An outsized military budget, imperial wars, the decline of unions as counterweights to corporate excesses and the flight of manufacturing overseas played their parts, too.

Tidbits - October 31, 2013 - Halloween edition

Portside
Reader Comments- Sports, Police Killing, Tea Party, Robin Hood Tax, Doug Ireland; Announcements- Tim DeChristopher, Environmental Activism-NYC-Nov.02; Perspectives from NYC Food Service Workers-Nov.03; Mario Savio Memorial Lecture-Berkeley-Nov.12; Cuba Skate: Art on Deck-Washington, DC-Nov.16; Politics of Immigration Reform Forum-NYC-Nov.20; Memorial for Stephen Coats-Washington, DC-Nov.25; International Conference In Israel: For A Nuclear Free Zone In The Middle East

Looting the Pension Funds

Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone
All across America, Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers. Not only did these middle-class workers already lose huge chunks of retirement money to huckster financiers in the crash, and not only are they now being asked to take the long-term hit for those years of greed and speculative excess, but in many cases they're also being forced to sit by and watch helplessly as Gordon Gekko wanna-be's are put in charge of their retirement savings.

The 401(k) Revolution has Failed

Lynn Stuart Parramore Alternet
The Dumbest Retirement Policy in the World - A failed public policy experiment is tearing the country apart. It was a bad idea from the get-go, but new research shows that America's 401(k) revolution has left us even worse off than we thought. Here's a look at how we got into this mess, and where it will take us if we don't wise up.
Subscribe to Wall Street