EDWARD MCCLELLAND, - Salon
Stephan: This reflects my own experiences in Canada, and my sense of the comparison. We are doing this to ourselves.
A few summers ago, I spent six weeks in Canada, as part of a 10,000-mile Great Lakes Circle tour. From Pigeon River on Lake Superior to Kingston on Lake Ontario, I drove and camped my way across Ontario. On Manitoulin Island, I went on a fishing charter captained by a retired nickel miner named Tom Power. The Nickel Belt is a stronghold of Canada’s most socialistic party, the New Democrats. When the conversation turned to politics (as it often did with Canadians during the George W. Bush years), Tom made a statement that would have tabbed him as a Marxist crank on the other side of the lakes.
‘I don’t understand why anyone has to earn more than $200,000 a year,” he said. ‘I mean, honestly, what are you going to do with all that money?”
Right then, my rod bent toward the water, so I had to abandon our discussion of economics to land a six-pound salmon. But I thought about it again in Toronto, when I visited Jane and Finch, an immigrant neighborhood that was reputedly the most dangerous turf in the Greater Toronto Area. I expected to see Johnny Too Bads in beehive rasta caps, and dingy apartment blocks […]
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ANDREW DUGAN and NATHAN WENDT, - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: In the developing world food issues are assumed. But in the developed world traditionally we do not expect them. But that is no longer true. Here is the evidence that throughout the developed nations food is increasingly becoming a problem. And it is going to get worse.
Click through to see the graph.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — With some of the world’s wealthiest countries among their ranks, Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states may seem like unlikely places for many residents to report problems affording food. But rising numbers of residents in OECD countries — particularly those with children younger than 15 living in their households — have found themselves increasingly struggling to buy food since the global economic downturn.
Residents in OECD Countries Report Struggling to Afford Food
The increase in individuals reporting difficulty buying food in the OECD — which consists of countries mostly concentrated in Western Europe and North America — stands in contrast to other regions such as Asia and the former Soviet Union, where percentages declined or remained stable between 2007 and 2013. The Middle East and North Africa, plagued by recent unrest, saw the highest increase in the percentage of people with children struggling to buy food.
Member countries of the OECD include rich, industrialized nations that should theoretically have the resources to combat the problem of food affordability. To some extent, these countries are generally successful in fighting this scourge. OECD countries generally report the lowest percentages of individuals struggling to buy food in the past 12 […]
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BILL MOYERS, - Moyers & Company
Stephan: It's perfectly clear that the cuddling of the uber-rich must stop. Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz makes the point as well as anyone could.
A new report by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz for the Roosevelt Institute suggests that paying our fair share of taxes and cracking down on corporate tax dodgers could be a cure for inequality and a faltering economy.
This week on Moyers & Company, Stiglitz tells Bill that Apple, Google, GE and a host of other Fortune 500 companies are creating what amounts to ‘an unlimited IRA for corporations.” The result? Vast amounts of lost revenue for our treasury and the exporting of much-needed jobs to other countries.
‘I think we can use our tax system to create a better society, to be an expression of our true values.” Stiglitz says. ‘But if people don’t think that their tax system is fair, they’re not going to want to contribute. It’s going to be difficult to get them to pay. And, unfortunately, right now, our tax system is neither fair nor efficient.”
BILL MOYERS: This week on Moyers & Company, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ: Our democracy is now probably better described as one dollar, one vote than one person, one vote. We have a tax system that reflects not the interest of the middle. We have a tax system that reflects […]
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ZAK CHENEY-RICE, - Policy Mic
Stephan: One by one the myths of the Prohibitionists fall and it becomes clearer and clearer that the story of Marijuana legalization is that there is no negative story. What there is is either no difference or unanticipated benefits. Here's an example of what I mean.
Colorado continues riding high in the wake of marijuana legalization. According to government data released this week, the city- and countywide murder rate has dropped 52.9% since recreational marijuana use was legalized in January. This is compared to the same period last year, a time frame encompassing Jan. 1 through April 30.
The shift accompanies a dip in violent crime overall, as sexual assault fell 13.6% and robbery and aggravated assault fell 4.8% and 3.7%, respectively.
The data pool’s size is important to note, as eight murders compared to 17 in the same time frame last year may seem a blip on the radar. On the other hand, a full quarter of the year has passed. It may be too soon to definitively attribute these changes to marijuana legalization, but the possibility of a correlative pattern is certainly worth keeping an eye on.
Background: All told, the first few months of legalization have been a boon to Colorado’s economy.
In March 2014 alone, taxed and legal recreational marijuana sales generated nearly $19 million, up from $14 million in February. The first three months of the year have also earned the state $7.3 million in tax revenue – $12.6 million, if you include funds generated […]
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Stephan: With real urgency I ask you to watch the video you will find at this link: http://lasthours.org/
It will help you understand why I keep saying the need for climate change remediation is so urgent and the failure to do it will be so catastrophic. We have to stop lying to ourselves, and allowing the Earth to be pillaged so that a few individuals and corporations can become almost surreally wealthy.
-- Stephan
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