Sunday, February 17th, 2019
Zoe Greenberg, Editorial Staff - The New York Times
Stephan: Here, I hope, is a world unknown to most of my readers. The richest economy in the history of the world, and large numbers of Americans support themselves by selling their blood. How does that sit with you? What does that say about us as a country?
CSL Plasma, a blood plasma collection center, in the Olney neighborhood of Philadelphia.
CreditCreditMichelle Gustafson for The New York Times
PHILADELPHIA — Jacqueline Watson needed money. Her son had called her that morning from prison, where he is serving a life sentence, to ask her to make a deposit in his phone account. She didn’t have cash, but she did have something she could sell quickly and legally — her blood.
So, on a crisp Monday morning in November, she traveled 40 minutes by bus to CSL Plasma, a blood plasma collection center wedged between a Dollar Tree and a Wells Fargo bank in a strip mall in North Philadelphia.
“What always brings me here is money,” Ms. Watson, 46, said, as she waited in line to get her vitals taken. “I’m doing it for him, I guess you could say.” She earns about $30 each time she donates.
The plasma business is booming in the United States, with the number of collection centers like this one more than […]
8 Comments
Saturday, February 16th, 2019
Stephan A. Schwartz, Columnist - Explore
Stephan: I am increasingly concerned about the wealth inequality we are seeing in the U.S. and much of non-Nordic Europe. Anyone who can get two neurons firing should be able to see that the Neoliberalism economics that dominates the West, and America particularly, is producing a neo-feudalist culture that is becoming increasingly unstable.
Just as we are facing climate change and should be pulling together wealth inequality and the neo-feudalism it is producing socially is tearing us apart. If the 2020 election does not elect a Democrat and flip the Senate, I think America is finished as a world leader and headed into violent social disruption.
Personally, I think impeachment of both Trump and Pence should begin immediately and should be sustained by the Senate.
Mexico Beach, Florida after hurricane Michael
Credit: sun-sentinel
When I sat down to write this essay, Hurricane Michael had just devastated the West coast and pan handle of Florida, and for the media it was the A-block story. Within that great noise, like a drowning man’s head bobbing up and down in the water, I began to see a secondary story line, one that I had first become aware of less than a month earlier when I was reading, and viewing on cable news, accounts of how people behaved during the catastrophic flooding that accompanied Hurricane Florence. In the Guardian newspaper I came across an interview with a 57-year-old man in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina who was asked by a reporter why he had stayed in his home when he could have gotten out. His answer, “It’s too expensive to move out to a hotel, I could be out for days and I can’t afford to leave my home behind.”1
With Hurricane Michael I was looking for these stories, and sure […]
1 Comment
Saturday, February 16th, 2019
Stephan: All those happy comments you hear from Trump and his minions about how well the economy is doing are about rich people. A significant percentage -- 40% -- of ordinary Americans, couldn't write a $400 check if pressed by an emergency to do so. Here is more evidence. Facts are a bitch aren't they?
More than 7 million car loans were past due by at least 90 days in the fourth quarter, according to data released this week from the New York Federal Reserve.
That’s 1.3 million more past-due loans than during the previous peak in 2011, which followed the Great Recession. The unemployment rate in 2011 was more than twice its current level.
The growing problem of people falling behind on car loans runs counter to the picture of a generally strong US economy. It is especially disturbing because the delinquency rate for car loans is lower than for other types of borrowing, such as credit cards and student loans.
“The substantial and growing number of distressed borrowers suggests that not all Americans have benefited from the strong labor market and warrants continued monitoring and analysis of this sector,” said the
Fed’s report.
No Comments
Saturday, February 16th, 2019
MEGAN GEUSS , Staff Editor - ars Technica
Stephan: This is where we stand under Trump and the Republicans when it comes to solar. It is despicable.
Solar workers
Credit: Getty
This week, an advocacy group called The Solar Foundation released its ninth annual solar jobs report. In 2018 the industry contracted, shedding 8,000 solar jobs, or a loss of about 3.2 percent from 2017. The solar industry employed 242,343 people in 2018, the report said.
The solar industry is the largest renewable energy employer in the US and the second largest energy employer behind the oil and gas industry. Wind and coal trail far behind solar in terms of the number of people employed. (For comparison, coal mining lost 2,000 jobs between 2016 and 2017, although that industry employs only slightly more than 50,000 people.)
2018 marks the second year in a row that the solar industry has posted job losses. In 2017, The Solar Foundation’s report showed that employment contracted by 3.8 percent. The foundation only counts solar jobs where at least 50 percent of a person’s time […]
1 Comment
Saturday, February 16th, 2019
10 FEB 2019 AT 14:23 ET , - Raw Story
Stephan: Millions of Americans, mostly older non-college educated Whites, watch Fox and vote as it directs. If you are not one of them, and you don't watch Fox, you really don't have any idea how moronic that channel is. Consider this as exhibit A.
Ed Henry, Jedediah Bila and Pete Hegseth
Credit: Fox News/screen grab
Fox host Pete Hegseth explained on Sunday that he doesn’t wash his hands because “germs are not a real thing.”
Following a commercial break, Fox & Friends co-host Jedediah Bila revealed that Hegseth had been munching on day-old pizza that was left on the set.
“Pizza Hut lasts for a long time,” Hegseth replied, defending himself. “My 2019 resolution is to say things on air that I say off air. I don’t think I’ve washed my hands for 10 years. Really, I don’t really wash my hands ever.”
“I inoculate myself,” he continued. “Germs are not a real thing. I can’t see them. Therefore, they’re not real.”
Hegseth argued that his unsanitary habit leaves him immune to sickness.
“These hands look pretty clean to me,” he remarked.
2 Comments
