‘Richest Generation’? Baby Boomers Face Deep Inequalities

It’s a familiar trope in U.S. society that baby boomers are the “richest generation.” But a report released online Thursday by the Population Reference Bureau shows that wealth is unequally distributed among this demographic, with people born between 1946 and 1964 facing pronounced disparities along race and gender lines. For people 65 and older, the poverty rate has decreased dramatically …

Interview with Eric Weltman from Food and Water Watch – 12.24.15

Eric Weltman is Senior Organizer for Food & Water Watch in New York. He has over 20 years of experience leading social justice campaigns and building progressive power. Eric has helped direct ground-breaking coalitions, organize high-visibility media events, write influential publications, and manage successful initiatives to pass legislation, fund programs, and elect candidates. Eric also has extensive experience conducting trainings on media outreach, advocacy, organizing, and public speaking. He has taught urban politics at Suffolk University, and written for such publications as The American Prospect, In These Times, and Dollars & Sense. A native of New Jersey, Eric graduated from the University of Michigan and earned an M.A. in Urban & Environmental Policy from Tufts University. When he’s not changing the world, Eric enjoys being with his wife, Sarah, and son, Zach, reading history books, taking walks around New York City, watching “Burn Notice” and “House,” juggling, and eating Thai food.

Bri Holmes – The Real Cost of Higher Education

This September, millions of young Americans will start college, but at what cost? Each year, the collective student loan debt skyrockets as tuitions continue to rise and graduates compete for scarce jobs with stagnant wages. From 2011 to 2013, the amount of debt held by recent graduates increased a whopping 20 percent, reaching a total more than $1.2 trillion. While Americans struggle to …

John Kozy – Human Beings: The Omnicidal Species. There is Nothing They Won’t Kill

Human beings comprise an omnicidal species. Apparently there is nothing they won’t kill. Yet some claim to value life and say that all lives matter. But if all lives matter, Palestinian lives matter, Syrian lives matter, Iraqi lives matter, Afghan lives matter, Libyan lives matter. If all lives matter, Osama bin Laden’s life mattered. So did Al Awlaki’s and his …

Ed Feulner – In 2008, Fewer Than 30 Million Used Food Stamps. Now 46 Million Do.

Good news: The number of Americans using food stamps in 2014 declined slightly from the previous year. So why does the 2015 Index of Culture and Opportunity say this indicator is headed in the “wrong direction”? There are a couple of reasons. For one, the food stamp program (officially known now as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) is …

Pepe Escobar – Welcome to the trade deal wars

BANGKOK — China continues to grow at a not too shabby 7%. And yet, because of the yuan devaluation and the sharp drop in the stock market, in most Western capitals the narrative switched to Armageddon descended over an economic model that generated, over the years, six-fold growth in Chinese GDP. Few are aware that Beijing, simultaneously, is engaged in …

John Scales Avery – Child Labour and Slavery

In the early 19th century, industrial society began to be governed by new rules: Traditions were forgotten and replaced by purely economic laws. Labor was viewed as a commodity, like coal or grain, and wages were paid according to the laws of supply and demand, without regard for the needs of the workers. Wages fell to starvation levels, hours of …

Scott Timberg – From The Secret to destructive management theories, unbridled optimism is just another way to ignore real issues

Depending on how you look at it, the mood in the United States of late has been either an overdue stock-taking — as we reckon with issues like racism, rape culture, runaway law enforcement and out-of-control income inequality — or relentlessly grim. Surely, unrelieved despair — either personally or more broadly, socially — can lead to paralysis. But despite a …

8 Stupidest Economic Ideas GOP Presidential Candidates Are Hearing from Their Experts By Zaid Jilani

There’s an old saying going back to the Reagan years: “personnel is policy.” It means that the sort of advisers and staff public officials surround themselves with are key indicators of the sort of policy regimes they will put into place. The New York Times recently named [3] a number of economic advisers who are currently advising or are interviewing to begin working …

Why Are Christian Numbers Dropping? – David Niose

America continues to trend secular. According to a recently released Pew study(link is external), almost one in four Americans, 23 percent, now identify as religiously unaffiliated, up from just 16 percent in 2007. This continues a shift that began in the early 1990s, when the percentage of religiously unaffiliated was in single digits. The rise of these “Nones” comes mainly at the expense …