Drake Baer – What Happens When You Give Free Money to Poor People

Finland, the country that gave the world the sauna, is now experimenting with another act of radical generosity. On January 1, it became the first European country to give unemployed citizens a “basic income” — a no-strings-attached monthly payment meant to cover the basic costs of living. The Guardian reports that it will be a two-year trial of 2,000 Finns …

NORMAN POLLACK – Economic Nationalism vs. Globalization: Janus-Faced Monopoly Capital

This week the conflict surfaced of the presumed difference between Trump’s economic nationalism and Clinton’s globalization, the former thought in the liberal media a betrayal of enlightened internationalism (similar to the condemnation of Britain’s exit from the EU) and, on the side of constructive economic statesmanship, a world order of free trade and peaceful harmony. The Great Obfuscation: Both are …

A Just Cause – Mothers Taken From Their Homes to Prisons – 06.19.16

The host Cliff Stewart, Lisa Stewart and Lamont Banks speaks with Our Special Guests Eric Mason, President/CEO of Prison Reform and Community Engagement and Kristine Bunch, who was wrongfully arrested and charged with setting a fire that claimed the life of her three-year-old son, Anthony, on June 30, 1995, in a trailer home they shared in Decatur County, Indiana.

Gail Tverberg – 2016: Oil Limits And The End Of The Debt Supercycle

What is ahead for 2016? Most people don’t realize how tightly the following are linked: 1. Growth in debt 2. Growth in the economy 3. Growth in cheap-to-extract energy supplies 4. Inflation in the cost of producing commodities 5. Growth in asset prices, such as the price of shares of stock and of farmland 6. Growth in wages of non-elite …

Felicia Kornbluh & Gwendolyn Mink – Poor Mothers Don’t Matter in Welfare Policy

This week marks the 19th anniversary of legislation that conditions income assistance for parents and children on participation in a disciplinary program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Over the lifetime of the brutal TANF regime, the provision of actual income assistance has been overshadowed by the imposition of rules and services to regulate poor mothers’ lives. As …

Life Amidst Poverty – Andrea Fuller

I have lived in poverty both as a child and as an adult, and I can say with full confidence that it is a life-crushing force. I hated it. “Poverty” is also one of the most misunderstood labels that gets slapped onto individuals without their approval—cast upon them simultaneously by both unseen and more visible forces of society. Poverty is …

LOW WAGES COST TAXPAYERS $153 BILLION A YEAR

Persistent low wages cost US taxpayers approximately $153 billion every year in public support to working families, according to a new report that details, for the first time, the state-by-state costs. Following decades of wage cuts and health benefits rollbacks, more than half of all state and federal spending on public assistance programs (56 percent) now goes to working families, …

Welfare May Actually Encourage Recipients to Work, New Study Suggests – Quinn Fucile

Science and politics don’t always mix. One is inherently subjective, what someone believes is best for society, both socially and economically. The other is about questions, answers, data, and experiments. Still they often inform each other, for better or worse. We can occasionally use science and statistics to better understand society, and perhaps figure out the best course of action. …