Hallucinogenically Optimistic

I want you to root for me. Everybody in Germany roots for Siemens. Everybody in Japan roots for Toshiba. Everybody in China roots for China South Rail. I want you to say, ‘Win, GE.’ I think this notion that it’s the population of the US against the big companies is just wrong.

— 

General Electric Chairman Jeffrey Immelt, acting stunned that people might be a titch pissed off at Wall Street and corporations like GE. After hearing his answer, Leslie Stahl is nearly unable to form a complete question. He’s also Chairperson of the White House’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Yeah, I’m sitting here like this:

And then I realize he truly just doesn’t get why we’d be furious with a company that’s offshoring jobs and paying no taxes.

I don’t understand how he can’t grasp the anger people feel. Perhaps he does and he’s an excellent actor. Either way, it’s obvious he’s almost offended that we’re not all TEAM GE!! Well, I don’t want you to “win” the class war.

I want your workers to keep their jobs, and make a good wage. That’s what I’m rooting for - is that cool? I still can’t get over Leslie Stahl. She asks him another question, but her face says what we’re thinking:

OMG! HER FACE! LMFAO!!

cognitivedissonance:

Video of veterans being arrested at #OccupyBoston for surrounding the camp.

This is America, folks.

Panic of the Plutocrats →

cognitivedissonance:

It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America’s direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.

This is so perfect. The plutocrats should be worried.

Great article.

Sex Work to Pay Off College Loans? How the College Debt Racket Sucks Young People Dry -- And Led Many to Occupy Wall St. →

cognitivedissonance:

The young man standing next to the “Jail Sallie Mae, Cancel All Student Loan Debt” sign in Liberty Plaza last night could very well end up in jail himself – not for protesting economic injustice and marching on Wall Street, but for doing sex work to pay off his student loans. “My loans are $1,300 a month,” he said. “My rent is $1,300 a month. My salary is $2,600 a month. You can see the problem. So I work as a prostitute for food and utilities.”

Though he works a day job in the tech sector, it’s not enough to get by. “But it could be worse,” he continued. “I could have to do sex work for all of it.” 

With the Department of Education estimating that outstanding US student loan debt will soon exceed $1 trillion and job growth stalled, students face the very real prospect that there’s no way to ever pay back their debts. As of this May, new graduates are leaving college with an average of $22,900 in debt each, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, makes the class of 2011 the most indebted in history. 

I don’t even want to think about my student loans and what will have to happen for it all to get paid off. It’s because I don’t know how it’s all going to shake out. I fear that getting a law degree won’t be enough.

When consumers and businesses can’t boost the economy on their own, the responsibility must fall to the purchaser of last resort. As John Maynard Keynes informed us 75 years ago, that purchaser is the government. Government can hire people directly to maintain the nation’s parks and playgrounds and to help in schools and hospitals. It can funnel money to help cash-starved states and local government so they don’t have to continue to slash payrolls and public services. And it can hire indirectly - contracting with companies to build schools, revamp public transportation and rebuild the nation’s crumbling highways, bridges and ports. Not only does this create jobs but also puts money in the hands of all the people who get the jobs, so they can turn around and buy the goods and services they need - generating more jobs. Not exactly rocket science.

— Robert Reich (via miketodd07)

dopegirlfresh:

notesonascandal:

deejurrr:

iambeeautiful:

slinkstercool:

jteliczan:

Secrets of the 99%

I am the 99%

So are you.

Our generation is drowning.

We were told education would save us; we were lied to.

^^ It saddens me that we work so hard towards our degrees and when we go in for the interviews, we’re turned away because we don’t have enough experience.

Wake up America, this is us. This is our generation.

Or, you forgo a degree & all the accompanying debt, work for 20yrs then have someone tell you “no” for a job you’re technically OVER-qualified for because you don’t have a degree. 

The system isn’t working. 

^^^ yup.

'...It’s hard to miss just how unevenly the Great Recession has affected different classes of people in different places. From 2009 to 2010, wages were essentially flat nationwide—but they grew by 11.9 percent in Manhattan and 8.7 percent in Silicon Valley. In the Washington, D.C., and San Jose (Silicon Valley) metro areas—both primary habitats for America’s meritocratic winners—job postings in February of this year were almost as numerous as job candidates.' →

Every month, companies lay off or fire two million workers. If firms could be persuaded to keep just 10 percent of these workers employed working fewer hours, it would be equivalent to creating 200,000 jobs a month.

If unemployment insurance benefits were used to subsidize short workweeks, so that people were compensated for part of their lost time (e.g. a worker who puts in 20 percent fewer hours gets 10 percent less pay), then many firms might opt to go the route of shortening work hours. This policy has been so successful in Germany that its unemployment rate has actually fallen since the start of the downturn, even though its growth has been no better than growth in the U.S.

Policy can also promote longer vacations, family and parental leave, and paid sick days — all mechanisms for making the workplace more family friendly. There seems to be no way to avoid the fact that we are destined to have a prolonged period in which the economy is operating below its potential output. It makes much more sense to turn this into leisure that can be enjoyed by everyone, rather than unemployment that is suffered by an unlucky minority of the work force.

— 

Shorter Workweeks, Longer Vacations - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

I mean: think about what this means for a second. Think about how right now, “productivity” is up—meaning employers are squeezing more work out of fewer workers. Think about a society that actually cared about “the pursuit of happiness” and decided that if the economy can work with fewer workers, that means we should all work fewer hours.

Think about what it would mean to have policies that valued our time off, our families, our lives.

It won’t happen. But it’s so nice to see it—and to see a case made for it not just because it would be revolutionary, but because it would make economic sense.

(via champagnecandy)

Mohandas Gandhi: French credit weaknesses pushing markets down worldwide →

shortformblog:

The cost of insuring France’s debt rose to a record high today. And unlike the United States, France can’t just increase their money supply to pay its creditors. Partly as a result, it’s the most indebted of all European AAA-rated countries. It’s having a ripple effect that’s…

(Source: shortformblog)