Keep your nogen sharp by CONSTANTLY re-examining the world  around you and the belief structures you have SETTLED with.

Cheers on your weekend!

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYFw3O–2R0&feature=related 450 300]

“Capitalism Is The Crisis: Radical Politics in the Age of Austerity examines the ideological roots of the “austerity” agenda and proposes revolutionary paths out of the current crisis. The film features original interviews with Chris Hedges, Derrick Jensen, Michael Hardt, Peter Gelderloos, Leo Panitch, David McNally, Richard J.F. Day, Imre Szeman, Wayne Price, and many more!

The 2008 “financial crisis” in the United States was a systemic fraud in which the wealthy finance capitalists stole trillions of public dollars. No one was jailed for this crime, the largest theft of public money in history.

Instead, the rich forced working people across the globe to pay for their “crisis” through punitive “austerity” programs that gutted public services and repealed workers’ rights.

Austerity was named “Word of the Year” for 2010.

This documentary explains the nature of capitalist crisis, visits the protests against austerity measures, and recommends revolutionary paths for the future.

Special attention is devoted to the crisis in Greece, the 2010 G20 Summit protest in Toronto, Canada, and the remarkable surge of solidarity in Madison, Wisconsin.

It may be their crisis, but it’s our problem.”

A counter punch article if your interested….

“Americans don’t pay enough in taxes and need to pay more for the good of the country’s fiscal health, said Jared Bernstein, former chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, and a senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Congressional Budget Office data show that U.S. households pay less taxes now than they did 30 years ago.

In 1979, the typical household paid 19 percent of their income in federal taxes, down from 11 percent today, Bernstein wrote in a Financial Times opinion piece.”

Read more

I think they are making sure they’ve made their point.

The legal odyssey of a former Goldman Sachs programmer, Sergey Aleynikov, took a surprising turn on Thursday when the Manhattan district attorney charged him with state crimes.

Mr. Aleynikov was charged in state court less than six months after a federal appeals court overturned his conviction on federal criminal charges that he stole secret source code from Goldman’s computers.

Read the rest here.

This does not include social security or medicare…

Full article

via poltiico.com

Pizza chain Papa Johns told shareholders that President Obama’s health care law will cost consumers more on their pizza.

On a conference call last week, CEO and founder John Schnatter (a Mitt Romney supporter and fundraiser) said the health care law’s changes — set to go into effect in 2014 — will result in higher costs for the company — which they vowed to pass onto consumers.

“Our best estimate is that the Obamacare will cost 11 to 14 cents per pizza, or 15 to 20 cents per order from a corporate basis,” Schnatter said.

“We’re not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry. But our business model and unit economics are about as ideal as you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare,” he said.

KEEP READING

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — The New York City Fire Department said a large sinkhole opened up Wednesday afternoon in Brooklyn.

The 20-foot-deep by 20-foot-wide hole, which formed at around 6 p.m., is located between 4th and 5th avenues in Bay Ridge.

Read the article and see the picture here.

(CNN) — More than half of all U.S. counties have been designated disaster zones, the Department of Agriculture reported, blaming excessive heat and a devastating drought that’s spread across the Corn Belt and contributed to rising food prices.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Wednesday declared disaster zone designations for an additional 218 counties in 12 states because of damage and losses caused by drought and excessive heat.

The states are Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming.

Read here:

via miamiherald.com 

The latest Case-Shiller numbers show South Florida trailing Phoenix in rising home values. Having two of the country’s worst housing bubbles helps make the recovery look stronger.

BY DOUGLAS HANKS

[email protected]

South Florida enjoys the country’s second-best housing rebound this year.

That’s one result from the Economic Time Machine’s ranking of the latest figures from Case-Shiller, the top yardstick for the country’s housing crisis. Since January, South Florida’s Case-Shiller real estate index increased 5 percent. Only Phoenix had a better showing, with a 10 percent gain over five months. (The ETM used a two-month average to wash out monthly quirks in the Case-Shiller numbers.)

Change from a year ago	Change from January	Change from peak	Change from May 2002
Phoenix	10%	10%	-51%	-2%
Los Angeles	-3%	2%	-39%	30%
San Diego	-1%	2%	-39%	12%
San Francisco	0%	4%	-39%	0%
Denver	3%	3%	-8%	4%
Washington, DC	2%	4%	-27%	40%
South Florida	3%	5%	-48%	12%
Tampa	2%	4%	-45%	5%
Atlanta	-16%	-1%	-36%	-23%
Chicago	-4%	0%	-36%	-9%
Boston	0%	1%	-16%	11%
Detroit	2%	-2%	-46%	-39%
Minneapolis	4%	4%	-33%	-10%
Charlotte	1%	2%	-16%	6%
Las Vegas	-5%	3%	-61%	-20%
New York	-3%	0%	-25%	25%
Cleveland	-1%	1%	-20%	-9%
Portland, Ore	0%	2%	-27%	21%
Dallas	3%	3%	-6%	4%
Seattle	0%	3%	-29%	20%
Average metro area	-1%	2%	-33%	11%

Change from a year ago

Change from January

Change from peak

Change from May 2002

The ETM analysis also compared the May reading to peak levels for all 20 metropolitan areas that Case-Shiller tracks. The gap from the top of the market to now helps explain South Florida’s current rebound.

According to Case-Shiller, South Florida’s housing bubble continues to be one of the worst in the country. Values are off 48 percent in South Florida from peak levels set in 2006. That’s only slightly worse than Phoenix’s 51-percent drop, but considerably better than the ultimate bubble: Las Vegas, where values are down 61 percent.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/01/2925090_south-florida-no-2-in-the-housing.html#storylink=addthis#storylink=cpy

via NYTimes.com

TAMPA, Fla. — Over at the back door of the 2001 Odyssey, a limo-size tent with flaps — especially designed for discretion and camera-shy guests — is ready to go up. Déjà Vu is welcoming extra “talent” from around the country in its V.I.P. rooms.

And Thee DollHouse is all Americana: women plan to slip out of red, white and blue corsets and offer red, white and blue vodka. The headliner that week is expected to bear an uncanny resemblance to a certain ex-governor from a wilderness state, known for her strong jaw and devotion to guns and God.

“She’s a dead ringer for her,” said Warren Colazzo, co-owner of Thee DollHouse. “It’s just a really good gimmick to get publicity.”

As Tampa gears up for the Republican National Convention, the biggest party it has ever held, the city and its businesses are primping and polishing for the August arrival of tens of thousands of visitors. Like it or not — mostly not, for city officials — Tampa’s well-known strip clubs have joined the welcome wagon.

Club owners here say they have schmoozed with their counterparts in former host cities, like Denver, and have been told that revenue pours in during conventions, sometimes quadrupling earnings from a Super Bowl week. As for party affiliation, this is one place where the country’s caustic partisan differences fall away, owners say.

Angelina Spencer, the executive director of the Association of Club Executives, which serves as a trade association for strip clubs, said an informal survey of convention business in New York and Denver had determined that Republicans dropped more money at clubs, by far.

“Hands down, it was Republicans,” she said. “The average was $150 for Republicans and $50 for Democrats.”

“(MoneyWatch) Roughly 38 percent of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, while just 30 percent are economically comfortable, according to a study released Monday by the Consumer Federation of America and Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards. That’s a reversal of fortunes from 1997, when roughly 38 percent of the country said they felt financially comfortable and only 31 percent were living on the economic edge.”

Full article

Domestically, they’re pulling together all the data about virtually every U.S. citizen in the country and assembling that information, building communities that you have relationships with, and knowledge about you; what your activities are; what you’re doing. So the government is accumulating that kind of information about every individual person and it’s a very dangerous process

Read the rest here.

Seriously? They don’t predict any more of an increase over what we saw this year?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture left its inflation forecast for all food in 2012 unchanged from a month earlier at 2.5% to 3.5%. But in its first forecast for 2013, the USDA projected the price of all food will climb 3% to 4%. Last year, U.S. food inflation ran at 3.7%, the highest rate since the 5.5% in 2008.

Read the rest here.

At long last, Ron Paul has his day.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved the Texas Republican’s bill to increase the transparency of the Federal Reserve. With bipartisan support, the measure passed 327-98. One Republican, Rep. Bob Turner of New York, joined 97 Democrats in voting against it.

Read the rest here.

via mashable.com

Government officials do not have the hardware or the authority to collect and analyze the artillery receipts, health records and other data that could have signaled a threat was headed toward an AMC movie theater in Aurora, Colo., last week, former federal officials said.

Nor do Americans have the stomach to grant the government such intrusive powers, they added.

Experts point to a review of the FBI’s handling of the 2009 Fort Hood, Texas massacre, which was released hours before the Colorado shooting. The report revealed the FBI did not have the technology to perform the kind of analytics that could have raised red flags about Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the psychiatrist charged with murdering 13 soldiers and civilians at the Army’s most populous military base in November 2009.

Both Hasan and the suspected theater shooter, James Holmes, a neuroscience graduate student, were trained to save lives, not take them. On the surface, they seemed unlikely criminals.

There were signs of abnormal behavior in Holmes before he allegedly murdered at least 12 moviegoers. CNN reported that Holmes bought online more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition, a Blackhawk urban assault vest, a Blackhawk Omega Elite triple pistol magazine, a Blackhawk Omega Elite M16 magazine pouch and a Blackhawk Be-Wharned silver knife.

KEEP READING 

“WASHINGTON (AP) — The ranks of America’s poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net.

Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections.

The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965.”

Full article

via espn.com

The Joe Paterno statue was removed Sunday morning from its pedestal outside Beaver Stadium, and it will be stored in an unnamed “secure location,” Penn State president Rodney Erickson announced. Erickson also said the Paterno name will remain on the university’s library.

Shortly before dawn in State College, Pa., a work crew installed chain-link fences to barricade access to Porter Road outside Beaver Stadium and covered the fence with a blue tarp.

The work crew then removed the 7-foot, 900-pound bronze statue by forklift and placed it into the lower level of the stadium. Erickson released his highly sensitive decision to the public at 7 a.m. ET Sunday.

Workers lifted the 7-foot-tall statue off its base and used a forklift to move it into Beaver Stadium as the 100 to 150 students watched, some chanting, “We are Penn State.”

The decision came 10 days after a scathing report by former FBI director Louis J. Freeh found that Paterno, with three other top Penn State administrators, had concealed allegations of child sexual abuse made against former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. The Freeh report concluded their motive was to shield the university and its football program from negative publicity.

Meanwhile, the NCAA said that that it would levy “corrective and punitive measures” against Penn State. The organization announced Sunday that it would spell out the sanctions on Monday but disclosed no details.

The Paterno family issued a statement only hours later saying the statue’s removal “does not serve the victims of Jerry Sandusky’s horrible crimes or help heal the Penn State community.”

READ THE REST HERE 

via CNBC.com

The sluggish economy is prompting more Americans to put off medical tests, prescriptions and so-called elective procedures—like knee or hip replacements—and related health care companies are feeling the pain.

Image Source | Getty Images

Many patients are deciding to delay testing or treatment either because they lack insurance, face higher out-of-pocket costs or are afraid to take time off work, health care analysts say.

“One of the more the dramatic shifts in this economy has been a slowdown in health-care consumption,” says economist Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial. “It’s become discretionary spending in the U.S. because people are really pulling back.”

Ask a patient about going without care and the word discretionary takes on new meaning.

“I waited a long time to get Neupogen injections because it was so expensive,” said Mary Laidman, breast cancer survivor. “It was supposed to increase my white cell count during chemotherapy. Insurance didn’t cover it, and it was about $6,000 out-of-pocket.”

READ THE REST HERE 

“James K. Galbraith is a chip off the old block. This University of Texas economist, the son of John Kenneth Galbraith, is continuing the family tradition of sticking the damn truth in front of the world by means of writing this just published volume–Inequality and Instability, A Study of the World Economy Just Before the Great Crisis (Oxford University Press).

Better consult it’s theme that finance has come to dominate the U.S. economy, not manufacturing, not agriculture and that the super wealthy have used finance to make themselves richer and faster than anyone else. Writes Galbraith pointedly: “the difference between the financial sector and other sources of income is– wherever we can isolate it– a large (and even prime) source of changing inequalities.”

Full article

This article contends that America is heading towards a nation of ghost towns. Granted we have been on the downtrend, but let us all pray for the American spirit and ingenuity to accelerate us out of these ‘hellholes’.

Full article

The human reflex to find cause, meaning and lessons in the detritus of a massacre – and to impose a solution on the chaos based on those findings – should be trusted only to the extent that it allows us to muddle through the confusion churned up by such a crazed act. As we recover from the initial shock, we revert to our fundamental and irresolvable arguments about freedom and individuality, which aren’t very good at explaining why people shoot or dynamite innocents – or at stopping them from doing so.

Read the rest here.