Dec 23 2008
Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008 for his work on Depression Economics, a study of the Asian Economic Crisis. He speaks here about the current economic crisis.
Dec 23 2008
By Jordy Yager
Posted: 12/17/08 05:41 PM [ET]
A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.
Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.
“As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain,” said Daniel O’Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. “This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter.”
However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment of Social Security recipients.
Still, Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Congress should have taken the rare step of freezing its pay, as lawmakers did in 2000.
“Look at the way the economy is and how most people aren’t counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they’re just happy to have gainful employment,” said Ellis. “But you have the lawmakers who are set up and ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their way.”
Member raises are often characterized as examples of wasteful spending, especially when many constituents and businesses in members’ districts are in financial despair.
Dec 21 2008
There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history. True abolition will elude us until we admit the massive scope of the problem, attack it in all its forms, and empower slaves to help free themselves.
Dec 14 2008
Marijuana Legalization Tops List of Questions for Obama in Online Poll
Tim King Salem-News.com
“We’re tremendously excited about the promise of tools like this that offer Americans a level of access that has historically been hard to come by.”- Obama Team
(SALEM, Ore.) – I am not surprised that the number one thing Americans are asking President-elect Barack Obama is whether or not he is going to legalize marijuana. Generations are changing and evolving and the taboos around cannabis are slowly falling away.
Dec 14 2008
Ack! Here I thought I had finished with my polotical rants once the election is over. But, here I go again. Glen Greenwald was interviewed by Bill Moyer recently, and his comments really captured my attention. Who is Glen Greenwald you ask? He’s a Constitutional lawyer who writes a column at Salon.com.
Watch (especially part 2)
