Monday, March 3, 2014

Today's Teamster News 03.03.14

Trade
As TPP Opposition Soars, Corporate Media Blackout Deafening  Common Dreams   ...Opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership—dubbed 'NAFTA on steroids'—is receiving unprecedented popular opposition and nearly no news coverage by major outlets...
State Battles
While Duke Energy Dodges Taxes, Its Pollution Costs the Public Dearly  truthout   ...The investor-owned company earned over $9 billion in profits during those years but received tax rebates totaling $299 million...
The War on Workers
Thrown in jail for being poor: the booming for-profit probation industry  The Guardian   ...Many poor Americans face jail when they can’t pay steep fines for nonviolent crimes, like $1,000 for stealing a $2 beer...
Income Inequality Hurts Economic Growth, But Fixing It Doesn’t  ThinkProgress   ...the conservative policy notion that a rising economic tide will lift even the poorest people’s boats is not supported by the data. It is “a mistake to focus on growth and let inequality take care of itself,” they write, in part because inequality impairs the growth poor people need to make gains...
Deficit Is Falling Because Of Government Austerity, Not Economic Recovery  The Real News   ...the deficit has been falling, as you mentioned, at its fastest clip since the end of World War II, and it's actually been falling at a pretty rapid clip for quite a long time now...
India's tea firms urged to act on slave trafficking after girls freed  The Guardian   ...Plantations pay below minimum wage, which campaigners say strengthens hand of slavers who take girls as young as 11...
Discover Faces Investigation Into Student Loan Debt Collection Practices Amid Rising Delinquencies  Buzzfeed   ...Discover Financial Services, one of the biggest providers of private student loans, is facing an investigation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over its loan servicing practices...
Miscellaneous
Where Have All the Lobbyists Gone?  The Nation   ...On paper, the influence-peddling business is drying up. But lobbying money is flooding Washington, DC like never before. What’s going on?...