Trade
Block the Trans Pacific Partnership (opinion) Quad City Times ...For anyone not familiar with TPP, it is yet another bad trade deal that does not take human rights, consumer rights, worker rights and environmental standards into adequate consideration...
Pacific partners should push back against TPP until U.S. shows respect for financial reforms The Japan Times ...One big risk that may be a deal breaker is U.S. insistence that TPP partners surrender their right to regulate global finance...
State Battles
With Unlimited Financial Campaign Contributions, One Robber Baron Can Control a State Truthout ...If you want to see how just one Wall Street robber baron can squash democracy for the sake of greed and privatization, just look to the Missouri legislature…."Sinquefield and his wife spent more than $28 million in disclosed donations in state elections since 2007, plus nearly $2 million more in disclosed donations in federal elections since 2006, for a total of at least $30 million..."
War on Workers
Recovery Has Created Far More Low-Wage Jobs Than Better-Paid Ones New York Times ...The deep recession wiped out primarily high-wage and middle-wage jobs. Yet the strongest employment growth during the sluggish recovery has been in low-wage work, at places like strip malls and fast-food restaurants...
Homeless and working for Amazon: the trap of the seasonal job cycle Guardian ...Since Amazon opened its warehouse in Jeffersonville, one homeless shelter, Haven House, has been a home to between two and six of its employees at all times...
Deride and Conquer: Dismantling the USPS Truthout ...Since the 1970s, the right has patiently tried to wrest control of the US Postal Service from the government using a three-step strategy characterized by: a) ideologically legitimizing its effort through scholarship cooked up in Koch-funded think tanks like Cato and the American Enterprise Institute; b) politically codifying it in generic, legal templates drawn up in legislative boiler rooms like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and c) economically executing their plan by forcing USPS to operate in a commercial arena where it would be squeezed on one side by government constraints, and, on the other, forced to compete with global private carriers like FedEx and UPS not subject to the same legislative mandates...
LEAKED: Docs obtained by Pando show how a Wall Street giant is guaranteed huge fees from taxpayers on risky pension investments Pando ...An increasing number of those pension funds are being stealthily diverted into high-fee, high-risk “alternative investments” that deliver spectacular rewards for the Wall Street firms paid to manage them – but not such great returns for pensioners and taxpayers...
Jobless Benefits Are Disappearing Much Faster Than Jobs Are Appearing Five Thirty Eight ...Fewer Americans are receiving unemployment benefits than any time in nearly six years. And yet there are 2 million more people unemployed than there were back then...
Too Big to Jail Continues: DOJ May Charge Two Banks with Criminal Acts, But Not Hold Them Criminally Accountable Truthout ...The Department of Justice might make an agreement with banks in which they would plead guilty to criminal activity without, it appears, holding them criminally responsible beyond fines and perhaps some temporary restrictions...
U.S. Firms With Irish Addresses Get Tax Breaks Derided as ‘Blarney’ Bloomberg ...The technique these companies use to lower their tax bills -- shifting legal addresses to low-tax Switzerland, Ireland, and Bermuda -- was in the spotlight last week. Pfizer Inc., the largest U.S. drugmaker, said it’s seeking a British address, a move that might save more than $1 billion a year in U.S. taxes...
Miscellaneous
Circus Audience Initially Thought Accident Was Part of the Act ABC News ...Authorities are trying to determine what caused a support frame to collapse during an aerial hair-hanging stunt during a circus performance Sunday, sending eight acrobats crashing to the ground and injuring 11...The incident happened about 45 minutes into a performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus' legends show … in Providence, R.I...
