Economic Inequality

'Fixing' Social Security in One Step: Fix the Economy.

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So, the Serious People in The Village, run clear across the ideological spectrum from hard right to center right, are telling us that even if we do not like the Social Security benefit cuts that they propose ...

... and among the Serious People the only difference is how deep they want to cut benefits and whether they want to cover up the fact that they are cutting benefits under verbiage that they would prefer to be opaque but which is all too transparent ...

... but we have to do it because otherwise the trust fund will be exhausted in the late 2030's.

Is this from a correctly functioning crystal ball? They talk as if it is, but at the same time there is no secret that these are simply projections. These projections are projecting forward from the way we are running our economy at present. So change the rules of the game, we change the projection.

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Food Stamp Program Now Facing Two-Pronged Assault

Almost two months ago, I wrote a post about the assault on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP), more commonly known by its original name, Food Stamps. Recent days have revealed more details about the ruling classes' actual strategy in doing so, from both "conservative" and "liberal" directions. 

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Who Concerns Senator Schumer More: Poor New Yorkers or Cruise Ship Passengers?

While drinking my coffee this morning in an effort to get my St. Patrick's Recovery Day going, the local news went off and the national news came on. A few minutes later, an outraged Senator Chuck Schumer appeared, all aflutter in a fit of righteous indignation.

Cruise ship passengers, he declared, should never be "forced to live in Third World conditions." Something must be done! Whereupon he promised to get right down to the all-important task of regulating the cruise ship industry to insure that their relatively well-heeled customers never have to endure, for a few hours or even a few (gasp!) days, the conditions that many New Yorkers either normally live in or have been forced to live in for months due to the government's pathetic performance in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

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NYC School Bus Drivers End Strike – Labor Loses and Bloomberg Wins

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          The month long strike by over 8000 New York City (NYC) school bus drivers, attendants and mechanics is over. Labor lost, capital won. The strikers won zero concessions and billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s goal of destroying this union and these lower middle class jobs is now much closer to becoming reality. The fact that these workers were willing to strike in the middle of such a bad economy should highlight the seriousness of the issues they face. It is very likely that Bloomberg has national political aspirations.

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Think Mary Jo White Will Police Wall Street as Chair of the SEC? Think Again.

"You don't mess--with Mary Jo." --Barack Obama, last week

Those were the words President Obama used when announcing his nomination of Mary Jo White as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC). The corporate media jumped on the bandwagon, proclaiming that the former Federal Prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, with a proven track record of prosecuting organized crime, the terrorists in the failed 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and some white collar criminals, showed that the Obama Administration was going to get tough on making Wall Street follow the law.

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