Comment

Comment by Joan Denoo on February 3, 2013 at 5:00pm

I was in Istanbul in the 1980s waiting for my luggage to catch up with me and had time to kill. I was alone, wandering up and down the narrow streets just looking and drawing in all the sights, sounds and smells of the community. I ran across a small group of children playing marbles (only they were not marbles, they were hardened  mud balls, and I sat down on a stone door stoop to watch and then to play with them. It was a very narrow street, with mud-brick houses all connected for about a block, and about two stories high. There was laundry strung across the street on ropes and pulleys over the road, back and forth, making a sound as laundry caught breezes. I looked up ... out of each window was a woman peering down at me and their children. One woman motioned me to come upstairs and a little one escorted me to the correct door. I spent the morning with a group of women who did not speak English and I only speak it. We did a lot of gesturing, and pantomiming trying to communicate. It turned out to be one of most memorable days ... my luggage never did catch up, so I spent a month wearing 2 gauze dresses I bought in the local market and washing out my underwear every night. My toothbrush was my finger and salt. 

Istanbul police say U.S. tourist was murdered: report

ISTANBUL, Feb. 3, 2013 (Reuters)

Comment by Joan Denoo on February 3, 2013 at 1:33pm

"the government is heading in exactly the wrong direction: raising taxes on the middle class, and cutting spending."

The Jobs Report, and Why the Recovery Has Stalled

"the major cause for this near-record low is simply the lack of jobs."

"Close to 20 million Americans remain unemployed or underemployed."

"The only reason for employers to hire more workers is if they have more customers. But American employers have not had enough customers to justify much new hiring.

"There are essentially two sources of customers: individual consumers, and the government."

"Social Security taxes have increased, leaving the typical worker with about $1,000 less this year than last." 

"Wages and salaries grew a measly six-tenths of one percent."

We need repaired highways bridges and tunnels; restore railroads to get more heavy trucking off highways; develop alternative forms of energy; do more research and development; attend to water quality; develop air quality controls; restore depleted soils to improve of food quality; emphasize mathematics and science in our public schools; improve teacher/child ratio; and restore police, and fire protection.

All of these can be government funded, each one is an investment, not an expenditure, and the costs will be paid by future potential earnings. 

Comment by Tom Sarbeck on February 1, 2013 at 11:19pm

Jefferson followed by the five guys below. IRONY capitalized and bolded!

In a letter to P. S. du Pont de Nemours, Jefferson recommended enlightening the people.

Did he say enriching some people might be dangerous?

One of the du Pont family offspring feared that the 1930s Depression would damage Americans' faith in capitalism. He and a few other wealthy people plotted to overthrow the Roosevelt administration and install Italian fascism.

Search Wikipedia for "business plot" or "Smedley Butler" to read the story.

Comment by Joan Denoo on February 1, 2013 at 6:42pm

Bank CEOs 

Bank of America - Ken Lewis - net worth - $65 million. 

CitiGroup - Charles Prince - retired in 2007 due to unexpectedly poor 3rd quarter performance, mainly due to CDO andMBS related losses, while still receiving a $38m pay package.

JP Morgan - Jamie Diamond - net worth of $400 million and annual salary of $27.5 million.

Goldman Sachs - Lloyd Blankfein "Doing God's Work". net worth of $450 million; annual salary $55 million. 

Former Sec. Treasury - Henry Paulson - 2008 - led government efforts aimed at avoiding a severe economic slowdown.  

Left Goldman Sachs in 1974 then Investment Banking group. He left  with $37 million in 2005, and $16.4 million projected for 2006. His net worth estimated at over $700 million.

Sorry, no room for references. 

Comment by Joan Denoo on February 1, 2013 at 1:58pm

https://www.facebook.com/highlander.center
Rosa Parks trained here before getting on the bus with the intent to sit in front and resist. It take preparation to have the courage to take action. The good news, we can learn.

Comment by Joan Denoo on February 1, 2013 at 12:24pm

Another world is happening

"The birth of the global Occupy movement was the big bang of humanity’s next phase of evolution. It created an unprecedented wild new ecosystem of energy throughout the world, an ecosystem of mass transformation. It empowered a new generation of aware and engage leaders. Millions of people turned on, let out of the propaganda cage, freed from the mental police state, freed from conditioned consciousness.

"Occupy is a consciousness expanding phenomenon.

"We are developing a highly sophisticated collective consciousness that transcends the conditioning of  archaic shortsighted greed-addicted forces.

"A critical mass of humanity is now awake and aware of the obsolete systems that limit our potential.

"We have now entered a new age of enlightenment. The renaissance has begun.

"The evolution is in process."

~ OccupyEvolver.com

Comment by Joan Denoo on February 1, 2013 at 12:19pm

" Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
~ Jefferson, Thomas
Source: THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to P. S. du Pont de Nemours, April 24, 1816.The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul L. Ford, vol. 10, p. 25 .

Comment by Joan Denoo on January 31, 2013 at 8:35pm

Tom, you wrote, "A downside: growing up in a cut-throat capitalist economy with an oligarchical/plutocratic politics (with authoritarian religions) doesn't help Americans learn how to function in a democracy."
That is exactly correct. Our population doesn't know how to function in a democracy ... the good news, some can learn. Everyone benefits by self-responsibility in community. Not being a slave to corporations, or to a time-card-punch-in style of life.
I think we are coming to the end of dominance/obedience, control/acquiescence, and dualistic type thinking.
Religion teaches one to obey; the worst possible thing to achieve. It tells us to sacrifice; for what, to whom; who decides?
Optimism bubbles up in me; change is coming and it is good.

Comment by Tom Sarbeck on January 31, 2013 at 6:29pm

Triple Damn!!!

I survived 12 years in Catholic schools; in my teens I worked after school and weekends in a mom, pop and kids grocery store; I minored in economics; and for 40 years I've been doing serious politics. How did I only minutes ago find this discussion?

A woman asked me recently if I'm a socialist and I said I'm a collective capitalist: I want employees, not sociopaths, to own workplaces.

For multiple reasons I'm optimistic:

* A 1970s Harvard Business Review said companies owned by their employees are environmentally kinder and experience less employee thefts,

* Since the 1970s, federal tax law privileges founders of businesses who when they retire sell to their employees (perhaps via ESOPs); and

* A 2007 book says employees in America own more than eleven thousand workplaces. Some (i.e., Publix Markets in the southeast) are large companies.

A downside: growing up in a cut-throat capitalist economy with an oligarchical/plutocratic politics (with authoritarian religions) doesn't help Americans learn how to function in a democracy.

Comment by Joan Denoo on January 31, 2013 at 5:41pm

Wal-Mart, the behemoth from Bentonville, Ark., with its nationally destabilizing business model, dangerously undermines USA's local and national economies and middle class and exploits and manipulates workers in poor countries. Overseas workers often work in unsafe conditions, for very low wages, and many do not have a rise in their living standards. Some do not have access to health care or education. 

Bernie Sanders says Walmart heirs own more wealth than bottom 40 pe...

Six members of the Walton family appear on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans.

No. 6: Christy Walton, $25.3 billion 

No. 9: Jim Walton, $23.7 billion

No. 10: Alice Walton, $23.3 billion

No. 11: S. Robson Walton, oldest son of Sam Walton, $23.1 billion

No. 103: Ann Walton Kroenke, $3.9 billion 

No. 139: Nancy Walton Laurie, $3.4 billion

That’s a grand total of $102.7 billion for the whole family.

Oh! you can promise to hire 100,000 returning war vets and are you also promising living wages for all Walmart employees?

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