3 Biggest Lies about U.S. Economy

From The three biggest lies about the U.S. economy Brett Arends ROI - MarketWatch.

1. Myth 1: Unemployment is below 10% - There are 79 million men in America between the ages of 25 and 65. And nearly 18 million of them, or 22%, are out of work completely. (The rate in the 1950s was less than 10%.)
2. Myth 2: The markets are panicking about the deficit - Rates on U.S. bonds have been plummeting recently. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond down to just 4%. By historic standards that's chickenfeed. Panicked? The bond markets are practically snoring.
3. Myth 3: The U.S. is sliding into "socialism" - Corporate profit margins rocketed to 36% in the first quarter [of 2010]. Since records began in 1947 they have never been this high. The highest they got under Ronald Reagan was 30%.

For further consideration:

• You Don't Count - Is 2010 U.S. Structural Unemployment really 40.6%?
• Postscarcity Spawns from Overwhelming Cognitive Surplus

Unsustainable Resource Skews for Dummies

Don't be confused by long sounding words. The everyday reality is obvious to every five year old on the planet.



"The wealth of the walmart family in US = same as the combined income of the bottom 40% of population."

Just let that sink in for awhile if you don't have time to read the whole blog today.

What is the right amount to pay bankers?

"The bottom line is that much like in other areas of our lives, we are not perfect, we are not rational, and there are multiple hidden forces that shape our abilities and decisions. We can continue to assume that we are perfect, but this will only set ourselves up for more fantastic failures. If instead we were to realize where we fall short, where we fail, and try to do something about it, our future could indeed be brighter -– and not just in the domain of banking and salaries."

SOURCE: TED Blog: Dan Ariely asks, What is the right amount to pay bankers?

via feedly.com

Germany's Take on a Basic Income for All

According to a growing bloc of Christian Democrats—under the leadership of Dieter Althaus, former premier of the German state of Thuringia—the problem isn’t that the state is providing insufficient incentives to work, but rather that the state is enforcing a duty to work at all. The only way that Germany can honor people’s right to material dignity while freeing the labor market of distortions, they argue, is by means of bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen, or unconditional basic income: a single monthly payment, pegged to levels currently received by the unemployed, guaranteed to every citizen from cradle to grave.

More fundamentally, basic-income advocates argue that the duty to pursue work is based on the mistaken assumption that there’s work to be had. A growing number of economists suggest that Germany reconcile itself to the fact that in the postindustrial age, the country will provide ever fewer opportunities for low-skilled workers. In this context, policies in pursuit of full employment make no sense; indeed, the demands currently made on the out-of-work are nothing less than perverse.

Furthermore, the advocates of basic income say, the contemporary mind-set has allotted to salaried work an exaggerated role in shaping personal identity. Basic income would allow Germans to combine different avenues of part-time work or pursue types of labor that aren’t normally honored with pay, such as caring for the elderly. (This is an important difference between Murray’s concept and the German one: Murray sees his yearly $10,000 grant as a spur to work; the German variation pivots on the belief that many Germans ought to be taking up pursuits outside the classic economic framework.) Also, basic income would encourage citizens to think more like entrepreneurs in pursuing work and allow unfettered labor markets to regain control over wages. (Emphasis by ed.)

SOURCE: A Basic Income for All? by Cameron Abadi, City Journal Spring 2010.

via StatusNet message from Olivier Auber at Sun 06 Jun 2010 09:09:01 AM PDT:

RT @NeuerWeg: [City Journal USA] A Basic Income for All? http://alturl.com/mmmn #Grundeinkommen #revenudevie #basicincome

From the CEO's Blog: Creating High Trust Organizations

By adopting and extending these principles, we simultaneously create high trust institutions and societies.

Whole Foods (WFMI) CEO John Mackey on Creating the High Trust Organization:

"We have the opportunity to create more conscious and higher trust organizations in the 21st century. To do so will require three major changes.

• First, the organization must become conscious of its higher purposes. Without consciousness of higher purposes, organizations will not reach their fullest potential because the creative energy within the organization will not be fully expressed.
• Second, we’ll need our leaders to evolve to higher levels of consciousness and trust. We will not be able to create high trust organizations without more conscious and high trust leaders. Less conscious leaders will tend to hold their organizations back.
• Third, we will need to evolve the cultures of our organization in ways that create processes, strategies, and structures that encourage higher levels of trust. These will necessarily include the important ideals of teams, empowerment, transparency, authentic communication, fairness, love and care."

WFMI's Shared Fate Policy
"We recognize there is a community of interest among all of our stakeholders. There are no entitlements; we share together in our collective fate. To that end we have a salary cap that limits the compensation (wages plus profit incentive bonuses) of any Team Member to nineteen times the average total compensation of all full-time Team Members in the company."

Salary Caps Work. Authenticity and Transparency Work. The neuroeconomics of Neurosociety awakens.

Not only can we chart a more adaptive future beyond the unsustainable resource skews born of fundamentalist 19th century industrial capitalism, we must do so. It is a simply matter of sustainability and survival. And so, we are doing so, as demonstrated by WFMI and other progressive companies like Nika Water, "by donating 100% of our profits to support clean water projects in impoverished countries, NIKA will provide the basic tools and critical assistance to help thousands of families improve their lives in a meaningful way and end the cycle of poverty. Mindful of our duties as stewards of the Earth, NIKA has been certified as CarbonFree by Carbonfund.org through our investment in carbon offsetting program."

Capitalism: A Love Story Opens in Great Britain and Ireland

Visit MichaelMoore.com for the Full Story:

Andrew O'Hagan, London Evening Standard:

He never loses his touch as a speller-out of double standards, and no drama of the past year — no fiction — has come this close to naming names, calling out the guilty parties or asking the big questions.

Wendy Ide, London Times:

The film is brilliantly researched, both with regard to the labyrinthine web of connections between the world of finance and the corridors of power and the wittily used archive footage.

Lisa Mullen, New Statesman:

If American big business has not been noticeably dented by his efforts, he has certainly transformed the art of documentary-making in the process.

John Walsh, The Independent:

The story of how Congress was forced to vote for a $700bn bailout of the banks (without any explanation of how the money might be spent) is re-told, to jaw-dropping effect.

Donald Clark, The Irish Times:

Michael Moore’s latest documentary is both moving and blackly comical, and his best since Roger and Me.

Peter Bradshaw, Guardian:

In his typically punchy, enthralling and entertaining new picture, Michael Moore takes aim at what Milton Friedman famously called socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.

Alison Rowat, Herald Scotland:

The boy who wanted to be a priest is never far from the surface of Moore.

Why do the Poor Protect the Ultra Rich from Taxes?

It's inexplicable.

Why would any thinking entity do that? Do you really think that the majority of the people in the top 1%, 2%, 5%, 10% are sitting around thinking:

"Gee, I wonder how I could create new jobs for my fellow patriots in the bottom 90%?"

Really? Do you really believe that? Because, with every Tea Party you attend, you are voting to keep things exactly like this:

Image: UCSC

Quick poll: Raise your hand if you think this situation has improved, since 2007. Let's see, I count ... um ... let's look way back to the back for the room ... yeah ... there ... I count exactly ZERO hands.

One volley on Digg put it this way:

sleepwalker:

"Without extended unemployment, I guarantee that a hard worker like yourself would have a job right now. You would move into a smaller place (bunk beds if necessary), work two crappy jobs, do whatever it takes to put food on the table. I know I would to save my family."

That's exactly what the pie bakers above want you to believe.

seeker:

"That's what most people outside the situation believe dude but it's a lot fuzzier when you're in it up to your neck. Fact is, I've said the same thing myself, but have never seen this rate of unemployment nor have I ever been this directly affected."

More and more Americans are finding similar wage-slave capitalist repentance.

How many more have to be so directly affected -- directly destroyed -- before we wake from the Job Trance, and move into the next evolution of the greatest experiment in democracy that the world has ever seen?

The New Normal for Employment: A Con Job

You see? They can be taught!

The "new normal" for employment doesn't work for anyone except employers an career coaches who are trying to sell how the recession is an opportunity for resourceful people. That's why they both want us to accept depressed salaries and bigger workloads as the new status quo. -- CIO Magazine

Remember this, do we now?