... a collection of recent web articles concerning important issues and challenges we face in our world today... along with some personal 'life' thoughts and observations mixed in.
Be sure and read carefully Robert Scheer's article... and stay on top of this issue.. it's life or death for our democracy.
"Consumer confidence is down, the housing market is expected to decline an additional 10 percent over the next year, and the job market is predicted by most of the experts to stagnate for years to come. Continued tax breaks for the 1 percent of the population that controls 40 percent of the nation’s wealth will do nothing to restore the confidence of the other 99 percent of consumers who are suffering"
"This at least Obama seems to understand, but count on him to betray his instincts by once again following the advice of his treasury secretary and the Wall Street crowd that contributed so lavishly to his first presidential campaign and whose support he seeks once again."
If we are to climb out from this enormous hole we're in... this must end. This never ending cycle of corrupt money being poured into our political system must be brought under control. If not, our whole way of life is surely to be consumed by the self-serving elite with the money and power to overwhelm our political system.
Dear _________, Take Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefit cuts completely off the table. The overwhelming majority of Americans oppose cuts to these programs... ...but will support taxing the rich, ending corporate welfare, and heavily reducing military spending. That, plus investment in jobs, should be the plan. Be the leader all HOPED you would be.
Statistics about U.S. economy almost too crazy to believe:
Obama administration projects federal budget deficit will be $1,650,000,000,000 this year. Republicans and Democrats fight over budget cuts. Republicans proposing to cut the deficit by 1.59%. Democrats want it cut 0.86%.
Estimated total U.S. government debt will grow by 42% by 2015
U.S. economy actually grew more from 1930 to 1940 than during the past decade..
Over last decade, number of Americans without health insurance rose from 38 million to 52 million.
Agricultural commodities are soaring, price of corn has more than doubled over last 12 months. Corn is in thousands of our food products, this is a VERY frightening statistic. Rising food prices are an extremely serious issue throughout the entire world.
Between 1999 and 2009, real median household income in the United States declined by 5.0%.
Average American spends nearly a quarter of their income on food and gas... other parts of the world, it's almost, if not all of their income going for food.
Average U.S. household will spend $700 more on gasoline in 2011 than 2010.
Almost 25% of U.S. households now have zero net worth or negative net worth. In 2007, it was just 18.6%.As this figure grows, as it most surely will, more and more people have NOTHING to fall back on as times get even tougher.
Cost of the first week of attacks on Libya was 600 million dollars.
For the first time ever, OPEC will bring in over a trillion dollars from exporting oil this year, biggest customer is the United States.
China produced 19.8% of all goods consumed in the world last year. US only 19.4%.
US lost 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the WTO in 2001.
U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.
U.S. home values have fallen 6.3 trillion dollars since the peak of the real estate market in 2005... as hard as it is to believe, it will probably get even worse, as values fall even further.
One out of every 45 U.S. households was hit with a foreclosure filing in 2010.
Number of homes actually repossessed reached the 1 million mark for the first time ever in 2010.
New home sales set a brand new all-time record low in the month of February.
Home sales in the US are down 80% from the peak in July 2005.
American families financial condition continues to deteriorate rapidly. In 2010, one out of every eight families had at least one family member that was unemployed, highest since Labor Department began keeping track back in 1994.
More than 6 million have given up looking for work completely.
Average length of unemployment in the U.S. is now an all-time record 39 weeks.
Americans now owe $900 billion in student loans, also an all-time high.
Average household debt in the US is 136% of average household income.
Between 2007 and 2009 median household net worth in the US fell by 23%.
Median household debt in the US has risen to $75,600.
Purchasing power of dollar declined from $1.00 in 1913 to 4.6 cents in 2009...(unreal). Sadly, the Federal Reserve is working very hard to get rid of the little bit of purchasing power that the U.S. dollar has left.
From 2000 to 2008, the people running the top 14 US financial institutions received cash compensation... (salary, bonus, and the value of stock sold)... of approx. $2.6 BILLION DOLLARS!! "Of this amount, around $2 billion was received by the five best-paid individuals, who were also central to creating the highly risky asset structures that brought the financial system to the edge of the abyss: Sandy Weil (built Citigroup, which blew up shortly after he left); Hank Paulson (greatly expanded Goldman Sachs, lobbied for allowing more leverage in investment banks, then moved to the US Treasury and helped save them); Angelo Mozilo (built Countrywide, a central player in irresponsible mortgage lending); Dick Fuld (ran Lehman Brothers into the ground); and Jimmy Cayne (ran Bear Stearns into the ground)."
One great article... lays it out clear and simply stared.
More of these summary scenarios are beginning to appear.. eventually we might all be on the same page, fully understanding what is happening... question is, will there be time enough left for meaningful action.
For the blog bio, mention I never thought I'd be seeing these things that are now happening occur in my lifetime, Parenti mentions this exact same theme in his very well thought out and well written piece.
It could come to pass, that more of these guys that have the power to do something might eventually change their stripes and switch sides. But will they have that mindset or the will to act.
Bottom line is: profit & greed are enormous motivators.
Most all of us cannot really imagine what it's like to have that kind of temptation. .. just glad I don't have to make that choice.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, addresses the growing class divide taking place in the United States and inequality in an article... "Of the 1, by the 1, for the 1%."
Stiglitz is a professor at Columbia University and author of numerous books, most recently Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.
"It’s not just that the people at the top are getting richer," Stiglitz says. "Actually, they’re gaining, and everybody else is decreasing... And right now, we are worse than old Europe."
Wealth begets power, which begets more wealth.
The top 1 percent have the best of most everything, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to buy them: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.
Through history, something the top 1 percent eventually learn.... but too late.
... of the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income, the effective federal income tax rate, what they actually pay, fell from almost 30% in 1995 to just under 17% in 2007, according to the IRS.
... for the approximately 1.4 million people who make up the top 1% of taxpayers, the effective federal income tax rate dropped from 29% to 23% in 2008. It may seem too fantastic to be true, but the top 400 end up paying a lower rate than the next 1,399,600.
---- between 1948 and 1979, the richest 10% of families in the US claimed 33% of average income growth.... between 2000 and 2007, the richest 10% claimed a full 100% of average income growth in the US.
---- business taxes were cut from 46 to 34% 25 years ago... but today 115 of the big 500 companies listed on Standard and Poor’s paid federal and other taxes of less than 20% over the last 5 years... GE's rate last yer was 7%.
---- top 5% US households claim 63% of the entire country’s wealth.... bottom 80% hold just 13% of the growth.
---- last year, John Paulson, a hedge fund manager “earned” $4.9 billion (that's in ONE year folks!!)... ten years ago it took 25 such managers to collectively earn that much. ... last year the top 25 hedge fund managers pocketed a total of $22 billion.... it would take over 440,000 people each earning $50,000 a year to match that amount.
---- there are now more people living in poverty in the US than at any time in the last 50 years.... foreclosure filings were nearly 4 million in 2010, up 23% since 2008.
Finally.. someone talking about the world's insane appetite for conflict and the direct relationship with weapons sales.
This is what it's ALL about... nothin else, plain and simple... money, big money... billions and billions of dollars.
Those espousing different, they're really avoiding the situation, or lying through their teeth... like most every recent and present politician and media mouthpiece worldwide (not all in either group, but close to it).
It is:
... why we have an 'unknown' number (THOUSANDS) of military bases in most every country on the planet...
... why we constantly keep getting involved in the most insane and ridiculous wars that never end...
... why we spend more than half our dollars on the MIC...
... and why we are flat out half a heartbeat from national (and ultimately worldwide) bankruptcy.
... serving in today's military.. high-class muscle-men for Big Business, for Wall Street and bankers.
All this back and forth name calling nonsense between politicians is just plain BS... deliberate obfuscation, to deflect attention from the real issues of who actually controls government through all the piles of cash flowing into their pockets... and the hard choices that must be made.
What politico do you constantly heard swearing, they ain't doing anything till that Citizens United decision gets fixed, and the country's insane military spending drastically gets cut. The power elite backing them prevent and will not allow even for them to hint at these real issues.
It's one (if not) 'the' main reason our government is so money corrupt. 'Untouchable' budget items... all in the name of getting outrageously rich.
Like Koehler states straightforward in his article... the oligarchs here in this country maintain, if they ain't gonna do it... someone, somewhere else will. So, with that logic, their gloming as much as they can, as fast as they can, and to hell with any of the consequences, no matter how harmful to the country (or the planet) that mantra may be.
They've created the perfect situation for themselves... they are in full control, and know exactly how they wish to proceed. But it's an arrogant doomsday scenario, taking us to a place where the world as we now know it cannot survive for much longer... the world just does not have resources to continue on with this madness indefinitely. They're all just burying their heads, expecting, hoping and praying it all crashes on someone else's watch...(and we should not delude ourselves, most realize it's gonna)... timing is their only real concern, not the unthinkable consequences of their inaction and dereliction.
John Stewart says in one of his recent bits... "we're now firing teaches and missiles simultaneously"... that's the life we've put together for our 'brave new world.'
We'd need divine intervention (or some other kind, not of this planet) to get this corrected... these guys just ain't givin it up any other way. It's said Obama will be the first billion dollar President... yep, you betcha... they'll be throwin millions (and billions ) more out there to stop their ponzi scheme from being dismantled.
If you're not a spiritual person, would suggest conversion rather soon... the world needs every prayer it can get right now.
Business of War: Federal & Private Military Contractors Profit Off War
Here we go again...
this coming Presidential election is going to seem to go on and on forever... but what's it really gonna matter... what's it going to change.
The structural problem we now have with government is going to continue. Why... cause no one's even talking about doing anything about it... so how for the love of money is it gonna get changed.
The delusion of a classless America in which opportunity is equally distributed is the most effective deception perpetrated by the moneyed elite that controls all the key levers of power in what passes for our democracy.The wrong folks rule... they have the power, and ain't gonna give it up... they'll die first... and spend every last penny of their vast fortunes doing battle.
Obama wins... even if he does a 180, he's still facing the same bunch and would have them to confront and deal with... same old... same old.
Pick someone who's got a chance of winning besides Bama-man, combined with the skill-set to make this enormous redirection happen... please, give the world that name...
... Bachmann... OMG!! ... should it EVER become possible... we deserve what we would get!!
... Donald Trump... he wants the limelight, but not employment.
... 662 overseas bases but fails to include the 411 bases in Afghanistan, 88 remaining bases in Iraq, or sites in Qatar and other countries where military personnel are stationed
... maintaining and constructing all U.S. bases cost American taxpayers $41.6 billion in 2010
... Washington is responsible for nearly half of all global military expenditures, which totaled over $1.5 trillion in 2009
... demand the world dial back the military madness and devote resources to the real threats facing the planet: climate change, global poverty, nuclear proliferation.
... until Democrats agree to rein in entitlement spending, and Republicans back off the blank checks to the military industrial complex, all puffery in government amounts to political gamesmanship.
... in spite of all the rhetoric, we will go deeper in debt, the Fed will print more money, and the value of the dollar will continue to plummet. How long will it be before foreigners stop buying our debt, and hyperinflation arrives?
... throughout history, empires have always overextended themselves through conquests and wealth transfers leading to eventual collapse, from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Union. We are headed in the same direction and it seems only the chaos of the collapse of the dollar will stop the spending spree.
... arguing over funding for Planned Parenthood and NPR, though important, only shows that leadership in Washington either won't face reality, or don't understand how serious the problem is.
... no one in Washington has the will to tell the population the nanny state has to come to an end.
There is a growing sense that we're not going to be in a 'recovery' for quite some time. Our leaders have not generated the type of policy making required to turn things around. To the contrary they have made it a point to keep things just the way they are, why not, for those doing well, they are doing very well... and they're the ones in control.
We can probably go on like this for another several years, but it will get no better, there are no major sectors to pull us out of the hole we're in as there were in past recessions and depressions... we're not going to construct, manufacture, and spend our way out from under this economic meltdown.
And then there is the MIC sucking us dry... half century ago, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the "military industrial complex" created to fight two world wars was undermining democracy. Now it is undermining our real security as 60% of our tax dollars this year will pay for our present and future wars. We cannot continue on this crippling path of military spending without bankrupting the country.
And also on the world's horizon looms peak oil... that's the real game changer. As supplies of oil run short, our situation goes into very unknown territory. According to some of the experts, things will be very upsetting, as society begins to break down... civil unrest and rioting a regular occurrence. We're starting to see the beginnings of this already in many parts of the world, and it's happening in lots more places than we hear about, as mainstream media does not report it for one reason or another.
As each day passes, it's going to be even harder for those looking to turn away and bury heads. There are some things that could be done to make the impact less great, we're really not into doing them yet, probably won't until some form of leadership change takes place. Interesting question is.. who are going to be the 'lesser evils' to lead us from this morass. Who's your best guess?
Journey To Planet Earth is an exceptional program series from PBS...
... the PLAN B: Mobilizing to Save Civilizationsegment is especially well done, and should be 'must see' on your viewing list.
"Plan B" is the 12th episode of the award-winning PBS series Journey to Planet Earth, and it spans the globe... from China, Japan, Korea, India, Italy, Turkey, Bangladesh, Zambia, Haiti, and the United States... to explore new ideas in solving the challenges of global climate change.
Featuring some of the world’s most original and influential thinkers, "Plan B" provides audiences with a glimpse into a new and emerging economy based on renewable energy sources plus realistic strategies to avoid the growing threat of global warming.
Appearing with Lester Brown are Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman, former Governor and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, along with other scholars and scientists.
If you haven't already see it, go on PBS on the website, and search for when it will next appear.. then just set up an email alert for when it will be airing.
It is well worth searching out and watching. The whole series is important, but if you have to watch just one.. watch the latest segment 'Plan B - Mobilizing To Save Civilization'.
We try and visit Zion National Park up in Springdale, Utah at least several times each year. You cannot help being in awe and love Zion... it's just one of those very special places in the world....
Zion Canyon
Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park's unique geography and variety of life zones allow for unusual plant and animal diversity.
The Virgin River has gnawed through native sandstone to create the incredible scenery found in Zion Canyon. The river itself now serves as a natural corridor for exploring the park.
A prominent feature of the 229 square miles park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles long and up to half a mile deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. The lowest elevation is 3,666 ft at Coalpits Wash, and the highest elevation is 8,726 ft at Horse Ranch Mountain. These unique sandstone cliffs of Zion range in color from cream, to pink, to red. They have been described as sand castles crowning desert canyons.
Massive canyon walls ascend toward a brilliant blue sky. To experience Zion, you need to walk among the towering cliffs, or challenge your courage one one of the numerous small narrow canyon pathways winding up on to the high cliffs... such as Angel's Landing...
...yep, that part up top is a trail out to the Point.. 1800 ft down on either side...
Angels Landing is one of the world's great hikes... perhaps the best short adventure hike in any US national park. It provides amazing views of Zion Canyon. But it is very mentally challenging because the final leg is very steep, with sheer drop-offs. Chains have been bolted to the cliff to provide secure handholds. People at all afraid of heights should not attempt the final leg, but can still have a very enjoyable 2.5 hour hike up to Scout Lookout.
For the final 1/2 mile past Scout Lookout, the trail follows the ridge across a saddle and up the hogs back. This is where things get very interesting, steep, and where you are exceptionally grateful for the chains. Can't imagine being on this trail before them.. had a difficult enough time even using them, and still did not make it all the way out to the point... several hikers through recent years have fatally fallen from this trail.
Designated in 1919, Zion is Utah's oldest national park. The park is known for its incredible canyons, including The Narrows, which attract canyoneers from around the world.
... the 'Narrows' river walk
We spent a great day hiking the 'Narrows' several years back.. started off with a reasonable number of hikers along with us... and by the time we reached an area called 'the Boulders' after four hours of river hiking, we were all by ourselves... a wonderful experience.. (round trip on the river, complete hike took us 7.5 hours.. not bad for a couple of 'seniors').
The hiking possibilities are endless at Zion. And with nearly three million visitors per year, Zion is Utah's most heavily used parks.... know it's our favorite... whatya say, wanna come visit!
Having the condo in Briarcliff Manor, New York, we would many times go for rides along the Hudson River, up route 9, passing the Indian Point reactor up in Buchanan, New York... it was always a very uneasy feeling.
Having this massive nuclear plant only 10 miles from where we lived was something we never could get used to.
It's just unimaginable to think of what could happen should something go wrong.
10 miles from Briarcliff Manor to Indian Point... how close are you?
And storing 71,000 metric tonnes (and growing) of spent fuel rods at these plants across the country is something that can only lead to disaster.
With the inherent dangers for massive devastation in nuke plants, odds are, we're gonna loose somewhere sometime... for when it comes to public safety, money wins out every time.
With over 400 nuclear reactors on the planet at the moment (more being planned), what we've seen in Russia and now in Japan is only going to continue to happen... and get worse. It's a technology we have not mastered, and it has, and is going to continue to do great harm.
Our arrogance leaves us believing we are in control. But it obvious from the way recent disasters have been dealt with on numerous levels that cannot be farther from the truth... and any assurances to the contrary must be rejected.
This is an all consuming force beyond our current capabilities to deal with... one that never should have been released from Pandora's box.
Poster child of postindustrial decay. Camden, New Jersey (2nd most dangerous city in America) stands as a warning of what huge pockets of the United States could turn into as we cement into place a permanent underclass of the unemployed, slash state and federal services in a desperate bid to cut massive deficits, watch cities and states go bankrupt and struggle to adjust to a stark neofeudalism in which the working and middle classes are decimated.
"The poor have to help the poor, because the ones who make the money are helping the people with money."
"Today's a very hard time to be poor, because you know you're poor. You hear people say, 'We were poor. We put cardboard in our shoes, but we didn't know we were poor. Today you do.
And how do you know you're poor? Your television shows you that you're poor. So it's very easy to build up anger in a high-voltage kid of 17. He knows he's poor, he looks at the TV and all these people have everything and he has nothing. And so he's very angry.... I'm talking about the violence that rises out of the marketing that shows the kid what he could have, creates a huge anger that explodes easily. That you discover very quickly when you come to Camden.
... and regrettably many other cities in America as well...
There was such an opportunity for Obama to really do something special... to truly be one of the most important leaders of our time (for that matter... all time). But he blew it - big time, and flushed his supporters (along with everybody else) 'down the drain' (pun intended).
Now he's just one in the long line of recent Presidents fronting for the monied, power elite (like his BFF Immelt at GE).. But this coming at a time of the perfect storm of major calamities, means he will be ultimately judged ever more harshly by future generations, who will suffer the most for his lack of leadership.
If I were him, I wouldn't be too disappointed not winning another term... for if he does, it links his legacy that much tighter to what unavoidably must come.
History being the ultimate jury... unregulated capitalism, should never have been taken seriously... let loose to the degree it is now devouring all critical resources at an alarming rate (human included). But the wonders of corporate propaganda and corporate funding have taken charge and rule the day. We are taught by all systems of information to chant the mantra... the market is king, it knows best.
It does not matter the ecosystems on which the human species depends for life are being exploited and killed off.... profit is God.
The aim of the corporate state is not to feed, clothe or house the masses, but to shift all economic, social and political power and wealth into the hands of the tiny corporate elite. The corporate elite achieves its aims of greater and greater profit by weakening and dismantling government agencies and taking over or destroying public institutions.
The intrusion of corporations into the public sphere destroys the concept of the common good. It erases the lines between public and private interests, and it creates a world defined exclusively by naked self-interest.
This is a difficult message to take hold. Who wants to hear that we are advancing not toward a paradise of happy consumption and personal prosperity but toward continued disaster? Who wants to confront a future in which the rapacious and greedy appetites of our global elite, who have failed to protect the planet, threaten to produce widespread anarchy, famine, environmental catastrophe, nuclear terrorism and wars for diminishing resources?
Who wants to shatter the myth the human race can continue its giddy plundering of non-renewable resources, and its profligate levels of consumption, that capitalist expansion is eternal, and will never cease?
Civilizations nearing their twilight more often prefer hope, even absurd hope, to truth. It makes life easier to bear. It lets them turn away from the hard choices that should and must be made in order to survive.
This is an important article... not easy to read, or to deal with. It holds a sobering, chilling message... until we awake from our collective self-delusion, until we carry out sustained acts of civil disobedience against the corporate state, and sever ourselves from liberal institutions that serve the corporate juggernaut, especially the major political parties... we will continue to be rocketed toward an all encompassing global catastrophe.
... in the scheme of things, we're really not that important to the planet... Gaia will go on...
Alaska, Iceland, Norway, South America, Antarctica... all over the globe, in each of the places we have been to over the past years the story is the same... glacial ice is melting at an ever increasing pace. In Alaska, eight times faster than just 30 years ago.
Now from 50 to 130 feet a day, it's receding, and it's not being replenished at anywhere near that speed. Many glaciers will be completely gone in our lifetime, an unthinkable and devastating consequence of climate change.
With the planet's icy regions melting faster than ever, photographer James Balog embarks on a remarkable expedition to trace and record the change.
Extreme Ice Survey is the largest photographic study of the cryosphere ever attempted.
In the extreme, ice-bound regions of the earth, something unprecedented is happening. Everywhere, glaciers and ice sheets have begun breaking apart, and accelerating towards the oceans at alarming speeds. As scientists try to forecast the future consequences of the big melt, internationally acclaimed photographer James Balog is risking everything to capture the phenomena on film.
Deploying 25 time-lapse cameras on glaciers across the Northern Hemisphere, in some of the coldest, most inhospitable places on earth. Teaming up with scientists in the field who are dissecting the complex mechanics of glaciers and ice sheets, Balog probes deep into the underworld of the ice... rappelling down into narrow crevasses and scaling vast ice canyons carved out by raging torrents of melt-water.
Changes in the earth’s geology were once though to take thousands of years to play out, but Balog’s photographs are hard proof that these epochal transformations can happen right before our eyes.
This is a beautifully shot little film. It tells a chilling tale of what is to come, but it is easy to watch because of the true beauty of the ice.
The film talks 'by the end of the century'... kinda like the way it was once said 'by 2200 or 2300.' Everything has a way of happening oh so much faster, and as the planet heats up with ever increasing temps over longer periods of time... ice keeps disappearing at an ever increasing speed.....
Average American consumes 4X what planet can supply.
'Circling the Drain'... (CTD)... term used to describe a patient for whom the end is impending, and yet continues to cling to life.
Here's a bone-chilling report from a recent meeting of the Ecological Society of America. One of the presenters calculates that "if everyone on Earth adopted American lifestyles, we would need four extra worlds to supply their needs."
He traces the origins of the consumerist frenzy to intentional decisions made by the U.S. government in the early 50s, quoting economist Victor Lebow as saying in 1955: "Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate".
"Ever-increasing rates" are, by definition, unsustainable. As often happens, this was a decision made according to short-term considerations, that will have disastrous long-term consequences.
As our collective attention-span grows ever shorter, we seem ever less capable and tolerant of the long-term thinking good governance requires.
Plastic bottle or plastic take-away coffee lid that has 20 minutes of use can spend decades killing countless seabirds, marine animals and fish.
There is now so much plastic in the oceans, it is likely that virtually every seabird has plastic in its belly if its feeding habits mean it mistakes plastic bits for food... same is true for sea turtles. Every square kilometer of world's ocean has an average of 13,000 pieces of plastic litter floating on the surface... the cumulative impact of marine debris is a major issue for the oceans.
"We need to become less reliant on plastics."
Degradable or compostable plastic should be banned... the bio-plastics have as much plastic as those made from oil. The so-called degradable bio-plastics simply break down into micro-plastic particles faster than traditional plastics... we might not be able to see them with our eyes but the plastic is still there.
One time use of plastic is simply unsustainable. It is a wonderful material... real plastic is valuable... it can be, and must be made safe and reusable.
The discontent roaming across America is that the economic recovery is targeted to a small portion of the population.
The number of millionaires in the United States soared once again last year... millionaire households jumped to 8.4 million in 2010, increasing by 600,000 last year.
Now to contrast this rise in millionaires in 2010, we added 5,000,000 Americans to the national food stamp program.
The number of U.S. millionaires is back near its 2007 peak... at the same time, we have an underemployment rate more than 20 percent... and 45,000,000 Americans on food assistance.
The stock market going up over 100 percent from the March 2009 lows has helped the top 1 percent that control 42 percent of all financial wealth.
While the primary source of wealth for the top 1 percent is stocks and this sector continues to improve thanks to bailouts and the Federal Reserve pumping easy money into investment banks, millions of other Americans are being kicked out of their homes that are losing value.
Americans have lost $6.3 trillion in household real estate wealth.
If your primary asset for your net worth is collapsing is it any wonder why the majority of the population does not feel this as any sort of economic recovery, even though the stock market is now up over 100 percent in a relatively short time frame.
People don’t need a doctorate in finance to figure out their incomes are declining and the quality of life for the middle class is shrinking.
How are we to stop the millionaire train, while more and more Americans depend on food assistance.
What about the investment banks... what austerity measures are they taking?
Their profits are even higher since they have unlimited access to Federal Reserve funds at zero percent interest rates.
Expect income disparity to continue, since with Obama we have another Wall Street run government.... and most all of this will not be broadcast on national television, which again is being controlled by the rich and powerful.
Nearly a billion people don't have good access to safe fresh water. In a single generation, that number could double as growing demands for water will exceed the available and sustainable supply by 40 percent.
In another 10-15 years two-thirds of the worlds population will be without a safe supply of water and basic sanitation services.
Water cannot be created, it can only be managed... and leaky water infrastructure is losing 20 to 50 percent of the water it is supposed to deliver. Domestic water use is just eight percent of overall water consumption. Industrial use is the other major user of water (agriculture taking the lion's share).
All products have a water component, often called 'virtual water', to describe the volume used to make something. "A desktop computer, for example, requires 1.5 tonnes (1,500 liters) of water; a pair of denim jeans, up to six tonnes; a kilogram of wheat, one tonne; a kilo of chicken, three to four tonnes; a kilo of beef, 15 to 30 tonnes." The annual global trade in 'virtual water' today is said to exceed 800 billion tonnes, the equivalent of 10 Nile Rivers.
"What people don't often realize is how much water there is in everything we make and buy, from t-shirts to wine."
Cities in Africa are exploding in size at an alarming rate. In one such city Nairobi, Kenya, the population increased from 119,000 in 1948 to 3.1 million today. Many people live in some 200 slum settlements spread across the city and have limited access to safe water and sanitation.
Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, and the second largest urban slum in Africa.
The neighborhood is divided into a number of villages. Conditions in Kibera are extremely poor, and most of its residents lack access to basic services, including electricity and running water.
In 2008 an independent team of researchers began a door-by-door survey with the aim to map physical and socio-demographic features of the slum. A trained team of locals gathered census data of over 15,000 people and completed the mapping of 5000 structures, services (public toilets, schools), and infrastructures (drainage system, water and electricity supply) in the village of Kianda. Population of the whole Kibera slum can be estimated between 235,000 and 270,000 people.
Kianda - one of the 'villages' of the Kiberia slum.
The Uganda Railway Line passes through the center of the neighborhood, providing passengers aboard the train a firsthand view of the slum. Kibera has a railway station, but most residents use buses and matatus to reach the city center; carjacking, irresponsible driving, and poor traffic law enforcement are chronic issues.
Kibera is heavily polluted by human refuse, garbage, soot, dust, and other wastes. The lack of sanitation combined with poor nutrition among residents accounts for many illnesses and diseases. The slum is contaminated with human and animal feces, thanks to the open sewage system and the frequent use of "flying toilets". (A flying toilet is a facetious name for the use of plastic bags for defecation, which are then thrown into ditches, on the roadside, or simply as far away as possible.)
The ground in much of Kibera is literally composed of refuse and rubbish. Dwellings are often constructed atop this unstable ground, and therefore many structures collapse whenever the slum experiences flooding, which it does regularly. This means that even well-constructed buildings are often damaged by the collapse of nearby poorly constructed ones.
Currently the least urbanized region in the world, but changing fast. Urban dwellers without access to safe drinking water jumped from 30 million in 1990 to over 55 million in 2008. Over the same period, the number of people without reasonable sanitation services doubled to around 175 million.
Africa is now the fastest urbanizing continent on the planet, and the demand for water and sanitation is far outstripping supply in its' cities.
Note:
A reality show-cum-documentary called Famous, Rich and in the Slums, which has been shot in Kibera, has been airing on a British TV in the last few days. 'Slum Tourism' is one of the fastest growing trends in Kenya, particularly since the films, The Constant Gardener (partially shot in Kibera), and Slumdog Millionaire won Oscars.
For many Kenyans, film is the worst form of slum tourism exploitation because it turns poverty into entertainment in the name of charity. What has this kind of tourism done to the residents of Kibera, except to erode their self-respect further and make them objects of foreigners' pity.
There may be slightly more sanitation facilities in the slums now, but living conditions have become only slightly less appalling, they have not improved dramatically. And the slum continues to grow.
Barbara Rose Johnstonis a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Political Ecology and occasional lecturer at UCSC. Barbara is an environmental anthropologist who studies the relationships between environmental crisis and human rights.
...opening 'Pandora's box'... creating an evil that cannot be undone.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barbara Rose Johnston<bjohnston@igc.org>
Date: Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: In this nuclear world, what is the meaning of 'safe'? | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
To: bjarias@gmail.com
Some six decades ago, we humans opened Pandora's Box. The immense energy, light, and heat that comes from toying with radioactive elements is power in its' rawest form. It is seductive. It is a powerful master. And, in its nature, it consumes. I
The way we currently operate nuclear power is inefficient and mind bogglingly dangerous.
You folks are allot more up to speed on this than the average individual.
Is it in the realm of possibility to make the entire process (start to finish) a safe one. Could we... should we... redirect resources, putting on a full court press, and make nuclear work.
If we can't, then it would appear we've got to stop and bury it... cause continuing on the way we are now is a sure fire recipe for disaster after disaster.
On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 2:20 PM, Barbara Rose Johnston <bjohnston@igc.org> wrote:
I share your concerns. What is all the more worrisome is that "safe" reprocessing technology (taking old waste and reprocessing to use again as mixed (MOX) fuel) is what is now the biggest threat at Fukushima (content of reactor 3 that has partially melted and vented into the atmosphere, as well as many of those stored depleted fuel rods)...
Does our current use of nuclear power make sense?
At Fukushima each reactor has between 60 and 83 tons of spent fuel rods stored next to them.
In the US at Vermont Yankee Power Plant there are a staggering 690 tons of spent fuel rods on site...(left over from boiling water to create steam to generate electricity... brilliant).
How much potential disaster are we talking about?
It's said the atomic bomb that exploded at Hiroshima created about 2,000 curies of radioactivity.
Spent fuel pools at Vermont Yankee are said to hold about 75,000,000 curies of radioactivity (reportedly without backup cooling systems).
What's wrong with this scenario?
Running out of oil at an alarming rate, the world should be desperately seeking new sources of energy.
With hundreds of reactors spread around the globe, seems to be allot just lying around at the moment... unused & extremely dangerous!!
Why can't we come up with technology for reuse of this 'spent' material? What's stopping this initiative?
Spending hundreds of billions elsewhere... how much money is presently going to solve these critical issues?
Fuel rod pool - the US alone has 71,000 metric tonnes of spent nuclear fuel.
One of our neighbors up in Canaan sent an email with a pic of the road after a recent spring snowstorm...
Subject: Happy Spring from Shaker Ridge Drive
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:33:57 -0400
On this first full day of spring sometimes a picture IS really worth more than a 1000 words Sigh Paulie
... it's typical spring up in the north country, but getting near the end of a long, long winter it just makes it seem that much longer.. it's as if winter will never end.
We tried it for a couple years once we both retired, but the short days and overcast skies drove us south... and then west.
Now winters are spent with increased sunshine and warm weather (of course warmer in Florida than out in Nevada).
The Wave is a sandstone rock formation located near the Arizona and Utah border on the slopes of the Coyote Buttes, in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, on the Colorado Plateau. It is famous among hikers and photographers for its colorful, undulating forms, and the rugged, trackless hike required to reach it.
Made of Jurassic-age Navajo Sandstone that is approximately 190 million years old. Scientists who study The Wave say that the old sand dunes turned into hard compacted rock over the ages, calcifying in vertical and horizontal layers. Erosion by wind and rain has created the spectacular landscape which appears now.
The soft sandstone of The Wave is fragile, one needs to walk carefully to not break the small ridges. In order to limit damage to the fragile area, the Bureau of Land Management -BLM limits access to the North Coyote Buttes Wilderness Area to just twenty permits per day.
Ten of the permits are available in advance by an on-line lottery conducted four months before the month for which the permit is sought. Remaining ten permits are made available by lottery the day before one's intended hike at the Paria Ranger Station on highway 89 west of Page, Arizona.
We have applied a couple of times for a permit, but so far have been unsuccessful.
As Japanese engineers struggle frantically to keep calamity from escalating into catastrophe, we cannot ignore the fact that nuclear fission is an inherently and uniquely toxic technology.
The problem with nuclear fission is that the stakes are unimaginably high.
There is no such thing as a fail-safe system... stuff happens.
The world knows technologically, no country is more advanced than Japan... and therefore 'safe nuclear power' has to be understood to be an oxymoron.
Nuclear power is not safe there, nor should it be considered safe anywhere.
And in our country, like in Japan... you would think it would be a no-brainer that atomic reactors would not be built near quake fault lines, and close to the coast where they would be directly in the path of tsunamis ... but guess what, Japan has more than a few that were, and California's got several that are as well...
... and when ya do some checking, would bet there would be a bunch of others in the US in addition.
Over years, not days, there may be a thousand people, two thousand, ten thousand who will suffer from cancers induced by this radiation. The carcinogenic isotopes that are released at Fukushima are already floating to Seattle with effects we simply cannot measure.
So far, there has not been much reporting on problems with spent fuel storage pools, but these pools that hold used fuel rods could prove to be the most dangerous of all facets of the disaster. They contain vast amounts of radiation, several times the amount in a reactor core. Spent fuel rod pools are actually highly radioactive, very unstable, extremely dangerous and, compared with reactors, not well supported, contained or looked over.
Expose them to air for a day or two, and they begin to combust, giving off large amounts of radioactive cesium-137, a very toxic, long-lasting, aggressively penetrating radioactive element with a half-life of thirty years. When cesium-137 it enters the environment, it essentially acts like potassium and is taken up by plants and animals that use potassium. (For the record, that includes you.)
If these spent fuel pools lose their cooling source, they could spew radiation into the atmosphere, creating a tragedy of even greater proportions than did the 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.
Should the spent rods start to burn, huge amounts of radioactive material would be released into the atmosphere and would disperse across the Northern Hemisphere. Note: At Fukushima each reactor has between 60 and 83 tons of spent fuel rods stored next to them. And in the U.S., Vermont Yankee has a staggering 690 tons of spent fuel rods on site. How much disaster are we talking about? The atomic bomb that exploded at Hiroshima created about 2,000 curies of radioactivity. Spent fuel pools at Vermont Yankee are said to hold about 75,000,000 curies of radioactivity.
With the risk of extreme events becoming greater as each day passes, it's really only a matter of time before a disastrous situation will occur in this country as happened in Japan.
The track record of the atomic energy industry in the United States—less so in Japan—is to spend as little money as possible and extend the life of old plants for as long as possible, no matter the risks.
Once again, all the government seems to have the stomach for and chooses to do in these matters is close its' eyes and 'hope for the best.'
American democracy arose because those consciously locked out of the system put their bodies on the line and demanded justice.
We have tolerated the intolerant... and we are paying the price.
If enough say 'no'.... if enough refuse to cooperate... despots will be in trouble.
If there is no struggle there is no progress. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle.
One of our neighbors up in Canaan sent out some pix of the local fox.
We've seen this guy quite a bit when we were last there, and we have a hunch he's making his home under the pool deck.. (from where he'll have to be 'evicted' sometime this spring).
Wither you like them, or not... or agree with them, or not... there are certain films you should just make it a point of seeing...
(Netflix makes viewing easy... the majority of these films are in their 'Watch Instantly' category.)
NOTE: Please see the HOME tab at the top of the main page of the blog for additional films.
****************************************
COLLAPSE
His detractors call him a conspiracy theorist and an alarmist.
The title refers to Ruppert’s belief that unsustainable energy and financial policies have led to an ongoing collapse of modern industrial civilization.
The obsession with the collapse of industrial civilization has led to the collapse of his life. In the end, it is a character study about his obsession.
Roger Ebert wrote... "I don't know when I've seen a thriller more frightening. I couldn't tear my eyes from the screen. "Collapse" is even entertaining, in a macabre sense. I think you owe it to yourself to see it."
No matter what... there will be 'peak oil'... just a matter of when that day will come... and how much of a calamitous effect it will have on our civilization.
There's good cause to pay attention to what just happened in Japan... and what could happen on the West coast of the US.
The most definitive recent study of the 1986 disaster puts the Chernobyl death toll at 985,000. The accident irradiated a remote rural area. The nearest city, Kiev, is 80 kilometers away. Heavy radioactive fallout spread from Chernobyl blanketed all of Europe within a matter of days. It covered an area far larger than the United States. Fallout did hit the jet stream and then the coast of California, thousands of miles away, within ten days. It then carried all the way across the northern tier of the United States.
San Luis Obispo is some ten miles directly downwind from Diablo Canyon. The region around San Onofre has become heavily sub-urbanized.
Two huge atomic reactors at San Onofre and two at Diablo Canyon are not designed to withstand powerful shocks. All four are extremely close to major faults.
All four reactors are located relatively low to the coast... and vulnerable to tsunamis.
Steven Aguinaga of Hazlehurst, Mississippi and his close friend Merrick Vallian went swimming at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.
Aguinaga's health has been in dramatic decline since that day.
"I have terrible chest pain, at times I can’t seem to get enough oxygen, and I'm constantly tired with pains all over my body," Aguinaga explained, "At times I'm pissing blood, vomiting dark brown stuff, and every pore of my body is dispensing water."
Merrick Vallian has since died from his exposure to contaminants.
"After we got back from our vacation in Florida, Merrick went to work for a company contracted by BP to clean up oil in Grand Isle, Louisiana," Aguinaga said of his 33-year-old physically fit friend.
"Aside from some gloves, BP provided no personal protection for them. He worked for them for two weeks and then died on August 23. He had just got his first paycheck, and it was in his wallet, uncashed, when he died."
Scores of sick people across the Gulf Coast attribute their illnesses to chemicals from BP's oil disaster.
Leading honey-bee experts, issue a stark warning about the disappearance of bees, which are increasingly important as crop pollinators around the globe. Without profound changes to the way human beings manage the planet, they say, declines in pollinators needed to feed a growing global population are likely to continue.
The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century.... of the 100 crop species that provide 90 per cent of the world's food, over 70 are pollinated by bees.
Human beings have fabricated the illusion that in the 21st century they have the technological prowess to be independent of nature. Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less, dependent on nature's services in a world already under severe strain with a population of seven billion people.
Anyone having friends or relatives in the nursing profession know first-hand how taxing the work is both mentally and physically... the toll it takes can be very high.
The question-post below sums up the sentiments of many in the profession.
I could have swore I read somewhere that ENA recommends no more than three 12 hour shifts as an ER Nurse. Has anyone else heard or read this? And if you have, can you give a reference?
Our ER currently has us working four 12 hour shifts a week. Sometimes two days off and then scheduling another 12 hour shift.
Over worked ER Nurses
