Sign of the Times - Excesses of College Presidents

How Campus Chiefs Ace Executive Excess 101

These haven’t been the best of times for the young men and women
attending America’s colleges and universities. Or for the faculty who
teach them.

The Road to Euro-Fascism | Robert Kuttner

The Road to Euro-Fascism | Robert Kuttner

We have been here before, of course. European fascism was nourished in a
climate of high unemployment and economic orthodoxy. After World War I,
the elites of that era were more concerned with propping up currency
values and collecting war debts than with the real condition of the
economy. 

Charter Schools Fraud and Abuse?

Charter Schools are Cheating Your Kids: Report Reveals Massive Fraud, Mismanagement, Abuse | Alternet

There’s a  new report highlighting the predictable perils of turning education into a poorly regulated business.  It “found fraud, waste and abuse cases totaling over $100 million in
losses to taxpayers,” but warned that due to inadequate oversight, “the
fraud and mismanagement that has been uncovered thus far might be just
the tip of the iceberg.”
While there are plenty of other troubling issues surrounding charter schools—from  high rates of racial segregation, to their  lackluster overall performance records, to questionable admission and expulsion practices—this
report sets all those admittedly important issues aside to focus
squarely on activity that appears it could be criminal, and arguably
totally out of control.

The New Abolitionism - Oil Companies as 21st Century Slave owners?

The New Abolitionism | The Nation

Averting planetary disaster will mean forcing fossil fuel companies to give up at least $10 trillion in wealth. ...fossil fuel companies are taking their investors’ money and spending it
on this extremely expensive suicide mission. Every single day. If
investors say, “Stop it—we want that money back as dividends rather than
being spent on exploration,” then, according to this industry insider,
“what that means is, literally, the oil and gas companies don’t have a
viable business model. If all your investors say that, and all the
analysts start saying that, they can no longer grow as businesses.”

When Money Trumps Need In College Admissions

When Money Trumps Need In College Admissions : NPR

Maricela Oliva: We've really moved from a position where people are
interested in helping really capable students by supporting them through
financial aid to a position that says if you want to go to college,
it's a personal as opposed to a societal benefit, so you need to bear,
increasingly, the cost yourself. It's a very different situation, but
we've created it ourselves because we are disinvesting from higher
education.

The current state of the internet

Beyond Network Feudalism | John Hanacek

Our civilization has a new reality. Computers meshed together by digital
networks have transcended the system that built them becoming a new
reality, a place where duplicating and moving information has near zero
marginal cost. This alone has changed the nature of the world; we have a
virtual playground where the reality of scarcity we have known and
endured is largely gone.  The Internet that appears distributed is fundamentally centralized.
Right now there are key players that sit atop the largest networks
reaping all the financial rewards.



Data is emerging as the new "oil," the new resource, the ultimate
distillation of all civilization into an exponential pool of zeros and
ones. Already the global economy is built from networks and powered by
data. Economic value on Earth is steadily being digitized; "currency"
was long ago. As we envelop the world in a unified Internet framework we
are facing a dark truth: in a world of free-flowing data, the biggest
computer wins.

U.S. a Ticking Time Bomb of Nuclear Weapons, Toxic Dumps, and Pipelines

How the World's Only Superpower Is Vulnerable to Catastrophe | Alternet

the greatest dangers for the United States do not lurk in terrorist
cells in the mountains surrounding Kandahar that are planning on
assaults on American targets. Rather, our vulnerabilities are homegrown.
The United States plays host to thousands of nuclear weapons, toxic
chemical dumps, radioactive waste storage facilities, complex pipelines
and refineries, offshore oil rigs and many other potentially dangerous
facilities that require constant maintenance and highly trained and
motivated experts to keep them running safely.


The United States currently lacks safety protocols and effective
inspection regimes for the dangerous materials it has amassed over the
last 60 years. We don’t have enough inspectors and regulators to engage
in the work of assessing the safety and security of ports, bridges,
pipelines, power plants and railways. The rapid decline in the
financial, educational and institutional infrastructure of the United
States represents the greatest threat to the safety of Americans today.  And it’s getting worse.

IPCC climate change report: averting catastrophe affordable

IPCC climate change report: averting catastrophe affordable | The Guardian

Landmark UN analysis concludes global roll-out of clean energy would shave only a tiny fraction off economic growth.

The Role of Logging in the Oso Landslide

Landslide in Oso, Washington -- Don't Blame Nature and Acts of God for Reckless Logging | Ellen Moyer, Ph.D.

The plateau above the hillside that gave way has been logged for almost a century, and the hillside has a history of landslides dating back more than 60 years. For more than 25 years,
as the slope became more unstable, scientists challenged the timber
cutting and warned of possible calamity. Yet the state continued to
allow logging on the plateau.

Wall Street’s Subsidy Safety Net

Wall Street’s Subsidy Safety Net

How Banks Assumed Control of the U.S. Economy

The Secret History of How Banks Assumed Control of the U.S. Economy | Alternet

Nomi Prins, author of the new book, 'All the Presidents' Bankers' shares
her discoveries about the power of finance on the American economy. 

Global Rankings Study Shows Current State of U.S.

Global Rankings Study Depicts an America in Warp Speed Decline | Alternet

April 8, 2014
 |   If America needed a reminder that it is fast becoming a second-rate
nation, and that every economic policy of the Republican Party is
wrongheaded, it got one this week with the release of the Social Progress Index (SPI). While the U.S. enjoys the second highest per capita GDP of $45,336, it
ranks in an underperforming 16th place overall. It gets worse. The U.S.
ranks 70th in health, 69th in ecosystem sustainability, 39th in basic
education, 34th in access to water and sanitation and 31st in personal
safety....Not a single U.S. city is included in the world’s top 10 most livable cities. ... the U.S. remains in first place for the number of incarcerated citizens
per capita, adult onset diabetes and for believing in angels.

The High-Tech Wall Street Rip-Off Setting the Media on Fire

The High-Tech Wall Street Rip-Off Setting the Media on Fire | Alternet

 A brand-new book by Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker and Moneyball, has set the media on fire. In Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, Lewis argues that not only do the liars on Wall Street play poker, but the poker game itself is completely rigged.  Wall Street firms engage in a widespread practice known as high-frequency trading
(HFT).  Lewis' 60 Minutes interview, features young Brad Katsuyama, the Canadian trader who helped suss out the problem.

Is the American Middle Class Losing Out to China and India?

Is the American Middle Class Losing Out to China and India? - NYTimes.com

Branko Milanovic,
a visiting professor at CUNY who once served as a senior economist at
the World Bank, has tracked worldwide changes in income growth from 1998
to 2008.  Milanovic calculates
that the middle class in China and India experienced 60 to 70 percent
income growth from 1998 to 2008, while growth stalled for the middle and
working classes in the United States.

The Power of Free Universal Higher Education

The Moral Power of Free Universal Higher Education | Alternet

How can we deny a higher education to any young person in this country just because she or he can't afford it?  The numbers show that barriers to higher education are an economic
burden for both students and society. They also show that the solution
-- free higher education for all those who would benefit from it -- is a
practical goal.