background preloader

PfA

Facebook Twitter

Income inequality: America's worst states. Courtesy of Movoto.

Income inequality: America's worst states

Click an image for a slideshow. The United States has a greater gap between rich and poor than any other advanced nation. President Obama has called it "the defining challenge of our time. " Financial inequality fueled Occupy Wall Street (which spread into a broader Occupy movement seen most recently in Hong Kong) and the rise of the term (epithet?) Commonwealth Club. Elon Musk Says This Is The Chart About Arctic Sea Ice That Really Matters. In 2012, Arctic sea ice covered the smallest area ever recorded.

Elon Musk Says This Is The Chart About Arctic Sea Ice That Really Matters

The yellow line shows the average sea ice minimum in the Arctic from 1979 through 2010. There is more sea ice in the Arctic this summer than there was two years ago in 2012, a fact that has led to misleading stories that imply that there's more uncertainty about what's happening in the Arctic than there actually is. But comparing right now to two years ago and drawing conclusions about climate from those isolated data points is like saying "it's cold outside, guess we don't have to worry about global warming. " It's an absurd comparison that doesn't take into account all the available information. Although Arctic sea ice waxes and wanes with the seasons, it covers the smallest area in late September of every year — which is why, since we've been able to measure the extent of the ice with satellites, we look at the area covered each year and talk about what that means.

How Much $100 Is Really Worth in Every State. 25 Easy Nutella Recipes - Food.com. S&P: Wealth gap is slowing US economic growth: Associated Press Business News. August 5, 2014 2:44 PM ET By By JOSH BOAK WASHINGTON (AP) - Economists have long argued that a rising wealth gap has complicated the U.S. rebound from the Great Recession.

S&P: Wealth gap is slowing US economic growth: Associated Press Business News

Now, an analysis by the rating agency Standard & Poor's lends its weight to the argument: The widening gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else has made the economy more prone to boom-bust cycles and slowed the 5-year-old recovery from the recession. Economic disparities appear to be reaching extremes that "need to be watched because they're damaging to growth," said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P. Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans.

John Napier Tye served as section chief for Internet freedom in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor from January 2011 to April 2014.

Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans

He is now a legal director of Avaaz, a global advocacy organization. In March I received a call from the White House counsel’s office regarding a speech I had prepared for my boss at the State Department. The speech was about the impact that the disclosure of National Security Agency surveillance practices would have on U.S. Internet freedom policies. Full List CEO to Worker Pay Ratios. Obama Student Loan Policy Reaping $51 Billion Profit.

The Obama administration is forecast to turn a record $51 billion profit this year from student loan borrowers, a sum greater than the earnings of the nation's most profitable companies and roughly equal to the combined net income of the four largest U.S. banks by assets.

Obama Student Loan Policy Reaping $51 Billion Profit

Figures made public Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office show that the nonpartisan agency increased its 2013 fiscal year profit forecast for the Department of Education by 43 percent to $50.6 billion from its February estimate of $35.5 billion. Exxon Mobil Corp., the nation's most profitable company, reported $44.9 billion in net income last year.

Apple Inc. recorded a $41.7 billion profit in its 2012 fiscal year, which ended in September, while Chevron Corp. reported $26.2 billion in earnings last year. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo reported a combined $51.9 billion in profit last year. Valuing Work, Part III: Work, Employment, Survival, and Fulfillment. (By NCrissie B) This week’s series considers how we value each others’ contributions to society.

Valuing Work, Part III: Work, Employment, Survival, and Fulfillment

We began by unpacking work versus employment, that is: work a boss or customer pays for. Yesterday we considered Matthew Yglesias’ proposal for a Guaranteed Basic Income. Today we conclude with Ross Douthat’s claim that a post-employment society, while fiscally sustainable, may trap those without jobs in mere survival with no opportunity to grow and thrive. Living in a “post-work” society. In Sunday’s , conservative columnist Ross Douthat invokes the utopian dream of “a society rich enough that fewer and fewer people need to work—a society where leisure becomes universally accessible, where part-time jobs replace the regimented workweek, and where living standards keep rising even though more people have left the work force altogether.”

Living in a “post-work” society

This “post-work” politics may be unfamiliar to many readers of the , but it won’t be new to readers of . The basic vision of the post-work Left, then, is one of fewer jobs , and shorter hours at the jobs we do have. Douthat suggests, however, that this vision is already becoming a reality, and he warns that it is not a result we should welcome. Health care limits leave some UC students with few options. By Ryder Diaz rdiaz@mercurynews.com Posted: 01/25/2013 06:12:51 PM PST0 Comments|Updated: about a year ago UC Santa Cruz graduate student Micha Rahder suffers from a rare disorder that requires her to be hooked up to an IV over two days, five to eight hours at a time, every four weeks.

Health care limits leave some UC students with few options

Afterward, her body returns to more than 95 percent normal. Without the exhaustive treatments, the effects can be severe.