Category: Money & Economy

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Makes sense: Hillary will share her speech transcripts when hell freezes over

Hillary Transcripts
Source: Vets for Bernie
The Young Turks report on Hillary’s comeback to the New Hampshire debate question: will she share the transcripts of all of her speeches, even the ones she made to Goldman-Sachs? In a nutshell, Hillary’s answer was no, not really. We’ve learned that Hillary’s speaking contract stipulates that they be recorded both digitally and by a hired stenographer; and that she retains full copyright protection for all of her words.

A CNN analysis found that, since 2001, Hillary and Bill Clinton have received $153 million in speaking fees, with at least eight speeches given by Ms. Clinton to big banks for $1.8 million. The media has repeatedly asked Ms. Clinton to release the transcripts, to which she sarcastically responded on ABC’s This Week, “Yeah, you know, here’s another thing I want to say. Let everybody who has ever given a speech to any private group under any circumstances release them all—we’ll all release them at the same time.” read more

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Former Chase employee wants to tell the story of how they defrauded America

bank crash of the 20s
Legacy photo of the 1920s bank crash
Chase has paid billions in settlements to prevent former employee Alayne Fleischmann, Esq. from being summoned to the witness stand where she can reveal under oath the intentional theft of mortgage investors’ money through bad mortgage loans Chase made and sold without violating the gag clauses in her employment contract. With help from Attorney General Eric Holder, Chase enriched itself by millions of dollars and when it was caught with pants down, a small fine was imposed which was substantially funded by the American public via a tax write-off made available to the bank. read more

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Ultra-Rich ‘Philanthrocapitalist’ Class Undermining Global Democracy: Report

As foundations and wealthy individuals funnel money into global development, what “solutions” are they pursuing?

Bill & Melinda Gates
Melinda and Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2009. (Photo: World Economic Forum/flickr/cc)

From Warren Buffett to Bill Gates, it is no secret that the ultra-rich philanthropist class has an over-sized influence in shaping global politics and policies.

And a study (pdf) just out from the Global Policy Forum, an international watchdog group, makes the case that powerful philanthropic foundations—under the control of wealthy individuals—are actively undermining governments and inappropriately setting the agenda for international bodies like the United Nations. read more

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Cosby’s business is private, but the state of America’s democracy is our concern

Cosby punching bag
Source: Randy Bish, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review via toursdelaliberte.blogspot.com
I’m a little ashamed of myself. I’ve done to Cosby exactly what I caution people to never do, unless an accused person’s actions have been substantively witnessed and recorded – like the police who killed Eric Garner. Without the benefit of legal discovery or a trial, I had already convicted Cosby in my mind.

Although only a handful of his accusers claim to have been actually raped by Cosby, I had decided in my mind that he is guilty of serially raping almost 50 women. I didn’t bother to learn what these women have actually accused Dr. Cosby of doing to them. And I didn’t question my right or ability to judge him either, until I watched this video last night … and realized that I am a hypocrite, as well as a victim of the fine art of misdirection, which Wikipedia defines as: read more

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85 rich people’s wealth equals what world’s poorest half own & other sad economic truths

Rich get richer graph
Source: Oxfam Working for the Few Report 2014
Don’t forget: the world’s 85 richest people now have as much wealth as the poorest half of the world.

Oxfam introduces its Jan 2014 report Working for the Few with a quote from US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we cannot have both.” The report is concerned with the “growing tide of inequality” and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few individuals.

The report shares these startling statistics: read more

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Big Media hates Lessig’s campaign message (get Big Money out of elections)

lessig campaign site header
Banner from Lessig Campaign Website lessig2016.us
Who profits most when hundreds of millions of dollars are invested in funding political campaigns? Possibly it’s the media companies that get handsomely paid to serve up the ads that are bought with those millions.

So, it makes sense that Big Media is blacking out news and views about the candidate running on a platform to completely cut Big Money out of political campaigns. Harvard Constitutional Law Professor Lawrence Lessig’s platform is barebones simple: let’s reform US politics, beginning with getting Big Money out of political elections. This will make voting more egalitarian and Congress more accountable. From Lessig’s campaign website: read more

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Big banks force FBI to take down warning about chip’d credit cards

chip enabled credit cardThe FBI wanted America to know that the new chip-enabled credit cards are open to security vulnerabilities and should routinely be used with a PIN, which is a pretty safe method of protection against fraud. PINS probably provide greater user safety than signatures do.

They posted a advisory online but the next day, the advisory had vanished. The American Bankers Association had objected to the FBI posting it, because its member banks prefer signatures to be used instead of PINs.

This is your American shopping dollars at work: being used by Big Money against you and your interests. read more

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Obama’s FAFSA filing date change will make student aid application process easier and more helpful

Changes in FAFSA reporting requirementsPresident Obama is working on removing barriers to students obtaining financial aid for which they qualify. Changes to the FAFSA filing period’s submission date will make the application process faster, easier and enable students to get earlier financial aid award notification. This will provide graduating (and transfer) students with valuable information they can use to help identify the best college match.

The transition means that:

  1. For the 2017-18 school year, students can submit the FAFSA as early as October 1, 2016 (two months ahead of the current submission date).
  2. Students will submit their 2017-18 school year FAFSAs with year 2015 financial information.
  3. 2017-18 school year is the first year that “prior-prior” (in other words, 2 years back) financial information for parents and student will be used for the FAFSA.
  4. Most parents and students will be able to use the IRS automatic retrieval tool to import tax return information directly into the FAFSA without needing to type it in (because 2015 tax returns filed by April 15, 2016 will have been processed by October 1, 2016).
  5. PELL grant award information will become available to graduating high school students (and college transfer students) months earlier in the college application process. This will aid families in selecting a school that offers the right combination of academic and financial opportunity for the student.
  6. In order to accommodate the new FAFSA submission date, filing students will fill out two FAFSAs in calendar year 2016:
    1. The school year 2016-17 FAFSA after the old submission opening date on January 1, 2016;
    2. The school year 2017-18 FAFSA after the new submission opening date on October 1, 2016. (See chart above.)
    Year 2015 financial information will be used for both the 2016-17 school year and the 2017-18 school year. (See chart above.) Year 2016 financial information will be used for the 2018-19 school year FAFSA. (See chart above.)

    From the Federal Student Aid website:

    On Sept. 14, 2015, President Obama announced significant changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) process that will impact millions of students. Starting next year, students will be able to do the following: read more

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Learn how EMV chip card payment technology will affect your small business

EMV chip payment technologyThe SBA has resources to help small businesses with a payment technology revolution that’s coming soon – EMV chip card payments. Here’s what they say about it:

For merchants and financial institutions, the switch to EMV means adding new in-store technology and internal processing systems. To get chip-enabled for your business, contact your acquirer or payment services provider.

The switch to EMV also means a change in liability for credit card fraud. Today, if an in-store transaction is conducted using a counterfeit, stolen or otherwise compromised card, consumer losses from that transaction generally fall back on the payment processor or issuing bank, depending on the card’s terms and conditions. read more

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Joint Economic Committee Releases National Report on Economic Challenges Facing African Americans

MLK on balcony

WASHINGTON – African Americans face an unemployment rate double that of white workers and are nearly three times as likely as white Americans to live in poverty, according to a new report by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee (JEC) released today by Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), Ranking Democrat on the JEC, and Congressman G. K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).

The report reveals that African Americans continue to confront a range of economic challenges, including disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment and long-term unemployment as well as significantly lower incomes and slower wealth accumulation than white households. When examining various measures to determine economic well-being, the report finds black Americans lag far behind the white population. read more

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Christie’s dismal record on union/labor rights just got worse

Christie, sweeney, bookerChristie has assaulted vulnerable New Jersey residents and labor rights all the years of his governorship. Next City shares the low-down on what Christie’s gotten away with, and how he’s done it.

Take public education: having promised when he was campaigning to take care of New Jersey’s teachers, after getting into office Christie proceeded to systematically destroy public ed, along with teachers’ and students lives and the bloodshed is far from over. Newark and Camden have been among the communities hardest hit. read more

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How Koch Bros’ $25M gift to United Negro College Fund can hurt us

A mind is a terrible thing to waste (girl)

A mind is a terrible thing to waste (girl)A friend posted this on Facebook about the $25 Million gift given to the United Negro College Fund by the Koch Brothers:

If this money comes from sincerity (their heart) it is a blessing, but if it comes with “strings attached” the Koch brothers will have not surprised us. They will show us as usual their true colors! Win-win situation either way!

My thoughts are different:

Not necessarily, Maria. The insidious multi-level strategies that typically accompany gifts by the rich and powerful are designed to have subtle, but long-lasting and far reaching effect. First we should ask, what is being asked for as a direct trade for the gift? We may never know everything that was bargained away behind closed doors but we do know that two Koch Brothers designees will sit on a scholarship decision committee of three that will decide which students get that blood money. Right out of the gate, it’s clear that the money was not given with an open hand. read more

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Advice to credit union: Don’t delete SM posts. Get the basics right.

Yelp complaint re First Jersey CU (larger)

I can’t find the complaint I posted on First Jersey Credit Union‘s Facebook page about needing help after trying for months to unsubscribe from USPS mailings but not being able to, so I guess they deleted it. But my post did its job and I got a call from my branch manager today.

Yelp complaint re First Jersey CU (larger)I had already phoned about this issue a couple of times and been told there was nothing anyone could do to help me. I insisted because I’m a greenie and want to save trees and then back in July, one lady gave me the number to their IT vendor and told me to call them for help. I didn’t, though, mostly because I don’t get paid to troubleshoot the CU’s website issues. read more