Inequality on the Rise

Income inequality in the U.S. has risen to the pre-1929 levels indicating that the benefits of the recent economic boom accrued mostly to the top 1% of the population. Ahead of Presidential elections, trade is being made the scapegoat for rising middle-class woes. However, some domestic factors have exacerbated the problem. Among those: a less than progressive tax regime, very high CEO pay, weak safety nets and bargaining power for workers, sluggish increase of high-tech and skilled education, and health care.

KARZAI ESCAPES

Just read that Hamid Karzai has bought a multi-million dollar beach front home in Dubai so he may see the hand writing on the wall.

M&G: Afghan president escapes assassination bid

Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped unhurt after an assassination attempt by Taliban fighters with guns and rockets during an official celebration in the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. Government ministers along with leaders of other political factions were seen ducking for cover after gunfire sounded at the celebration to mark the 16th anniversary of fall of the Afghan communist government.
Pentagon.
TO| The Whistleblower’s Unending Story
Adam Geller, reporting for The Associated Press, writes, “The guest lecturer steps to the front of classroom 322 with a lesson plan, but not from any textbook. Instead, Dave Welch comes with a story to tell, edgy and very personal. The names have been changed, he says, ‘to protect the guilty.’ He directs students to the corporate financial forms projected on to a screen. Years ago, working at a small-town bank in the Virginia mountains, Welch combed through these figures and saw things that made him suspicious.”

CBS: WRACKING UP MORE DEBT

Gas prices are through the roof, food prices aren’t far behind, jobless rolls are increasing, the mortgage mess is continuing, the housing market is still tanking, and the “R” word is on everyone’s lips.

Logic would dictate Americans would be tightening their belts in times like these. But, says the The Early Show’s resident financial adviser, Ray Martin, such logic would be wrong.

He said on the show Saturday that more and more of us are turning to our credit cards and home equity loans just to stay afloat.

Some, pointed out co-anchor Chris Wragge, are even using credit cards to pay their mortgages.

And that, Martin said, isn’t a viable long-term strategy. It is, he said, “borrowing from Peter to pay Peter, taking out debt to pay down debt. If you’re in that situation, you’ve got to look at all the expenses you could cut back. You’ve to look at how you could increase your income. You may be in such a tough situation that you really have to get into legal protection (bankruptcy). … The way to increase your cash flow is not to take on debt. If you want to increase your cash flow, the debt has to go.”

Equifax Inc. and Moody’s Economy.com report that the average credit card balance is up 9.5 percent in the United States. It’s up even more in states hard-hit by the housing crisis: almost 15 percent in California and Florida, and more than 20 percent in Nevada.

Credit counselors across the country confirm that more people are using their cards to cover everyday expenses.

According to Martin:

Rising prices aren’t the only reason people are racking up more debt. Lenders in general have lost a lot of money in recent months as more and more borrowers default on their debts. In order to protect themselves, lenders are tightening their standards, meaning it’s more difficult to obtain home loans, home equity loans, even car and school loans.

MSNBC: PAYING CASH COSTS MORE
Paying cash? That’ll cost extra

Rhonda Payne went to an AT&T Wireless store in Calhoun, Ga., recently to pay her phone bill in cash. She’d been hit by ID theft and was forced to close her checking account, so she was worried she wouldn’t be able to mail a check on time. But when she arrived at the store, she was in for a surprise.

Paying in person, she was told, costs extra — $2 extra.

Payne objected to the “administrative charge” that was added to her bill but got no sympathy. Instead, she said, she was told she should consider herself lucky because the fee was about to go up to $5.

“I was told that it was a courtesy to take cash,” she said. “I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

It’s no joke. Beginning earlier this year, AT&T Wireless began to charge customers who pay their bills in their stores.

Independent: Recession to Hit Europe This Year and US Next Year, Says Sorrell

WPP, the world’s largest advertising group, has issued a stark warning to businesses across Western Europe, revealing that the crisis in the financial sector has already spilled over into the wider economy, with the most serious effects being felt since the beginning of March.WPP said yesterday that despite the widely held view that the US has already moved into recession, it was actually suffering much more seriously in Europe, where sales in the first quarter increased by just 3 per cent compared with the same period a year ago, damaged by a particularly lean March.Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of WPP, said that while the stability of WPP’s US earnings appeared puzzling, it reflected the different approach on opposite sides of the Atlantic taken towards the threat of an economic slowdown.

ISLAMIC APPROACH TO DEBT

By Loretta Napoleoni

Islamic activists, intellectuals, writers, and religious leaders have always upheld the prohibition of riba, the interest charged by moneylenders, and denounced gharar, which refers to any type of speculation. Under this belief, money must not become a commodity in itself to create more money.
http://www.informationclearinghou
Updated headlines:

Time Warner, Viacom Profits Seen Higher

Analysts are anticipating higher profits at Time Warner, Comcast, CBS and Viacom when the companies announce quarterly results next week. But they will also be on the lookout for signs that a shaky U.S. economy is having an adverse effect on spending by advertisers and consumers.

Media Companies to ‘Earn Billions’ Online

The leading 100 media companies will earn $20.7 billion in Internet revenue, with advertisers forecast to spend $2.9 billion annually on online video ads by 2010, according to a new report from the Screen Actors Guild. Some 9 billion videos are watched online every month, led by YouTube.

VIEWPOINT:

TIME TO DUMP THE OLYMPICS? Willem Buiter: Ditch the Olympics, Permanently

There was about a 1500 year gap between the last of the Olympic Games in Ancient Greece, and the first of the Games in the new Olympic era. Let’s have another 1500 years without Olympics…

(1) Who wants to watch a contest between pharmacological labs?

I won’t be watching the Olympics this year. A sufficient reason for this decision is that the spectacle is just not interesting anymore, because most of the time I don’t know what I am watching. Is it a competition between athletes or some convolution of a competition between athletes and a contest between pharmaceutical labs trying to find the optimal combination of illegal performance enhancement and likelihood of detection?….

I would also be interested in watching on television an athletic competition where any and all forms of performance enhancement are allowed, as long as the information about who uses what is in the public domain: “In lane 4 we have Marion Jones, fresh out of jail after doing six months for lying to federal prosecutors about her steroid use and cheque fraud - a one-time poster child of American track and field, now exposed as a career-long performance-enhancing drugs cheat. Next to her in lane 5 is Ben Johnson, steroid-assisted former world record holder over 100 meters and Olympic 100 meter Gold Medal winner at the 1988 Olympics (both short-lived), ……. The full list of performance-enhancing drugs each of the competitors will be using can be found on our website: http://www.withalittlehelpfrommyfriends/olympics.org .”…..

The only competitive sport that appears to be clean is darts – a sport played by unfit fat slobs without the benefit of performance-enhancing drugs other than beer and cigarettes, and both are out in the open.

(2) Today’s Olympics desecrate the Olympic ideals; it is an exercise in collective hypocrisy

It is difficult to read the Olympic creed - “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”- and keep a straight face. The Olympic creed may ring true for Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards, the worst ski-jumper ever, and for the Eric “the Eel” Moussambani, the slowest swimmer ever. It is a lie for most of the prominent participants in most events. Winning, winning at all cost, winning ugly, winning dirty, winning winning winning is the only thing that matters. The hypocrisy of the Olympic creed is staggering. Why not be honest and replace it with “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing”….

…. the Olympics have become hothouses of toe-curlingly embarrassing nationalism. The national medal counts, total, per capita, per square meter or what not are the exact antithesis of what the Games ought to be about. Abolishing national teams and scrapping the playing of national anthems would help. Admitting, say, just 200 club teams, each of which was located in an area containing roughtly 0.5 percent of the world’s population, and none of wich could discriminate as regards membership on the basis of nationality, would be a positive alternative. Playing the Archers’ theme instead of the various national anthems would save money and lower the jingoistic cholesterol count.

(3) The Olympics are at risk of being hijacked by totalitarian political regimes and turned into mass-political propaganda events. The 1936 summer Olympics in Berlin and the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen were used by the Nazis to showcase the strengh of their New Order, for the benefit of domestic and foreign observers. The Soviet Union used the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics to extol the virtues and merits of Soviet Communism. The 2008 Summer Olympics in China will be used by the Chinese authorities to showcase the arrival of China on the global scene as a financial, economic and political superpower. As indeed it is.

IT IS TIME TO DUMP THE WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT’S DINNER: Bush Takes Last Bow

A DAY IN ALMATY

On my last day in Kazakhstan, I visited the State Museum to get a history lesson the country that is now the 9th largest in the world. (The population is just under 15 million.)

I was reminded about its role in World War 2–it offered refuge to many who fled there including a second cousin of mine who died there of hunger (Stalin ordered others there); a Kazakh General and regiment helped defeat the Nazis on the road to Moscow, Kazakhs were sent to and died at Chenobyl when the nuclear plant imploded 20 years ago this past weekend, not an anniversary our media wanted to make much of given the nuclear’s industry’s lobbying for more nuclear plants; Kazakhstan disarmed all of its nuclear weapons –something we have yet to do—and has a rocket launch site which sent up a EU rocket this past weekend with a technology to compete with the US GPS satellite…

I also learned that their banks were hit/implicated in the subprime loan calamity–their banks had to take out $4 billion in new loans….

I went to a shopping mall to see how prices are rising there–was shown a pair of women’s boots selling for $1500—(I was looking, not buying) so K has its share of income inequality too…

MC SEEKING INTERNS; Mediachannel is looking for interns–and I am looking for some computer savvy person to help bring me into the current age.

Contact dissector@mediachannel.org