“The most important chart about the American economy you'll see this year”

Bard College and Levy Institute economist
Pavlina Tcherneva

I was doing my usual perusal of news and commentary throughout the blogosphere, earlier on Thursday, and I came across this quite stunning chart (see below) from Bard College and Levy Institute economist Pavlina Tcherneva. She’ll be discussing her graphics (republished throughout the blogosphere over the past 36+ hours, along with commentary by folks such as Ryan Cooper, Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, Justin Wolfers, and a slew of other well-known economists, bloggers and journalists) in a presentation at the 12th International Post-Keynesian Conference at the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC), Saturday. However, Tcherneva’s work is already trending on Twitter, as you read this.

Here’s Matt Yglesias with his take on the most widely-mentioned of Tcherneva’s graphics--which are based upon statistics from French economist Thomas Piketty’s bestseller, “Capital In The 21st Century”--headlined, “The most important chart about the American economy you'll see this year,” over at Vox.com…

Pavlina Tcherneva's chart showing the distribution of income gains during periods of economic expansion is burning up the economics internet over the past 24 hours and for good reason. The trend it depicts is shocking:  READ MORE

If the GOP has thoroughly accomplished one thing in the past 6 years, it's this

Thus we see things like this (this particular image
 has been shared by almost 200K people, but there
are many other variants around the net):

In six years of professional "No-ing," the GOP has accomplished very little. They've shut down the government, accused the president of trying to destroy the country, cooked up every sort of conspiracy theory you can imagine, attacked women, gays and minorities...but that really seems more like "activity" than something accomplished: petulant disagreeableness, throwing a wrench in the workings of the country because they're not in charge, and tearing down their scapegoats du jour.

But looking back at all Republicans have done, they seem to have achieved one goal really well: convince Americans making just enough that if only those with not enough had less, they'd be doing much better. Put another way, they've trained a certain segment of the population to kick downwards. Instead of looking at a system that makes it difficult to survive, instead of looking at the portion of the population that keeps getting richer and richer, instead of looking at how many hundreds and even thousands of times those above them make than everyone else...they look at the people just below them, getting poorer and poorer. Republicans have instilled such a level of contempt in people for unskilled laborers and the poor, that they do the work of justifying paying them less than enough to survive for the party.

Bear in mind, we're not talking about people who don't work; we're not talking about people who earn a lousy living, but a living. We're talking about people who work hard, and do not earn enough for the basic necessities. And as far as Republicans are concerned, this is good enough: the unskilled laborer's comfort, standard-of-life, independence, self-respect, health and ultimately life are worthy of only disdain. He is a failure by virtue of being unskilled, and as such deserves contempt. A cheap Big Mac is more important than the person making it being able to afford to pay his rent and put food on the table after working 40 hours a week.  READ MORE

Absolutely unimaginable this could happen in America

This news report out of New Mexico is so disturbing, it's hard to imagine this could happen in America. Talk about an unreasonable search:

The incident began January 2, 2013 after David Eckert finished shopping at the Wal-Mart in Deming.  According to a federal lawsuit, Eckert didn't make a complete stop at a stop sign coming out of the parking lot and was immediately stopped by law enforcement.       Eckert's attorney, Shannon Kennedy, said in an interview with KOB that after law enforcement asked him to step out of the vehicle, he appeared to be clenching his buttocks.  Law enforcement thought that was probable cause to suspect that Eckert was hiding narcotics in his anal cavity.  While officers detained Eckert, they secured a search warrant from a judge that allowed for an anal cavity search.

Initially the doctor on duty refused the search, citing it as "unethical." Unfortunately, after several hours, hospital personnel relented and did the search. Here's what happened to David Eckert at that hospital:

READ MORE AND THERE'S VIDEO

"The pitchforks ARE coming" - A billionaire warns his fellow Oligarchs what is coming down the pipe

Multi-millionaire Nick Hanauer is no dummy. He sees the writing on the wall.
I'd strongly suggest you read this entire piece titled "The pitchforks are coming . . . for us Plutocrats"

And what do I see in our future now? I see pitchforks.

At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.

But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.

And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/...

  I remember hearing a phrase during Occupy, "If you won't let us dream we won't let you sleep". What happens when real opportunity for everyone below $100k evaporates entirely? What happens when people can't find decent paying jobs that they can afford to live on? What happens when people have had enough?

   I don't want things to get that bad. I have often tried my best to get out in front of the problem before it gets worse. I don't have the resources or clout to be heard, my lack of money as speech prevents that, but Nick Hanauer does, and he is spelling it out for his uber-rich compatriots, cut the shit out before you unleash all hell on yourselves.  READ MORE

Black Woman Poses As White Woman - Suddenly Job Offers Come Tumbling In (Video)

You too can try it,  also do it for apartment hunting as well.  Get a friend to help if
you can't work the voice over.  FROM THE SITE

WW2: Fuelling the Fire

Here's a WWII video that "touches" very briefly on Black soldiers working as quartermasters.
They don't go into it,  but some people try to minimize their contribution to the war effort by
claiming these jobs were safe.  They were not safe,  these Blacks face incredible dangers,
with subs sinking ships at sea,  to air attacks on their convoys trying to resupply the front lines,
both in the Pacific and Europe.  Worse yet is the fact that,  Blacks who had signed up to fight the war,  wound up in the quartermaster units because of discrimination that kept them,  largely off the front lines,  until at some point that was changed.  

The Big Picture: Fight for $15 with Robert Reich

*Part of "The Big Picture: 10 Ideas To Save The Economy" by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and MoveOn.org.

Right now, there are adult breadwinners who work full-time, or more than full-time, and still live in poverty. If the minimum wage in 1968 had simply kept up with inflation, it would be more than $10 today. If it also kept up with the added productivity of American workers since then, it would be more than $21 an hour. A decent society ensures that all workers get a decent wage. It's the least we can do. And a $15 wage is the place to start.  FROM THE SITE