It's too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering. [...more]
The Obama Administration believes that the best way to repair our financial system after the Great Crash of 2008 is to improve the performance and oversight of global banks and investment firms. A growing number of Americans, however, would prefer to pull their retirement savings out of these high financial fliers altogether. They would rather invest in their communities. [...more]
More than six decades of human rights failures by governments have been exacerbated by the world economic crisis, which brought the problems of poverty and inequality to the fore, according to Amnesty International’s Secretary General. [...more]
Author and democracy activist Frances Moore Lappé says we already know how to solve the pressing issues of our time, such as climate change and world hunger. But she says our own pre-conceived ideas about how things should work – our mental map of the world – is actually preventing us from taking action. [...more]
We have carefully watched the new President’s first 100 days and we are appalled. We find that Obama has continued Bush policies affecting the abuses of Wall Street banks, and allowing Wall Street wrongdoers to manage our economy and the “recovery.” [...more]
“The pursuit of happiness.” It’s so American that it’s in our Declaration of Independence, where it’s listed alongside life and liberty as an inalienable right. But how successful have we been in that pursuit? And now that the global finance system is imploding, how likely is it that we’ll be happy in the coming months and years? [...more]
Jared Diamond is no doom-and-gloomer; he's a Pulitzer Prize winning author of thoughtful, carefully researched books about the rise and fall of societies. Diamond is best known for Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, both of which are among my top-recommended books of all time. [...more]
The incomes of American families with children have become increasingly stratified since 1975, with income inequality increasing two-thirds during a 30-year period, according to findings published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed science journal American Sociological Review. [...more]
The combined impact of low economic growth and decreased investments in agriculture could cause major increases in malnutrition in developing countries, according to new analysis by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The result could be 16 million more undernourished children in 2020. [...more]
The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study. [...more]
