Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

*Wealth Inequality in America [6:25]

*Glenn Greenwald to join media venture backed by eBay founder Omidyar
CNN.com | Laura Smith-Spark | 10/16/13

Pierre Omidyar, founder of online auction site eBay, said Wednesday he is teaming up with journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has led reporting on secret U.S. surveillance programs, to create a new online mass media venture.

Greenwald announced late Tuesday that he was quitting The Guardian for "a once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity" but said he was not ready to give more details.   Now Omidyar has confirmed to CNN's Christiane Amanpour that he is behind the new media venture, which includes Greenwald and others -- and that he will personally fund it. ... Read more

*Fast-Food Giants Make Billions While Their Workers Use Billions In Welfare Benefits
AlterNet | Steven Rosenfeld | 10/15/13

... "The median wage for these workers is $8.65 an hour," Jacobs said Tuesday. "Only 13 percent have health benefits through their employer. The combination of low wages, meager benefits and often part-time hours means that many of the families of fast-food workers must rely on taxpayer-funded safety net programs to make ends meet." ...

... The 10 biggest chains earned $7.44 billion in profits in 2012, National Employment Law Project (NELP) found. The 10 chains, with 2.25 million workers, account for "nearly 60 percent, or $3.8 billion, of the almost $7 billion in public costs associated with their low-wage, no-benefit business model," it said. These corporate-run franchises granted "more than $53 million in compensation to their highest-paid executives and an additional $7.7 billion in dividends and buybacks to shareholders."

The 10 largest fast-food chains are McDonald's, Yum Brands (Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC), Subway, Burger King, Wendy's, Dunkin' Donuts, Dairy Queen, Little Cesar's, Sonic, and Domino's. Read more

*The right's hidden victory: Ideologues win -- even if GOP loses!
Salon | David Sirota | 10/14/13

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll tells us what most of us already know: from an electoral perspective, the Republican Party's meticulously planned partial government shutdown has been a disaster. The poll results have -- quite predictably -- prompted much gloating and taunting in the Democratic Party's corner of the twittersphere and cable news universe. But lost in the red-versus-blue prognostication are two concrete -- and lamentable -- facts.

First and foremost, the trends documented by the new survey are hardly a huge problem for most of the Republican Party's powerbrokers. That's because the GOP is now a largely regional party that has effectively gerrymandered itself a separate country - one that is politically insulated from national public opinion.

Second, and as important, regardless of the partisan implications of the shutdown, the government shutdown and budget standoff are huge ideological victories for the conservative movement, because they have so successfully yanked the political discourse even farther to the right. ... Read more

"They're fools -- and work for fools!": Grayson on GOP staffers (and much more)
Salom | Josh Eidelson | 10/16/13

... In an interview late Tuesday afternoon, Grayson accused Republicans of pushing "health suppression" and measures "torturing" congressional staffers, and repeatedly "dragging America into heavy traffic." The Florida Democrat also defended the effectiveness of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, predicted the demise of any "Great Betrayal" targeting Social Security or Medicare, and said voters will soon send the Republican Party "to the ash heap of history." A condensed version of our conversation follows. ... Read more

A Simple Reform Could Save America From Wall Street and Boost the Economy: What's Washington Waiting For?
AlterNet | Lynn Stuart Parramore |10/14/13

It's a simple tweak that would reign in an out-of-control financial sector, stimulate jobs, generate billions of revenue, and possibly prevent another heart-wrenching crisis. Nobel Prize-winning economists like Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman want it. Billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates want it. Polls show the majority of Americans want it. Even the Pope wants it.

We're talking about a financial transaction tax (FTT) -- a tiny tax of, say, less than half a percent: maybe 3 cents per $100 -- on Wall Street trading. It's simple, more than fair, widely supported by the public, and long overdue.

Over the last weeks, Americans have been kept from going to work and the fragile economy has been strained as members of Congress wrangled over another phony budget crisis, even as the deficit is shrinking. Meanwhile, Wall Street has been raking in billions of dollars in profits from financial transactions. And they pay not a penny in taxes on most of them. ... Read more

Would GMO Labeling Jack Up Food Prices?
magazine | author | date

The push to require labels for genetically modified food, which flared up in California before drowning under a flood of industry cash last year, is now underway in Washington state. Predictably, agrichemical and organic interests are pouring money into, respectively, defeating and supporting a ballot initiative called I-522, which would require foods containing GMO ingredients to bear labels. Just as predictably, the agribusiness interests are garnering much more money to kill the effort than their organic peers are in supporting it--outspending them $17.1 million to $4.6 million ... Read more