Sunday Reading

Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, February 3rd, 2013 - 5 comments
Categories: debt / deficit, economy, equality, interweb, poverty - Tags:

My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. Those stimulating links you wanted to share, but just didn’t fit in anywhere (no linkwhoring).  This week: Economics, inequality, privacy-destroying drones and citizen responsibilities.

Quite a few economy stories this week: Aditya Chakrabortty see the debate in Britain as farcical – between the Tories who propose austerity and Labour who propose stimulus and a return to 2005, when hidden behind the boom was rapidly increasing inequality, and unsustainable levels of borrowing.  Austerity may not work, but the system does need reforming.

Oxfam proposed to Davos that a new deal on inequality be struck – with the 100 wealthiest people earning enough last year to end extreme poverty worldwide forever 4 times over…

On the Guardian they look at how the Tories are painting the poor as the new Elephant Man – a freak show caused by one’s own moral wrongs…  They also look at Accountancy’s Big Four: getting millions from the taxpayer as they dream up ever greater tax avoidance schemes to deny the government their due…

On the Atlantic they look at why the government never needs to pay back debt… although GDP growth may be required, which whether the planet can sustain is another question…

Also on the Atlantic, but not on the economy they look at DARPA’s new 1.8 Gigapixel drone, that can see you waving at 15,000 feet… David Beatson at Pundit points out the lack of laws as our privacy disappears from such government surveillance.

On the BBC they look at the new citizenship manual for the UK – is it your duty to pick up litter? The manual sets out responsibilities of fair play and look after common space, as well as the rights expected to be provided by the state.

And to finish with a cartoon – On MotherJones they welcome you to the Permanent Campaign – keep the money flowing…

5 comments on “Sunday Reading ”

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  1. Rogue Trooper 1
    3 February 2013 at 1:32 pm

    [Bunji: 1 week ban for spamming threads with unintelligible nonsense – have sent a lot of your comments to spam, could have sent more. Expect permanent ban if you continue]

  2. joe90 2
    3 February 2013 at 5:41 pm

    Servitude, forgotten and denied, the problem with student debt and Liz Carmouche.

  3. NoseViper (The Nose knows) 3
    3 February 2013 at 10:41 pm

    I think this needs to arise from the mass of detail about black re-enslavement after the Civil War in the USA. This comes from the keyword Servitude in joe 90’s item at No.2.

    In the 1880s, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida passed laws making it a crime for a black man to change employers without permission. It was a crime for a black man to speak loudly in the company of a white woman, a crime to have a gun in his pocket, and a crime to sell the proceeds of his farm to anyone other than the man he rented land from. It was a crime to walk beside a railroad line, a crime to fail to yield a sidewalk to white people, a crime to sit among whites on a train, and it was most certainly a crime to engage in sexual relations with—or, God forbid, to show true love and affection for—a white girl.

    And that’s how it happened. Within a few years of the passage of these laws, tens of thousands of black men and boys, and a smaller number of black women, were being arrested and sold into forced labor camps by state officials, local judges, and sheriffs.In the 1880s, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida passed laws making it a crime for a black man to change employers without permission. It was a crime for a black man to speak loudly in the company of a white woman, a crime to have a gun in his pocket, and a crime to sell the proceeds of his farm to anyone other than the man he rented land from. It was a crime to walk beside a railroad line, a crime to fail to yield a sidewalk to white people, a crime to sit among whites on a train, and it was most certainly a crime to engage in sexual relations with—or, God forbid, to show true love and affection for—a white girl.

  4. NoseViper (The Nose knows) 4
    4 February 2013 at 1:54 pm

    A you tube song to join to the piece above about black people in southern USA from O brother where art thou?