What is a corporation? Here is a special that examines the history of corporations and what they are now. Is a corporation a person? There are those that would say "yes", because the rights of a person and a corporation can have so many similarities. Here is an amazing documentary worth a look. ...
Looks like the World's tallest building structure is now open. At over 2000 ft tall, you can see an amazing view of Tokyo. It is also supposed to be earthquake resistant, though not so sure it would be fun to be among the first test group. Anyways, have a look at this amazing structure sure to attract many tourists. ...
When a commercial interest is providing educational material, what guarantee is there that the material will not be manipulated for the purpose of profit? Wikipedia has maintained a great reputation for providing knowledge and having clear rules for debating facts and guarding against commecial interferance. There will always be disagreements among people, but a different element is introduced when a commercial enterprise becomes the provider. The new Google Knowledge Graph is clearly a threat to wikipedia. Starting first with basic facts, Google could become the "go to" place for information ahead of wikipedia. Will this "knowledge" then be distorted with ads? Often right now telling the difference between and ad and an organic link on Google. Do we want a corporation becoming the leading source for...
Both Bush and Obama faced job losses during their first terms. Right now, more jobs have been added to private sector payrolls in Obama's first term than Bush, and there are more private sector jobs now than when Obama got into office. The main remaining difference is public sector (government) jobs increased significantly under Bush, but decreased significantly under Obama. Take a look at the charts below. Then feel free to leave comments. Here is the Private Sector jobs comparison: And here is the Public Sector jobs comparison: ...
When taxes were higher in the 50's and 60's, we built the interstate highway system, invented the internet, sent rockets into orbit and a man to the moon, built schools that were the envy of the world, and so much more. As a country we chose to invest in these things, and it made people wealthy. Those wealthy people understood that is was through our investment that they were able to reach great heights, and were more than happy to pay their fair share. Then we got this idea of trickle down economics which has become an utter failure. The cuts did provide short term stimulus, but as investment in research and development declined, deficits increased and people got rich from cronyism rather than innovation. That is...
Regardless of whether you are left, right, center, liberal, conservative, progressive, socialist, or libertarian, what we lack right now as a country is something we can all rally together about. Politics can be so frustrating to everyone to the point people just don't want to talk about it. One of the main reasons for this is our country is split more than ever. But what if there was an issue that we could all agree on? I think there is... We need to send a clear message that our democracy is not for sale. There is a lot of money that wants to make sure the American people never come together on an issue like this. There are lobbyists who make a lot of money making sure we...
If we are going to make sense of the current state of world economic affairs, we must first answer the difficult question of why debt keeps increasing. More and more debt is being accumulated and right now we are in a place where such debt would take decades to repay. Let's go over some reasons: 1. Because of past mistakes we are paying off old loans with new loans. All over the world there is an increasing amount of revolving credit that is not paid off, similar to how a consumer allows credit card balances to remain elevated, only to find they cannot keep up with the payments, so they go get another credit card. However, in the case of consumers credit is not available like...
No country has ever been purely capitalist. There is always an element of socialism as governments provide services that have been collectively financed like national security. Right now, we are experimenting with seeing how much we can do without governance. For example, much more of the military is privatized now. We are working with the theory that government stands in the way of capitalism. Hopefully soon we will move on to a new phase where we realize capitalism unchecked will seek to overthrow or weaken governments. Then we can begin to build a framework that describes the checks and balances needed for governance. I will add that a government "for the people and by the people" must surely mean that inequality is not left unchecked. ...
Watch this as it is a great explanation of what happened in the financial crisis, and more importantly, it helps us to understand what is continuing to happen now. Inside Job, Narrated by Matt Damon (Full Length HD) from jwrock on Vimeo. ...
One of the Republican talking points over the last year has been that the economy can't get moving again due to "uncertainty". And they are right, except that the uncertainty is probably not the result of government regulation or taxing the rich. Instead the uncertainty has a lot more to do with people transferring their money to shorter term investments amid record low interest rates. With the difference between investing in a CD and a checking account often being less than 1 percent, billions of dollars have been transferred from CDs to checking and savings accounts. With a lack of long term investment, that creates a lot of uncertainty.And of course we have Europe. Even if they somehow do manage to prevent the "contagion" where...