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Why Let the Rich Hoard All the Toys? (via azspot)
This this this this this this this!!!
(via ayse)
)June Arunga is the founder and CEO of Open Quest Media LLC. In 2010, she was named in the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company. She is a founding partner, and for a period was Director of Corporate Affairs, of Black Star Line SA: a technology solution provider in the fields of cell-phone based payments and money transfer with a strong focus on the African market.
Ms. Arunga has featured in four documentaries exploring trade, migration, property and wealth in Africa, as well as participating in numerous television and radio programs on a variety of related public policy issues. She serves on the advisory committee of University of the People is an advisory board member of Moving Picture Institute, Global Envision, and is a fellow at the International Policy Network (London, UK) and Istituto Bruno Leoni (Milan, Italy). The common thread running through these efforts is her linking of the need for a robust protection of property rights in Africa to ensure justice and African empowerment. She is a Law school graduate from the University of Buckingham
On May 10, 2008, June Arunga hosted Pangea Day, a global multimedia event that was beamed from Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro to an audience of millions around the world in seven languages. The 4-hour program of films, music and speakers included Queen Noor of Jordan, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Dave Stewart, Gilberto Gil, and Iranian rock phenoms Hypernova.
In the movie ‘The Devil’s Footpath’ June Arunga travels down through Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town, on a 5000-mile, six-week, soul-searching journey through six conflict-riven countries that span the continent, and comprise ‘The Devil’s Footpath’.
This 60-minute documentary was produced and aired by BBC World in 2005. It features June Arunga and former Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings undertaking to answer the question of who is to blame for Africa’s many economic and political troubles. The program explores that dichotomous question from the vantage point of former Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings and Kenyan law student June Arunga, who undertake a voyage of discovery through Ghana, Tanzania, and Rwanda. Visiting a struggling fishing village, a tribal hunting ground, an AIDS treatment center, an African-owned gold mine, and an eerily preserved site of genocidal slaughter, the program eloquently documents Rawlings’ and Arunga’s interaction with the socioeconomic dilemmas and everyday realities of African life.
Beliefs About Inequality by Kluegel & Smith
I’m not even sure how to respond to this.
(via sociolab)
BOOTSTRAPS Y’ALL!
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Gender and Austerity: The Feminization of Economic Crisis Response
Austerity measures are incredibly common in the news and in attempts to control currently faltering economies and are under a lot of fire because of their class-based impacts, but where does austerity have gendered impacts? First off, austerity measures are policy packages aimed at reducing deficits by making large cuts to spending (particularly social spending), benefits (like welfare) and public services (like transportation). Public sector layoffs and tax hikes can also be part of the deal. Here’s a breakdown by the Guardian of what kinds of things faced austerity cuts across Europe in 2010 (from public sector pay cuts in Ireland to closing hospitals and schools in Latvia).
A brief list of some of the ways in which austerity’s impacts have a serious gender component:
- When class is an issue, so is gender. This is because globally women are more likely to live in poverty, have lower incomes, and are less likely to own private property (only 2% of the world’s private property is under female ownership) and private wealth. Austerity measures often lead to the ongoing “feminization” of poverty, driving women further into economic inequality. Women make less than their male counterparts and therefore as a group suffer more from the across the board pay cuts and freezes typical of austerity measures.
- Since the public sector and its employees bear the weight of austerity, it’s worth noting that women are the majority of public sector workers in both Britain and in the United States. In the US, they have made up an even greater percentage of the public sector workers who have lost their jobs and women have been slower to gain jobs than men, furthering gendered economic inequality.
- Women also rely more on welfare programs, which are prime candidates for the austerity guillotines. As are important programs for parental leave and child and elder care - all benefits of which women typically make greater use.
- Education price hikes in the UK have had gendered consequences on university attendance: male school attendance dropped 7 percent in 2012, but female school attendance dropped even more at -10.5%.
- A number of cities across the United States are selectively shutting off street lights at night to cut down their electricity bills. A simple enough solution, but one done with little regard to the notion that crime, particularly rape and sexual assault, is known to rise in poorly lit areas. Shutting off the lights at night makes cities more dangerous places, particularly for women who might be returning home from late shifts.
Recommended reading:
Photo: A woman shouts during an October anti-austerity rally in Athens. Credit: Yiorgos Karahalis/Reuters
- Macleavy, Julie. “A ‘new politics’ of austerity, workfare and gender? The UK coalition government’s welfare reform proposals.“ Cambridge JOurnal of Regions, Economy and Society. November 2011.
- Michalitsch, Gabriele. “Austerity Promotes Gender Hierarchies.” Social Europe Journal. 22 Feb. 2011.
A former Chase banker spoke with The New York Times’ Nick Kristof about how Chase pushed subprime loans to minorities for big commissions. The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
From Kristof’s article:
One memory particularly troubles [James] Theckston. He says that some account executives earned a commission seven times higher from subprime loans, rather than prime mortgages. So they looked for less savvy borrowers — those with less education, without previous mortgage experience, or without fluent English — and nudged them toward subprime loans.
These less savvy borrowers were disproportionately blacks and Latinos, he said, and they ended up paying a higher rate so that they were more likely to lose their homes. Senior executives seemed aware of this racial mismatch, he recalled, and frantically tried to cover it up.
Just how disproportionately? The people receiving these bad loads were 16% white, 33% Latino, and 50% Black. According to Think Progress:
These disparities help explain why, according to a new report from the Center on Responsible Lending, Latinos and blacks are twice as likely to have been impacted by the housing crisis as whites. In fact, “approximately one quarter of all Latino and African-American borrowers have lost their home to foreclosure or are seriously delinquent, compared to just under 12 percent for white borrowers.”
According to the Republicans and weak Democrats, we need to deregulate the banks anyway because these are the “professionals” Alan Greenspan referred to that are so brilliant, only they can trick minorities into taking bad loans so they can make money and we need to let them so they can get the economy back up and running again!
These people have no morals. Yeah, we need to deregulate an industry where its employees are throwing minorities out onto the street so they can make a quick buck.
tell me one more time that the economy tanking hit everyone the same way. tell me one more time it’s not about race. tell me one more time we’re making it about race.
“A group of two dozen millionaires stormed Capitol Hill on Wednesday, demanding lawmakers raise their taxes.
‘We want to pay more taxes,’ said California millionaire Doug Edwards, a former marketing director for Google. ’If you’re fortunate, and you make more than a million dollars a year, you ought to pay more taxes.’
The millionaires want Congress to allow the tax cuts passed during the George W. Bush administration to expire. Some want higher taxes generally.
They planned to push lawmakers to reject any deal that the so-called super committee delivers that doesn’t raise taxes on millionaires. The 12-lawmaker panel has until next Wednesday to agree on $1.2 trillion in savings over the next 10 years or risk automatic spending cuts.”
Many developing nations are in debt and poverty partly due to the policies of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Their programs have been heavily criticized for many years for resulting in poverty. In addition, for developing or third world countries, there has been an increased dependency on the richer nations. This is despite the IMF and World Bank’s claim that they will reduce poverty.
Following an ideology known as neoliberalism, and spearheaded by these and other institutions known as the “Washington Consensus” (for being based in Washington D.C.), Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) have been imposed to ensure debt repayment and economic restructuring. But the way it has happened has required poor countries to reduce spending on things like health, education and development, while debt repayment and other economic policies have been made the priority. In effect, the IMF and World Bank have demanded that poor nations lower the standard of living of their people.
Structural Adjustment—a Major Cause of Poverty
(via janedoe225)
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