Ben Henry, Jill Reese and Angel Torres: "Wasted Wealth"

Curious what the foreclosure crisis cost the US population as a whole, when broken down by race?  

Amongst those who still think the US is a "postracial" nation - one where the color of one's skin amounts to little or nothing, in material terms? 

Then think again: communities of color lost nearly twice the amount that white communities lost since the foreclosure crisis began. 

View the full "Wasted Wealth Report".

A brief excerpt of the findings: 

"$192.6 billion in lost wealth for everyday people. If nothing is done to deal with the foreclosure crisis, another $221 billion will be gone. But with the correct policies in place, we could put $101.7 billion back in our pockets...

• In 2012 the foreclosure crisis continued to destroy wealth on a large scale with $192.6 billion in wealth lost across the U.S. 
• The most devastating impacts of the ongoing foreclosure crisis were in majority communities of color and racially diverse communities 
• More than 13 million homes are still underwater and at risk of foreclosure and Americans stand to lose nearly $221 billion in additional wealth from these mortgages alone. 
• A strategy of principal reduction would save money for homeowners, boost the economy to the tune of $101.7 billion, and create 1.5 million jobs

Big banks’ unscrupulous lending practices caused a mass loss of homeownership and wealth in communities across the country. Communities of color, who were specifically targeted with sub-prime and high-risk loans have fared the worst. The report shows how ZIP codes with majority people of color populations saw 16 foreclosures per thousand households with an average of $2,200 in lost wealth per household."

(Reblogged from Alliance for a Just Society)

Gregory Paul: "The Gun Industry Cannot Thrive Without Lots of Media & Real World Violence"

Natural Born Killers (still)

"And here’s another little dirty truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows violence to it’s own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here’s one: it’s called Kindergarten Killers… Then there’s the blood-soaked slasher films like American Psycho and Natural Born Killers that are aired like propaganda loops on Splatterdays and every day, and a thousand music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life, and then they have the nerve to call it “entertainment.” But is that really what it is? Isn’t fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography? In the race to the bottom media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an even more toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes – every minute of every day of every month of every year. A child growing up in America witnesses 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches a ripe old age of 18. And through it all, too many in our national media… their corporations and their stockholders… act as silent enablers, if not complicit co-conspirators. Rather than face their own moral failings, the media demonize lawful gun owners, and amplify their cries for more laws and fill the national debate with misinformation and dishonest thinking that only delays meaningful action and all but guarantee that the next atrocity is only a news cycle away."

                                                                    

- NRA CEO & Executive Vice President, Wayne LaPierre

His pretend outrage was and is a lie. With maximum cynicism.

The reality is that the gun industry that the NRA and other gun fanatic organizations rep, cannot prosper without lots of violence in the media, violence fictional and all too real. Violence not just by the gun. but especially by the gun. They love and need the stuff, the more the better, and they help make it.

As soon as LaPierre blamed the violence packed entertainment industry for being the primary cause of high rates of homicide a few days after Sandy Hook, those who favored serious gun safety noted problems with the don’t-blame-guns-and-their-manufacturers-and-law-abiding-owners-for-this contention.

First, all other prosperous countries achieve low levels of homicide by limiting the distribution and utilization of firearms, not by controlling media violence which is protected by free speech rights, and is highly popular over there too. So the argument that suppressing media violence is the key solution to firearms mayhem is as spurious as it violates individual liberty and hinders commerce involving speech.

Tom Kostigen: "Harvard Professor Trashes Keynes For Homosexuality"

Niall Ferguson

Harvard Professor and author Niall Ferguson says John Maynard Keynes' economic philosophy was flawed and he didn't care about future generations because he was gay and didn't have children.

Speaking at the Tenth Annual Altegris Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., in front of a group of more than 500 financial advisors and investors, Ferguson responded to a question about Keynes' famous philosophy of self-interest versus the economic philosophy of Edmund Burke, who believed there was a social contract among the living, as well as the dead. Ferguson asked the audience how many children Keynes had. He explained that Keynes had none because he was a homosexual and was married to a ballerina, with whom he likely talked of "poetry" rather than procreated. The audience went quiet at the remark. Some attendees later said they found the remarks offensive.

It gets worse.

Ferguson, who is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, and author of The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die, says it's only logical that Keynes would take this selfish worldview because he was an "effete" member of society. Apparently, in Ferguson's world, if you are gay or childless, you cannot care about future generations nor society.

This takes gay-bashing to new heights. It even perversely pins the full weight of the financial crisis on the gay community and the barren.