Two-tiers: economy, not trains

Two-tier workforce condemning millions to low-paid jobs, study warns | Money | The Observer: "The study by the independent Resolution Foundation, entitled Low Pay Britain 2013, will highlight fears that the return to growth and higher employment is masking an ever-wider divide between people in low-skilled work and those in an upper tier of more stable, skilled, managerial and professional jobs.

The report comes as the three main political parties wrestle with ways to address the gulf between declining real wages for millions and the increasing cost of living, as they plan for the 2015 general election.

Labour will put its support for a "living wage" – higher than the minimum wage and judged as necessary for a decent standard of living – at the heart of its next election manifesto, citing it as one measure to help ease what it calls a crisis of living standards.

Low pay (defined as two-thirds of gross hourly median pay, £7.44 an hour in 2012) is becoming more prevalent among the young, the report says, and the trend seems to be continuing even as the economy improves.

Today more than one in three people aged 16-30 (2.4 million) are low-paid, compared with one in five in the 1970s (1.7 million at that time)."

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Inequality in Germany- beneath the surface

Low-paid Germans mind rich-poor gap as elections approach | World news | theguardian.com: Going to the cinema or her local outdoor pool are treats Christa Rein can rarely afford. "I can't ever buy things like salmon or a bottle of sparkling wine," says the 55-year-old. "The fridge can't break, as I wouldn't be able to afford to replace it."

It sounds like another story from Europe's desolate southern rim, squeezed by three years of austerity and recession. So it might come as a surprise to find that Rein's financial hardship comes from the centre of Europe's economic powerhouse – and she is by no means alone.

As Angela Merkel leads her centre-right party towards crucial electionson a promise of economic recovery, sound financial stewardship and near-record employment, there is mounting dissent from a group which complains it is not sharing in Germany's much-vaunted wealth. Radical reform of the jobs market launched a decade ago has left around a quarter of the workforce in low-paid, insecure and part-time employment, belying the impression of an economic miracle with a flawless jobs success story that has become the envy of the world.

Rein's take-home pay, for which she works eight-hour days for a cleaning contractor, is €1,079 (£922) a month. "I've been doing this for 30 years, and you're seeing all the time the way the workload has increased as the pay has decreased," she says. "Fewer of us are expected to clean more square metres in ever less time. We get 15 to 20 seconds to clean a toilet – that's not a toilet I'd like to sit on."

Meanwhile, the company employing her is earning more money, she says, "but it's not being passed on to us women".

Rein, who lives in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, argues the situation reflects that of the wider economy and will affect how she votes in the elections on 22 September, which Merkel is widely tipped to win. "It's high time ordinary German workers got to participate in the success of the economy."

A survey for the European Central Bank in April showed that Germany's median net household worth was much less than that of Greece. In terms of GDP per head, Germany is faring reasonably well. But, contrary perhaps to popular belief, it is only just above the eurozone average. According to the Institute for Employment Research, the research arm of the federal employment agency, 25% of all German workers earn less than €9.54 (£8.15) per hour. In Europe only Lithuania has a higher percentage of low earners – those earning less than two-thirds of the national average wage.

The situation has fuelled a growing poor-rich divide as well as increasing resentment among those who see German prosperity being built on the exploitation of the downtrodden.

Daniel Kerekes, a 26-year-old student of history and religion at Ruhr University Bochum, is among the one-fifth of Germans dependent on a so-called mini-job. "I work at a supermarket for around 16 hours a week for €7.50 an hour on a very restrictive contract. Shifts aren't guaranteed, and if I don't do everything my boss asks of me he can cut my shifts, or give me the worst ones."

With his earnings – in addition to a small amount working in digital journalism – he struggles to pay his bills, including the €280 monthly rent for his 36 sq m (387 sq) flat plus obligatory health and liability insurance payments.

Sometimes referred to as McJobs, mini-jobs are a form of marginal employment that allows workers to earn up to €450 a month tax-free. Introduced in 2003 by the then Social Democratic chancellor Gerhard Schröder as part of a wide-ranging labour market reform when Germany's economic doldrums earned it the title "sick man of Europe", they keep down labour costs and offer greater flexibility to employers.

But critics say they have helped to expand the disparity between rich and poor and undermined many of the values that have traditionally underpinned Germany's social-market economy. Not only do they give employers no reason to turn them into proper jobs, but mini-jobs offer workers little incentive to work more because then they would have to pay tax. As a result, many remain trapped in marginal work and detached from Germany's much-hailed jobwunder, or jobs miracle.

Bochum, a poor city in the Ruhr valley, Germany's former industrialised heartland, is teeming with mini-jobs, according to Kerekes. "The woman living below me works on a mini-job basis in a discount supermarket, my girlfriend mini-jobs as a waitress. Employers enjoy the fact that they can get you for just €450 a month."

Despite government claims that mini-jobs are on the wane – they fell by 0.6% last year – thanks to the success of Merkel's labour market policies, the opposition is quick to disagree. "These are questionable figures," said Anette Krame, labour market expert for the Social Democrats (SPD). "I don't think a 0.6% drop is reason to celebrate and neither do I recognise a trend in that direction." She cites the glaring omission in the statistics of recently introduced work contracts, which have been held responsible for wage-dumping in several sectors, particularly the food industry.

Kerekes would like to see a new government abolish mini-jobs and introduce a minimum wage instead. "Mini-jobs are destroying ordinary workplaces, and for most people they do not provide a living wage. It can't be that even in the US most states have a minimum wage, while Germany, one of the world's richest countries, has none."

He is encouraged that the SPD has pledged to introduce a minimum wage – of €8.50 – but believes it is not going far enough – anyway, they introduced the mini-jobs in the first place.

Statistics from Germany's employment agency show that at the top end German workers' wages rose by 25% between 1999 and 2010 while salaries in the lowest fifth rose by a mere 7.5%, when inflation was 18%. That has led to what economists refer to as internal devaluation, significantly reducing their purchasing power and doing damage to the German economy.

Kerekes says his vote next month will go to the party he believes is doing most to tackle the McJob phenomenon. "I will vote for the Left party," he says, referring to the grouping of former East German communists and SPD rebels. "They're the only ones pushing for a €10 minimum wage, the least you should be expected to be able to live on."

Fast Food, Slim wages

US fast-food workers stage nationwide strike in protest at low wages | World news | The Guardian: "US workers in the fast-food industry staged a one-day strike in dozens of cities on Thursday, calling for better wages and the right to unionise.

The strike was the largest so far in a 10-month campaign that began with 200 workers striking in New York last November, and which spread to Detroit and Chicago in July.

Organisers said the strikes, scheduled a day after the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and a few days before Labor Day, were being held in 60 cities and had spread to the south – including Tampa and Raleigh – and the west, with workers in Los Angeles and San Francisco taking part.

In New York, the Democratic mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn took part in a march with several hundred workers and protesters before entering a McDonald's near the Empire State Building on Thursday morning.

Local organisers in Detroit said at least three stores had been shut down because of the strikes. One was a Checkers restaurant; the other two were Church's chicken restaurants."

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E-Cubed= B-cubed (Executive Egregious Excess = Bailed Out, Booted and Busted)

Executive Excess 2013: Bailed Out, Booted, and Busted - IPS: "The Bailed Out: CEOs whose firms either ceased to exist or received taxpayer bailouts after the 2008 financial crash held 22 percent of the slots in our sample. Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers enjoyed one of Corporate America’s largest 25 paychecks for eight consecutive years — until his firm went belly up in 2008.
The Booted: Not counting those on the bailed out list, another 8 percent of our sample was made up of CEOs who wound up losing their jobs involuntarily. Despite their poor performance, the “booted” CEOs jumped out the escape hatch with golden parachutes valued at $48 million on average.
 The Busted: CEOs who led corporations that ended up paying significant fraud-related fines or settlements comprised an additional 8 percent of the sample. One CEO had to pay a penalty out of his own pocket for stock option back-dating. The other companies shelled out payments that totaled over $100 million per firm."

Broccoli: a green signal for less pain

Broccoli may trump your genetics when it comes to your chances of getting arthritis - Science News | Daily News from The Irish Times - Wed, Aug 28, 2013: "The laboratory study shows that the substance, sulforaphane, slows down cartilage destruction associated with painful and often debilitating osteoarthritis. Mice fed a diet rich in the compound had significantly less cartilage damage.
Sulforaphane is released when eating cruciferous vegetables such as Brussels sprouts and cabbage, but particularly broccoli. While earlier studies involving the superfood focused on cancer, this is the first major study into its effects on joint health.

Inflammation
The University of East Anglia study, which also examined human cartilage cells, discovered that sulforaphane blocks the enzymes that cause joint destruction by stopping a key molecule known to cause inflammation."

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French Fry Burger

French Fry Burger? See who's selling fries on a burger for a buck. - CSMonitor.com: "The "French Fry Burger" will start selling for $1 on September 1, as Burger King tries to fend off McDonald's aggressive push for its Dollar Menu.


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The Miami-based chain says the burger will be available through the fall, as it looks to drum up sales and customer interest with cheap new concoctions...."

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Germany and privacy

Germany should lead on disarming our global surveillance system | Comment is free | theguardian.com: "But among the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In the last decade, Germany too has started using totalitarian methods. Many laws have been passed to ease surveillance – most of them while Angela Merkel was chancellor. Nearly one in every four of them were then scrapped by our highest court for being unconstitutional. Even the lax barriers of spy-friendly laws are regularly being ignored by public agencies. And still, we feel like a nation with the highest standards of privacy rights although, in fact, we have ceased to be one.

But the feeling and the high estimation of privacy is still vivid and this can now be used to reset the course, back to democracy, where we, the people, define checks and balances and the degree of transparency we want. It is no accident that the Pirate party has seats in four German state parliaments and realistic prospects to enter the national parliament in September. This young political force represents the digital society, fighting for transparent governments and citizen empowerment as well as for freedom rights and privacy."

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Instagram, down by Amazon

Amazon glitch hits Instagram and AirBnB | Technology | theguardian.com: "Several popular websites suffered outages or slowdowns on Sunday when Amazon's unit that runs web servers for other companies experienced problems.

Picture site Instagram and Twitter's Vine video-sharing application were among the sites slow or unavailable along with holidays site AirBnB.

Instagram sent a tweet saying it was aware some users were having trouble loading Instagram and that it was working to resolve the problem. Vine later sent a similar tweet.

AirBnB tweeted that it was one of several websites and apps that were temporarily down because of Amazon server problems.

Amazon Web Services provides companies with online storage and computing power. Its website reported several problems resolved on Sunday evening, with only minor issues remaining.

By late on Sunday, videos posted to Vine appeared to be working again while Instagram and AirBnB were functioning but slow."

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Guns N' Classrooms

Keep the guns out of my classroom | Ashley Lauren Samsa | Comment is free | theguardian.com: "If I were in Ohio, though, it's entirely possible that I could have been attending summer trainings on how to shoot guns on the run, how to shoot while navigating obstacles like narrow hallways and staircases, and how to anticipate the actions of a killer.

This training isn't just for police anymore. The Buckeye Firearms Association offered this class for teachers who wanted to learn how to effectively use a gun against an intruder to their school. The seminar drew over 1,400 applicants for 24 spots. It seems that teachers in Ohio and in the more than 30 other states which have proposed laws allowing teachers to carry firearms are taking National Rifle Association executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre's statement after the awful Newtown shooting to heart:"

The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

The sheer number of teachers applying for the Buckeye Firearms Association seminar belies the fact that, when nearly 11,000 teachers were surveyed nationwide a month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, 72.4% of teachers said that they would not bring a gun to school even if they could. Our nation is divided on this issue, especially after the brutal killing of 20 young children and 6 staff members in Newtown. Many believe teachers should be armed to protect the safety of the children, whether they want to or not. 

When did Balmer becomer her?

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire as company faces needed shake-up | Technology | The Guardian: ""That's why today's news is even more surprising after Ballmer achieved such a big change for Microsoft. If his or her successor doesn't like the 'One Microsoft' vision, he'll have to do another reorganization," noted TechCrunch."

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Social justice, Sweden's way

Our inability to teach basic values is at the heart of the storm over social media abuse - Social Affairs & News from Ireland & Abroad | The Irish Times - Sat, Aug 24, 2013: "In a recent case in Sweden, two teenage girls aged 16 and 17 set up a “slut-shaming” account on Instagram, asking people to nominate the biggest sluts in Gothenburg.
The site caused such anger that a near-riot ensued outside a school where one of the girls who set up the site was allegedly a student. The two girls were charged with aggravated defamation and found guilty. One was sentenced to juvenile detention, and the other got 45 hours’ community service. They were fined 570,000 krona (€65,500), to be divided among their 38 victims. In an interesting twist, the older girl’s mother was made responsible for half of the fine."

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Eugene Robinson: The GOP’s shutdown fantasy - The Washington Post

Eugene Robinson: The GOP’s shutdown fantasy - The Washington Post: "The make-believe crusade by publicity-hound Republicans to somehow stop Obamacare is one of the most cynical political exercises we’ve seen in many years. And that, my friends, is saying something.

Charlatans are peddling the fantasy that somehow they can prevent the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act from becoming what it already is: the law of the land. Congress passed it, President Obama signed it, the Supreme Court upheld it, many of its provisions are already in force, and others will soon take effect."

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Greece-ian formula

If Greece needs a third bailout, Europe had better find a formula that sticks | Business | The Guardian: "So, Greece will soon need a third bailout. German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble admitted as much on Tuesday – and was even prepared to say so during the pre-election period in Germany. One assumes Schäuble deemed it safe to dive into these politically contentious waters only because he also stuck to the party line that Athens would receive no more debt forgiveness.

What a shame. If a third bailout is required the time has come for the euro-powers to find a formula that sticks. A small loan package, to fill the hole already identified by the International Monetary Fund, would represent another dose of medicine that isn't working. The Greek economy, weighed down by austerity measures, would stumble along for a while – but a fourth package would loom sooner or later."

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Revealing Stories...

White House was given 'heads-up' over David Miranda detention in UK | World news | theguardian.com: "Josh Earnest, the principal deputy White House press secretary, said at the daily briefing: "There was a heads-up that was provided by the British government. This is something that we had an indication that was likely to occur but it is not something that we requested. It was something that was done specifically by the British law enforcement officials. This is an independent British law enforcement decision that was made."

Earnest had earlier said: "This is a decision that was made by the British government without the involvement – and not at the request – of the United States government. It is as simple as that."

The White House spokesman confirmed that Britain alerted the US authorities after Miranda's name appeared on a passenger manifest of a flight from Berlin to Heathrow on Sunday morning. "I think that is an accurate interpretation of what a heads-up is," Earnest said when asked if the tip was provided when Miranda's name appeared on the manifest."

'CIA admits role in 1953 Iranian coup | World news | The Guardian: ""The military coup that overthrew Mosaddeq and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of US foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government," reads a previously excised section of an internal CIA history titled The Battle for Iran.

The documents, published on the archive's website under freedom of information laws, describe in detail how the US – with British help – engineered the coup, codenamed TPAJAX by the CIA and Operation Boot by Britain's MI6.

Britain, and in particular Sir Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, regarded Mosaddeq as a serious threat to its strategic and economic interests after the Iranian leader nationalised the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, latterly known as BP. But the UK needed US support. The Eisenhower administration in Washington was easily persuaded.

British documents show how senior officials in the 1970s tried to stop Washington from releasing documents that would be "very embarrassing" to the UK."

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Utah and water

Northern Utah cities asked to cut water use by 50 percent | ksl.com: "BRIGHAM CITY — Residents in a number of northern Utah cities are being told to greatly reduce their secondary water usage or face some strict penalties.

Pineview Water Systems has asked all users to immediately reduce their water use by at least 50 percent for the remainder of the watering season. People affected by this restriction live in the areas from Washington Terrace north to Brigham City.

Users were asked to water their lawns only once every five days from now to the end of August, and once every seven days during the month of September.

Those who don't comply with the restrictions will have their secondary water service turned off , with an added cost of $500 to turn it back on next year."

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A SAR-ry story: Not for I-KEAs

Some Assembly Required — the lies of Ikea and beyond: "Some Assembly Required, it says.
This is one of those horrible euphemisms of modern life. Some Assembly Required is like Minor Side Effects Include: Drowsiness, Dizziness, Sudden Tendency To Start Sleep-Eating and Sleep-Operating Machinery and Sleep-Driving, Death. It’s not an oxymoron like Facebook Privacy or an outright lie like Fun Size, but it comes close. Some Assembly Required packs all the devious You Are Not Getting The Fun You Expected of “Baggage Carousel” into three devious words.
There was a time, I realize, when not only did we have to build all furniture ourselves, but we had to do so without any instructions. But usually you could get out of having to assemble any furniture by quietly dying of smallpox. That was a time when your furniture was assembled by a guy called a cabinetmaker, a guy whose entire trade was to assemble beautiful furniture. "

India's skin colour obsession: helped by the Fair but not lovely creams, and the unconscionable stars

India's unfair obsession with lighter skin | World news | The Guardian: "
India's obsession with fair skin is well documented: in 1978, Unilever launched Fair & Lovely cream, which has subsequently spawned numerous whitening face cleansers, shower gels and even vaginal washes that claim to lighten the surrounding skin. In 2010, India's whitening-cream market was worth $432m, according to a report by market researchers ACNielsen, and was growing at 18% per year. Last year, Indians reportedly consumed 233 tonnes of skin-whitening products, spending more money on them than on Coca-Cola.

Cricket players and Bollywood stars regularly endorse these products. But now the film star Nandita Das has taken a stance against the craze and given her support to the Dark is Beautiful campaign which challenges the belief that success and beauty are determined by skin colour. "I want people to be comfortable in their own skin and realise that there is more to life than skin colour," she says, adding that an Indian paper had written "about my support for the campaign and then lightened the photo of me that went alongside it"."

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Celtic Green to Celtic Brown by 2050? Heat is on, in Ireland.

Ireland to experience huge temperature rises, says expert - Science News | Daily News from The Irish Times - Fri, Aug 16, 2013: "Ireland will experience “huge increases” in temperatures over this century, according to a leading Irish expert on climate change. Average Irish August temperatures are projected to have increased by “two to three degrees Celsius by 2050, and by six to seven degrees Celsius by 2100”, according to Prof Colin O’Dowd, director of NUI Galway’s centre for climate and air pollution studies. The rises predicted are significantly higher than most current forecasts.
His warning comes as new research published yesterday by German scientists shows climate change will trigger more frequent and severe heatwaves in the next 30 years regardless of the carbon dioxide (CO2) we emit into the atmosphere.

Dramatic changes
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, predicts dramatic changes as soon as 2020."

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McD-gets crowdsourced heat

Melbourne McDonald's protesters to take petition to US head office | World news | theguardian.com: "Protesters opposing a McDonald's restaurant in Melbourne's outer east will take their fight to the fast food chain's head office in the US.

They are asking the 84,000 people who have signed a petition on the website change.org to oppose McDonald's building a restaurant in Tecoma to make a small donation to pay for one person to hand deliver the petition to the company's Chicago office.

A spokesman, Garry Muratore, says they have raised $16,000 in the first 24 hours.

"McDonald's Australia might think that by sending in the bulldozers, they've won," he said. "They couldn't be more wrong."

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Kite-flying-- not a child's fun game

Reprehensible budget kite-flying on old-age pension designed to target the most vulnerable - Financial Services News | Business News | The Irish Times - Mon, Aug 12, 2013: "Kite-flying has become one of the more reprehensible features of the the annual Irish budget jamboree – generally designed specifically to target the most vulnerable sections of society in the hope that other, less austere measures on budget day will be greeted with relief. If this is the transparency of process the Government promised us in its handling of budgets under its watch, it has little to commend it. Already, this summer, targets have included child benefit and pensioners’ free travel."

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Cutting argument against austerit-attack against the old and the poor

Who will be the last to suffer for the mistake of austerity? - Political News | Irish & International Politics | The Irish Times - Tue, Aug 13, 2013: "Cutting the incomes of the poorest people is indecent. It is particularly stupid when children are overrepresented in poor households, meaning the long-term social and economic costs will be all the greater. But even leaving aside considerations of basic decency, it is an exercise in bone-headed futility, like generals throwing kids and the elderly on to the frontlines in a war that is already lost. It is not fiscal responsibility, but social and economic recklessness. We’ve had zombie banks and zombie politics and now we have a zombie idea, a policy based on calculations admitted to be wrong. Are we really telling people to go cold and go hungry because somebody couldn’t do the maths?"

Luxurious Necessities? or Necessary Luxuries?

Giving up coffee to balance the books: how many lattes to financial freedom? | Money | theguardian.com: "...The latest to take on the challenge of convincing Americans of the reality of their financial lives is Joseph N Cohen, an assistant professor of sociology at Queens College. In a paper released this past weekend at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting in New York City, Cohen used figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to bust the myth of the latte factor: the idea that we're wasting our precious funds on pointless luxuries.

Cohen found that we're not spending more on things we don't need to get through the day. On the contrary, we're spending less. Between the mid-1980s and the mid-00s, Americans' spending on clothes fell by 28%; alcohol 12%; tobacco 25%; vehicle purchases 15% and vehicle maintenance 24%. Overall expenditures on food also declined, with spending on in-home meals falling by 8% and restaurant dining by a more modest 3%.

Where did the money go? Consider your own circumstances, and you're likely to see the most common increases in spending. During the same period of time, we spent almost 20% more on housing and 32% more on healthcare, which includes a more than 100% rise in the cost of health insurance and 41% of pharmaceuticals. Education? An astonishing 60% increase. Gas went up by 23% and auto insurance by 29%.

Cohen summed it up aptly:

"A colleague of mine once told me that America is a place where the luxuries are cheap but the necessities expensive. A cell phone is affordable. What's killing people is housing and childcare and medical expenses."

..."

Not a flight of fancy- being green flies into rough weather, and provokes serious self-examination

Air Travel Is Worse Than a Hummer With Wings - Bloomberg: "The question answers itself, doesn’t it? Giving up air travel and overnight delivery is much more personally costly for the public intellectuals who write about this stuff than giving up a big SUV. If you live in one of the five or six major cities that contain virtually everyone who writes about climate change, having a small car (or no car), is a pretty easy adjustment to imagine. On the other hand, try to imagine giving up far-flung vacations, conferences, etc. -- especially since travel to interesting locales is one of the hidden perks of not-very-well remunerated positions at universities, public policy groups, nongovernmental organizations, and yes, news organizations.
If we’re going to get serious about greenhouse gasses, we need to get serious about air travel. Going to a distant conference should attract the kind of scorn among the chattering classes that is currently reserved for buying a Hummer."

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Subsizing Walmart and other minimum-wage payers

US fast-food workers in vanguard of growing protests at 'starvation' wages | World news | The Observer: ""The five largest employers in the US, including Walmart and McDonald's, all pay minimum wage, or close to it," says Mason. "They only succeed in this strategy because they're massively subsidised by the government through food stamps and Medicare." When the US emerged from recession in the early 90s, members of Generation X were locked angrily into "McJobs". Now those same jobs are filled with older, better-educated workers, many trying to support families. It's those workers in "poverty-wage" employment who are pressing for reform, says Jonathan Westin, director of Fast Food Forward. "Many have been pushed out of well-paying jobs and found themselves in the fast food industry struggling to get by," he says. "It's not teenagers working for pocket money, it's mothers and fathers.""

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Thirst for water, Texas Size!

A Texan tragedy: ample oil, no water | Environment | theguardian.com: ""We have large urban centres sucking water out of west Texas to put on their lands. We have a huge agricultural community, and now we have fracking which is also using water," she said. And then there is climate change.

West Texas has a long history of recurring drought, but under climate change, the south-west has been experiencing record-breaking heatwaves, further drying out the soil and speeding the evaporation of water in lakes and reservoirs. Underground aquifers failed to regenerate. "What happens is that climate change comes on top and in many cases it can be the final straw that breaks the camel's back, but the camel is already overloaded," said Hayhoe.

Other communities across a bone-dry south-west are resorting to extraordinary measures to keep the water flowing. Robert Lee, also in the oil patch, has been hauling in water by tanker. So has Spicewood Beach, a resort town 40 miles from Austin, which has been trucking in water since early 2012.

San Angelo, a city of 100,000, dug a pipeline to an underground water source more than 60 miles away, and sunk half a dozen new wells."

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The Opt-Out Generation: homw many people are needed to create a "generation"...

The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In - NYTimes.com: "fter one emotional session with a friend, her 12-year-old daughter asked what all the fuss was about. O’Donnel told her: “This is the perfect reason why you need to work. You don’t have to make a million dollars. You don’t have to have a wealthy lifestyle. You just always have to be able to at least earn enough so you can support yourself.”

Nine years ago, O’Donnel was promoting a very different message. She was a spokeswoman of sorts for a group of women — highly educated, very accomplished, well-paid professionals with high-earning spouses — who in the early 2000s made headlines for leaving the work force just when they were hitting their stride. They were a small demographic to be sure (another, larger, group who left the work force at that time — poor mothers who couldn’t afford child care — went without notice), but they garnered a great deal of media attention.
This magazine, in a cover article by Lisa Belkin, called the phenomenon of their leaving work the “Opt-Out Revolution,” and other coverage followed: a Time magazine cover story on “The Case for Staying Home” and a “60 Minutes” segment devoted to a group of former mega-achievers who were, as the anchor Lesley Stahl put it, “giving up money, success and big futures” to be home with their children."

The Opt-Out Generation: homw many people are needed to create a "generation"...

The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In - NYTimes.com: "fter one emotional session with a friend, her 12-year-old daughter asked what all the fuss was about. O’Donnel told her: “This is the perfect reason why you need to work. You don’t have to make a million dollars. You don’t have to have a wealthy lifestyle. You just always have to be able to at least earn enough so you can support yourself.”

Nine years ago, O’Donnel was promoting a very different message. She was a spokeswoman of sorts for a group of women — highly educated, very accomplished, well-paid professionals with high-earning spouses — who in the early 2000s made headlines for leaving the work force just when they were hitting their stride. They were a small demographic to be sure (another, larger, group who left the work force at that time — poor mothers who couldn’t afford child care — went without notice), but they garnered a great deal of media attention.
This magazine, in a cover article by Lisa Belkin, called the phenomenon of their leaving work the “Opt-Out Revolution,” and other coverage followed: a Time magazine cover story on “The Case for Staying Home” and a “60 Minutes” segment devoted to a group of former mega-achievers who were, as the anchor Lesley Stahl put it, “giving up money, success and big futures” to be home with their children."

Veggie prices, not veggies, going to the sun

Veggie prices shoot up - The Hindu: "This festive season, people are feeling the pinch of rising vegetable prices in the capital following poor arrivals at different markets, including Rythu Bazaars, due to the ongoing Samaikyandhra agitations.

Price of green chillies, onions, capsicum, carrot, brinjal have hit the roof as majority of these vegetables are transported to the capital everyday from different places in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions.

While a kg of green chillies is now costing Rs. 42, capsicum Rs. 54, carrot Rs. 42 at different Rythu Bazaars, it is higher in the retail markets and pushcart vendors offer them at much higher rates.

Depending on the quality, the price of onions is fluctuating around Rs. 45 per kg and to make it convenient for people, the government is now offering onions at Rs. 23 per kg at special counters in all the rythu bazaars in the capital."

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Wal-Mart's New Goal: Sell All the Beer - Businessweek

Wal-Mart's New Goal: Sell All the Beer - Businessweek: "When Wal-Mart (WMT) began buying a greater number of locally grown fruits and vegetables in 2010, it made sure its efforts got plenty of publicity. But when Walmart decided it wanted to double its alcohol sales by 2016, it didn’t exactly issue a press release.

Customers noticed, and those in the alcohol industry—or, as Walmart prefers, the adult beverage business—certainly took note of the change. “They’ve said they want to be the No. 1 beer seller in the world,” Cameron Smith, the president of an executive search firm that works closely with Walmart’s supplier network, told Bloomberg News. “They’re getting there quick. Everyone in the supplier community is on cloud nine.”

So far, Walmart seems pretty pleased with the results, although the company hasn’t provided specific sales figures. “Feedback has been very positive” and the relationship with distributors “has been very collaborative,” says Deisha Barnett, a Walmart spokeswoman."

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Africa and digital dumping

Africa will not be Europe's digital dumping ground, say leaders | Global development | theguardian.com: "In a document released this week, African countries that adopted an international convention on hazardous waste called for uniform action to end the import of discarded electronic goods containing dangerous components. In some cases, the products are sent as donations for re-use, even though they are no longer useful.

In response to the trade in e-waste, the EU took steps in 2012 to strengthen its export laws to prevent the dumping of electronic goods in Africa.

The update to the 2003 waste from electrical and electronic equipment (Weee) directive followed hard-fought bargaining over how to improve the recovery of computers and other electronic and electrical waste, much of which was either dumped in landfills or shipped abroad for disposal because of the high cost of recycling in Europe.

In June, signatories to the Bamako convention on the export of hazardous waste to Africa met in the Malian capital for the first time since the international agreement was formed in 1991."

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Do No Evil does not equate to Do Some Good, and Good Only

Bill Gates criticises Google's Project Loon initiative | Technology | theguardian.com: "Google's Project Loon initiative wants to provide internet access for the developing world from a network of balloons floating in the stratosphere. Former Microsoft boss Bill Gates isn't keen on the idea.

"When you're dying of malaria, I suppose you'll look up and see that balloon, and I'm not sure how it'll help you. When a kid gets diarrhoea, no, there's no website that relieves that," Gates told Business Week, in an interview about the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"Certainly I'm a huge believer in the digital revolution. And connecting up primary-healthcare centres, connecting up schools, those are good things. But no, those are not, for the really low-income countries, unless you directly say we're going to do something about malaria.""

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$450 an hour to train toddlers

The serious side of child’s play - FT.com: "Bribing toddlers can be counter-productive, according to Vanessa. Instead, the 28-year-old coaches her young charges how to play together – for $450 an hour. After all, play dates are no trivial matter. They can decide a child’s future.
Vanessa, who declines to give her last name, is one of a new breed of play date experts that help children prepare for admission to New York’s elite kindergartens. As part of the admission process to these schools that charge up to $40,000 a year, four-year-olds must attend a playgroup where they are tested by teachers for academic ability and their social and emotional IQ.
Play date experts set up situations to see how children respond and then make suggestions for improvement. For example, if everyone has to write down his or her name but there are not enough pencils, they must wait their turn."

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Call-recognition, Dolphin way

Dolphins can recognize calls from old tank mates from 20 years ago, study finds - The Washington Post: "Dolphins have long impressed people with their sharp minds and humanlike traits, such as calling each other by name, goofing off and even understanding numbers. Now a scientist has found that the mammals can recognize an old friend’s whistle, even after they have been apart for 20 years — the longest social memory ever recorded for a non-human.

In a study released Tuesday, dolphins largely ignored calls from unfamiliar dolphins but responded when an old tank mate’s signature whistle was played back to them. It didn’t matter how much time had passed since the two had last seen each other or whether they had been tank mates for only a few months: The dolphins appeared to remember a familiar whistle."

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Three cracked pillars of a failed state - Logical analysis by Fintan O"Toole that applies here as well

irishtimes.com - Three cracked pillars of a failed state - Tue Aug 06 01:00:00 IST 2013: "Fintan O'Toole

Last Updated: Tuesday, August 6, 2013, 10:21

In 1980, in his first Fianna Fáil ardfheis as taoiseach, Charles Haughey described Northern Ireland as a “failed political entity”. He was right, of course. But: black pots, black kettles, glasshouses, stones. There was, and is, more than one failed political entity on this island.

Back then, when Haughey used this infamous phrase, there was a rather sterile argument about partition. Was it a historical inevitability or a grotesque tragedy? We can now see that the answer, as it usually is in Irish history, is “both”. Given the lack of any serious engagement with Ulster unionism by Irish nationalists, partition was probably unavoidable. But that does not make its consequences less drastic. It produced two deeply flawed and ultimately unsustainable political entities.

They failed in radically different ways:, one through violent explosion, the other through slow implosion. The fate of the southern State is much more complex and ambiguous than that of the northern statelet, and it has the immense advantage of retaining the broad allegiance of most of its citizens. Yet those ambiguities should not mask its ultimate failure. And that failure should be seen as a challenge and an opportunity – it invites us to radically rethink the State.

Failure of the State
The failure of the State can be calibrated in many ways: the unwillingness to protect vulnerable citizens from slavery and abuse, the inability to sustain a modest prosperity, the apparently endemic resort to mass emigration, the descent into systemic corruption, the throwing away of hard-won sovereignty, the persistence of structural inequality. But we can also see it even if we look at the State in its simplest expression as a set of institutions.

The State as established under the 1922 and 1937 Constitutions is a classic, three-pillared democracy. It is built on the structure designed in the 18th century by Locke and Montesquieu, the separation of powers between the executive, the legislature and the legal system. But each of these pillars is so badly cracked that any honest inspector would have to condemn the building they support.

This is hardly, at this point, a controversial statement. Every serious observer in recent decades has pointed out, again and again, that the legislature does not originate legislation, scrutinises legislation in a wholly inadequate way (more than half of all Bills under the current Government have been rushed through under the guillotine), and seldom holds to account the executive that, through the whip system, exerts almost complete control over it.

The legal system, meanwhile, has proved itself to be almost entirely powerless in bringing to justice those who commit those crimes that are most corrosive of social order: corruption, fraud, tax evasion, bribery, perjury, market abuse, corporate recklessness. It has therefore failed to uphold its own most basic principle – equality before the law. There is a rough but real distinction: poor criminals go to jail; and rich and/or well-connected criminals enjoy a very large measure of impunity.

The weakness of these two pillars of the State is long established. What is new is the virtual collapse of the third. The executive is now crumbling too. The Constitution is clear about what the executive branch of government is: the cabinet acting as a whole. But cabinet government is now itself in crisis. The most consequential economic decision in the history of the State, the blanket bank guarantee of September 2008, was made when most of the cabinet was not present and when, according to themselves, the absent members had little understanding of what they were agreeing on the phone.

Since then, we have seen that the budget has been passed on for examination by the finance committee of the Bundestag in Berlin before going to the Cabinet in Dublin. And we know, not least from a senior Minister such as Joan Burton, that economic and budgetary decisions are being made not by the Cabinet but by the (all-male) Economic Management Council of Enda Kenny, Eamon Gilmore, Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin, along with unelected and unaccountable advisors. In the most important areas, cabinet government has been replaced by arrangements outside the constitutional structures of the State.

One might argue that there is in fact a fourth pillar of the State: direct popular sovereignty through referendums. If so, this pillar is cracked, too. The referendum on the Seanad will present us with a “choice” scarcely anyone wants: between abolishing bicameral parliaments and keeping a rotten and absurd institution.

Even without considering failures of policy or achievement, it ought to be obvious that the southern State is a “failed political entity”. Does this mean it is a “failed State” in the same sense as, say, Somalia is? Of course not: we have a functioning Army, police force and bureaucracy and public services that, however strained and inadequate, meet the requirements of a modern society. But it is a failed State in the simple and obvious sense that none of its institutional arms is in working order.

The first step to recovery is honest acknowledgement of the scale of the problem. Piecemeal, symbolic “reforms” will do nothing except deepen the sense of disillusionment. Facing up to failure can give us the courage to start again.

© 2013 irishtimes.com

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Tough life, even for polar bears

Starved polar bear perished due to record sea-ice melt, says expert | Environment | The Guardian: "A starved polar bear found found dead in Svalbard as "little more than skin and bones" perished due to a lack of sea ice on which to hunt seals, according to a renowned polar bear expert.

Climate change has reduced sea ice in the Arctic to record lows in the last year and Dr Ian Stirling, who has studied the bears for almost 40 years and examined the animal, said the lack of ice forced the bear into ranging far and wide in an ultimately unsuccessful search for food.

"From his lying position in death the bear appears to simply have starved and died where he dropped," Stirling said. "He had no external suggestion of any remaining fat, having been reduced to little more than skin and bone."

low-pay, part-time, world

New jobs disproportionately low-pay or part-time - Yahoo! Finance: " disproportionate number of the added jobs were part-time or low-paying — or both.
Part-time work accounted for more than 65 percent of the positions employers added in July. Low-paying retailers, restaurants and bars supplied more than half July's job gain.
"You're getting jobs added, but they might not be the best-quality job," says John Canally, an economist with LPL Financial in Boston.
So far this year, low-paying industries have provided 61 percent of the nation's job growth, even though these industries represent just 39 percent of overall U.S. jobs, according to Labor Department numbers analyzed by Moody's Analytics. Mid-paying industries have contributed just 22 percent of this year's job gain.
"The jobs that are being created are not generating much income," Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities USA, wrote in a note to clients."

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Capitalism- only when I like it: Rules according to BOB

President Obama Vetoes ITC Ban On iPhone, iPads; Apple Happy, Samsung Not - Forbes: "President Obama and his administration today issued a veto on an International Trade Commission patent ruling that would have banned the import of some older models of the iPhone and iPad, dealing a blow to Samsung in its ongoing patent disputes with Apple.

The administration, which had 60 days to review the ITC’s June 4 “final determination,” announced its decision in a four-page letter by Ambassador Michael Froman, a U.S. trade representative, to Irving A. Williamson, chairman of the U.S. ITC. The ITC issued the ban on older Apple devices — the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G distributed with cellular service by AT&T — after agreeing with Samsung that Apple infringed one of Samsung’s standard-essential patents (SEP). The ban would have gone into effect Aug. 5."

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When logic and ethics are foreign or unknown- the Big Lie

The Big Lie Goes After Obamacare - Bloomberg: "I called Brase to ask what she would advise for a 22-year-old who can't afford insurance outside of the exchanges. She started by arguing that getting coverage on the exchanges doesn't guarantee access to care, and so may not be any better than going without insurance.
That claim is absurd on its face: Even if you believe that exchange-purchased insurance will offer fewer care options than other types of coverage, some insurance is leagues better than none. Forget about the penalty for not carrying insurance; what if that 22-year-old needs medical care? He can pay his doctors directly, Brase responded, or seek charity care.
Having dismissed the entire concept of insurance, Brase then tried a different argument: Thanks to the law's guarantee that nobody can be denied coverage, anyone who gets sick can simply sign up for insurance. But it isn't that simple. While you can't be denied coverage because you're sick, you still need to buy that coverage during the annual open enrollment period, as with employer-sponsored insurance. That ends March 31, 2014."

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This Is What Would Happen If Fast-Food Workers Got Raises - Businessweek

This Is What Would Happen If Fast-Food Workers Got Raises - Businessweek: "Food-service workers are among the lowest paid in the country. Here’s what Payscale.com data, based on about 3,000 employee surveys, show about how much workers are making at the country’s 10 biggest fast-food chains compared with workers in other fields. Not all the chains listed here are facing protests this week—they are instead being highlighted for the size of their workforces:

Consumed by Consumption? Clarify by Cleaning Out!

Clutter no more: packing in the habit of outrageous consumption - Life & Style | Trends, Tips, News & Advice | The Irish Times - Wed, Jul 31, 2013: "Stuff and nonsense
Again, this isn’t all that surprising: another study found that the average American child acquires 70 new toys a year.
None of the families in the UCLA study were hoarders: they were just ordinary people who had become overwhelmed with stuff. “Mothers were very aware of the mess and clutter and [had adopted] a laugh-it-off attitude that this was going to just keep recurring,” one of the researchers, anthropology professor Jeanne E Arnold told the Washington Post. “A few were almost bitter.”
Somehow, we have become caught on a treadmill that we can’t get off. We work harder to earn more (or at least in the hope that, in a recession, we won’t earn substantially less), so that we can keep spending. Acquiring and managing our mountains of stuff takes up so much time that we have fewer resources and less energy for the things that really matter. We end up living in cluttered houses, feeling overwhelmed and unproductive, and never, ever able to find our keys."

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