Collapse of the Standard of Living in the USA

A series of recent studies conducted by the Pew Research Center shed new light on the scope of the economic crisis in the US and the level of hostility the majority of the American population holds for the US government. Released in March, before the passage of the Obama administration’s health care legislation, a survey entitled “Health Care Reform—Can’t Live With It, or Without It” indicates that 92 percent of Americans give the national economy a negative rating. No fewer than 70 percent of the respondents report having suffered job-related and financial problems in the past year, an increase from 59 percent the year before. Fifty-four percent report someone in their home has been without a job and looking for work in the past year, up from 39 percent in 2009.

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Computerized Front Running and Financial Fraud: How a Computer Program Designed to Save the Free Market Turned Into a Monster

While the SEC is busy investigating Goldman Sachs, it might want to look into another Goldman-dominated fraud: computerized front running using high-frequency trading programs. Market commentators are fond of talking about “free market capitalism,” but according to Wall Street commentator Max Keiser, it is no more. It has morphed into what his TV co-host Stacy Herbert calls “rigged market capitalism”: all markets today are subject to manipulation for private gain.

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Carbon Dioxide Emissions Causing Ocean Acidification to Progress at Unprecedented Rate

The changing chemistry of the world's oceans is a growing global problem, says the summary of a congressionally requested study by the National Research Council, which adds that unless man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are substantially curbed, or atmospheric CO2 is controlled by some other means, the ocean will continue to become more acidic. The long-term consequences of ocean acidification on marine life are unknown, but many ecosystem changes are expected to result. The federal government's National Ocean Acidification Program, currently in development, is a positive move toward coordinating efforts to understand and respond to the problem, said the study committee.

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The 10 biggest health care lies in America

Mainstream health care isn't based on "health" or "caring." It's actually based on an ingrained system of medical mythology that's practiced -- and defended -- by those who profit from the continuation of sickness and disease. This system of medical mythology might also simply be called "lies", and today I'm sharing with NaturalNews readers the top ten lies that are still followed and promoted under mainstream health care in America today.

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Unshakable Truth in Haiti: Reflections on Genocide

Since my family and I survived the te tromble—Creole for the 7.0 earthquake that devastated Haiti—I have returned home with unshakable thoughts of life and death.

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Five Ways the Wall St. Reform Bill Needs to Be Fixed

Despite strong rhetoric against aggressive Wall Street lobbying and deceptive Republican attacks, President Barack Obama appears ready to declare victory on a tepid and ineffective financial reform bill. The aims Obama outlined in his April 22 Cooper Union speech are laudable, but the legislation that cleared the Senate Banking Committee under the stewardship of Chris Dodd, D-Conn., simply will not protect our economy from bank abuses.

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Lingering legacies for Earth Day 2010: U.S. food still tainted with old chemicals

In a photograph from a 1947 newspaper advertisement, a smiling mother leans over her baby's crib. The wall behind her is decorated with rows of flowers and Disney characters. Above the photo, a headline reads "Protect Your Children From Disease Carrying Insects." The ad, for wallpaper impregnated with DDT, captures a moment of historical ignorance, before the infamous insecticide nearly wiped out many birds and turned up inside the bodies of virtually everyone on Earth. The story of DDT teaches a lesson about the past. But experts say it also provides a glimpse into the future. Thirty-eight years after it was banned, Americans still consume traces of DDT and its metabolites every day, along with more than 20 other banned chemicals. Residues of these legacy contaminants are ubiquitous in U.S. food, particularly dairy products, meat and fish.

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Are the Tea Partiers Losing Steam?

When tea party organizers chose the Washington Ellipse as the setting for their Tax Day protest, they were undoubtedly thinking of its theatrical potential. Behind looms the Washington Monument, an obelisk to the hero of American Revolution and Constitution and a fitting symbol of the tea party's esprit de corps. In front stands the White House, whose occupant, according to protesters' signs, is busy plotting more taxes, more communism and the end of America. Those who took the podium borrowed from the surrounding majesty to endow their struggle with an epic righteousness: "We are going to keep faith with every generation since 1776 that has successfully passed the baton of freedom to the next generation. We will not allow that...chain of freedom to be broken on our watch," declared Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. But beyond the rhetoric and amid the crowd of a few thousand, the concerns were on a smaller scale--like about incandescent light bulbs.

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Awaken, Eaarthlings! (An Earth Day Missive)

In his recent book, The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology (2008), the great Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh asserts that Buddhism, as a robust type of humanism, allows people to learn how to live on our planet not only responsibly, but with compassion and lovingkindness. Every Buddhist practitioner, he says, should have the capacity to “protect” the environment and determine the destiny of the Earth.

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Does Corruption Create Poverty?

The issue of corruption resonates in developing countries. In the Philippines, for instance, the slogan of the coalition that is likely to win the 2010 presidential elections is "Without corrupt officials, there are no poor people." Not surprisingly, the international financial institutions have weighed in. The World Bank has made "good governance" a major thrust of its work, asserting [1] that the "World Bank Group focus on governance and anticorruption (GAC) follows from its mandate to reduce poverty — a capable and accountable state creates opportunities for poor people, provides better services, and improves development outcomes." Because it erodes trust in government, corruption must certainly be condemned and corrupt officials resolutely prosecuted. Corruption also weakens the moral bonds of civil society on which democratic practices and processes rest. But although research suggests it has some bearing on the spread of poverty, corruption is not the principal cause of poverty and economic stagnation, popular opinion notwithstanding.

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