Poverty of the Elites: Free market famine in Ireland

The Graves are Walking: Free trade uber alles.

[....It is still an insane thought that the most successful country in the world at the time allowed millions to starve in Ireland, its’ closest colonial neighbor.

Imagine the US, the land of plenty, allowing millions of Hawaiians to starve in a Famine there and you get some sense of the absurdity....

But also documented here is O’Connell’s disastrous decision to throw in his lot with Whig leader Lord John Russell who became Prime Minister in July 1846 at the beginning of the worst period of the Famine....

But in the process he backed a man who had become a fully-fledged free trader who insisted that market prices must be received and no government intervention made – even when the result was millions of Irish starving because they could not afford to buy the imported corn.

Russell’s predecessor, the Tory leader Sir Robert Peel, as Kelly points out, had adopted a far more humane policy and had been widely praised for ordering and freeing up imported corn for starving Irish the previous year when the worst of the Famine was blunted.] emphasis added to fan spark of humanity in souls of all who read this.

Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/story/news/periscope/did-irish-leader-daniel-oconnell-help-make-the-famine-happen----graves-are-walking-book-tells-powerful-irish-famine-truths-169750566.html#ixzz26TJ5KH39










[Rock’n’roll great Bruce Springsteen has received a welcome bump after the Democratic National Convention when his tune ‘We Take Care of Our Own’ played right after President Barack Obama’s speech.

The Huffington Post reports that ‘We Take Care of Our Own’ jumped an astounding 409 per cent following its use at the DNC. The song was downloaded 2000 times, which Billboard reports is the most since March....

Despite the song officially being added to Obama’s political campaign playlist, Springsteen is insisting that he is not throwing his support behind any candidate for election 2012 like he did back in 2008.

“I prefer to stay on the sidelines," Springsteen told ABC News in January. "I genuinely believe an artist [is] supposed to be the canary in the coal mine, and you’re better off with a certain distance from the seat of power."

While Springsteen would have liked to have seen "more activism in job creation sooner than it came," he did say he thought Obama had done a good job thus far in his presidency.

Said Springsteen, “He kept GM alive, which was incredibly important to Detroit and Michigan, and he got the health care law passed, although I wish there had been a public option and didn’t leave the citizens victims of the insurance companies. He killed Osama bin Laden, which was extremely important. He brought some sanity to the top level of government.”] emphasis added
 http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/Bruce-Springsteens-We-Take-Care-of-Our-Own-gets-major-boost-from-Barack-Obamas-DNC-speech---VIDEO-169755396.html#ixzz26TNgoeih

You Too Can Make $5.5 Million Per Hour

The beauty of modern capitalism will allow you unlimited opportunities to create wealth for yourself, and with the right tax advice and offshore tax avoidance havens, pay less taxes than ordinary schmucks.

Follow my easy steps to wealth and obscene profits:

Get job as head of head of utility company.

Work one day.

Resign.

Walk away with $44 million in severance pay.

Yes, that makes a great deal for the schmucks who own the stocks in their 401k accounts.

Free market capitalism rules!

Speaking of Idiots: Cain blames Abel , sez unemployed responsible for the Great Recession

Found at Huffington Post

President Cheney's Real Legacy: Any idiot believes they can become President of A-Merry-Ca

Gosh, gonna have to sharpen my Vorpal Sword of truth to write as well as this dude, Cahor O'Doherty, column quoted in full.

[George W Bush, in between bouts of clearing scrub in Texas, must be wondering what his legacy will be. I think I have the answer.

Thanks to his presidency, and the utterly lost decade he presided over, America has now reached the point where anyone - anyone - thinks they'd make a fine president.

How else to explain the clown car of 2012 Republican presidential contenders currently running? These are not world class political operatives by any yard stick - most of them are not even sophisticated enough to head up a suburban Rotary Club - but they'll probably be the last to know.

Why? Because, thanks to the Bush years - where bombast replaced brains and soundbites replaced strategy - people like Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain can now look in their mirrors and see what no one else does: competence.

Call it the real Bush legacy.

There was a time in American politics when no millionaire politician would have dreamed of blaming the unemployed for their misfortune. There was a time when an audience would have booed hearing that sentiment expressed, rather than cheered.

But last night the mean minded smallness of right wing ideological extremism was on full display at the Republican debate in Las Vegas. It was a vision for the future so narrow you can sum it up in three words: I've got mine.

America used to be much better than this. We used to praise ordinary workers, not insult them for lack of industry. We used to want them to succeed, not remove every social net that helped to raise them up in the first placed.

We used to care about the country as well as ourselves.] emphasis added

Capitalism Kills

Every country on earth now has a hybrid system of government combining free market and socialist principles.

Free markets allow capitalism and socialism provides government help for those with need.

This explains why India has launched an effort to provide affordable computer tablets to citizens.

$2,000 open heart surgery? Preposterous. The country must have people concerned about health and welfare of citizens instead of raining down dollars on corporations.

[NEW DELHI — India is launching a cheap tablet computer it says will deliver modern technology to help lift villagers out of poverty.

The computer, called Aakash, or "sky" in Hindi, is the latest in a series of cheap Indian innovations that include a 100,000 rupee ($2,040) Nano car, a 750 rupee ($15) water purifier and $2,000 open-heart surgery.

Government subsidies promise a $35 price tag for students and teachers, with a regular retail price of about $45 from manufacturer Datawind.] emphasis added
http://www.wftv.com/news/ap/top-news/india-announces-cheap-computers-for-rural-poor/nD2Jd/

Oh, Jesus, Why Did I See Pictures of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire?

Please. You could have let me go my whole life without seeing these pictures of aftermath of Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire..

Reading 1911 accounts of girls deciding to jump to their deaths troubled me enough to blog and bring up righteous indignation supporting unions.

Thumbnail of faulty fire escapes from Library of Congress, link below.

But the pictures brought bile, rage, and even tears.

Sober tears, even, as among these could have numbered my nieces in earlier times, my dear and still sweet 15 and 18 year old nieces.

To think the factory owners collected more $ in an insurance settlement than they paid out in civil settlements boggles my mind beggars the imagination, and buggers all thoughts of responsible capitalists working with government regulators to make the world a better place.

Fie on that in FL, where governor 48.9% wants to abolish ability of humans raped or killed in FL privatized state programs run by a not for profit company--although sure looks like top administrators make out like bandits at One Kid while real kids die.

[Miami-Dade’s 5-year-old privately run child welfare agency is paid $100 million each year to protect thousands of abused and neglected children. But in recent months, it has been forced to defend itself.

Last summer, several children’s advocates became incensed when Our Kids, a private contractor that oversees foster care and adoption in Miami-Dade and Monroe, paid more than $330,000 in employee bonuses – some totaling five figures – at the same time it cut the stipend given to newly aged-out foster kids by $300.]

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/25/2133051/private-child-welfare-agency-under.html#ixzz1HyBzYmr1
Pictures found at excellent Fox Business News story.

[Fined $20

A year later, in 1913, Blanck, would be fined just $20 for locking the doors to another factory.
The owners lost a civil suit in 1913, but they paid only about $75 per victim. Later, they got an insurance check for $60,000 more than they had reported as losses -- the two owners earned about $411 per victim. The factory soon went out of business.

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/03/23/triangle-shirtwaist-factory/#ixzz1Hx4CRSWH]
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/03/23/triangle-shirtwaist-factory/?test=faces

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/related/?fi=subject&q=Triangle%20Shirtwaist%20Company--Disasters--1910-1920.

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/index.html

This Can't Be Good: World Wide Weather Patterns Spreading Radioactivity.

http://www.irsn.fr/FR/popup/Pages/irsn-meteo-france_19mars.aspx

Found at Americablog.

Please pass the iodine pills.

Sure, media will duly report a statistically insignificant increase in cancers and blood disorders and diseases caused by such world wide exposure. Yet people will die, more than if the genie of atomic enrgy had not released clouds of toxins.

At what cost do we power our consumer culture?

How many of our children must die so we can buy an iPad 5 with new bells and whistles and "must have" features?


³⁶ What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?




"Money won't be enough to explain to their children
Why they've poisoned their blood."
Little Steven: "Trail of Broken Treaties"

Capitalism Kills: Rising Food Prices Push Poor into Starvation

[Corn has soared 52% the past 12 months. Sugar’s up 60%. Soybeans have jumped 41%. And wheat costs 24% more than it did a year ago.

For about 44 million people — roughly the population of the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago metropolitan areas combined — the rise in food prices means a descent into extreme poverty and hunger, according to the World Bank.]

The surge in food prices has many causes. Rising population. Speculators. Soaring oil prices. Trade policies. And, ironically, improved standards of living in emerging nations.]
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2011-03-17-food-costs-world-hunger.htm