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A few weeks ago, England erupted with protests that many saw as tied to the global economic crisis.  What began as a peaceful protest against the police, who had shot dead a suspect in Tottenham North London on August 6, rapidly spread across London and then to other parts of the country. Over the space of the next five days, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester all experienced a wave of rioting and looting.

Politicians and commentators proceeded down a well-worn path of analysis and political point scoring. Most politicians were quick to blame “mindless thugs,” “gangs,” and “feral youth.”  They pointed to the lack of moral values in contemporary society, and the Conservatives, who are the senior partners in our coalition government, saw the riots as yet more evidence of their narrative of “Broken Britain” (conveniently ignoring the fact that other parts of Britain, such as Wales and Scotland, suffered no problems).

What was lacking, initially at least, was any mention of class. It appeared only in references to an underclass. Rhetorically this is a really useful piece of shorthand for the political classes in Britain, as I guess it is in the US. Talk of the underclass allows critics to blame society’s troubles on an ill-defined amorphous band of cultural stereotypes and folk demons.  It also allows for a wider sidestepping of questions of class and inequality that has been rising for the last three decades or more and is sure to increase further in the age of austerity. In this narrative, the riots are defined as the work of the work shy, the amoral, and the feckless; looting represents a mindless opportunism of those lacking a basic ethic of responsibility. (more…)

Sometimes we all tend to take things for granted and we forget that Social Security is the most successful government program in our nation’s history. Let’s be clear. For more than 75 years, Social Security has, in good times and bad, paid out every nickel owed to every eligible American. Social Security has succeeded in keeping millions of senior citizens, widows and orphans and the disabled out of extreme poverty.

Before Social Security was developed, about half of our seniors lived in poverty. Today, fewer than 10 percent live in poverty and all of that is done with minimum administrative costs. In America right now more than 53 million Americans, including over 120,000 Vermonters, receive Social Security benefits. In our state Social Security benefits total over $1.5 billion per year, an amount equivalent to 6 percent of the state’s annual GDP.

Today, Social Security is facing an unprecedented attack from those who either want to privatize it completely or who want to make substantial cuts. In the coming months, a so-called super-committee in Congress made up of 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats will be making decisions to cut the national debt by some $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Social Security is on the table and could be cut by that committee.

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Two years ago, 4.5 million of America’s workers enjoyed a modest pay increase, as the federal minimum wage rose from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour. The increase was the final of a three-step boost enacted in 2007.

Of those getting a bump in pay, more than three-quarters were adults, nearly two-thirds were women, and nearly half a million were single parents with children under 18.

Yet during the past two years, these working families have seen the real value of their wages fall. Minimum-wage earners working full-time make roughly $15,000 a year. Had the minimum wage rate kept up with inflation, their paychecks would have increased by $800 this year.

Instead, our nation’s lowest-paid workers have had an even harder time providing basic needs for their families. (more…)

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks about cuts to government programs that work and help our friends and neighbors.

Watch Keith Olbermann challenge viewers to get angry and fight back!

The corporations created a monster. That monster is a group of ideologues who’ve wormed their way into Congress – and now have the power to take down our entire economy and condemn all of us to a second Great Depression. Make no mistake about it – we have an established Third Party in Congress today for the first time in over 100 years – the Tea Party zombies. It’s a third party based in political naivete – irresponsible idealism – and corrupted morality.

Whenever liberals note that the rich are getting richer while everyone else is either treading water or sinking, or that profits are up while wages are down, or, worse yet, that profits are up because wages are down, those liberals are invariably accused by conservatives of fomenting class warfare.

Well, goodness knows, we at the Prospect would never stoop so low. We would, however, refer our readers to the July 11 “Eye on the Market” report by J.P. Morgan Chase Chief Investment Officer Michael Cembalest, which demonstrates conclusively that, well, profits are up because wages are down. (“Eye on the Market” is a newsletter that Chase circulates to its large investors.)

The subject of the July 11 report is corporate profits, in particular, the pre-tax profit margins of the S&P 500, the 500 largest publicly-traded companies based in the U.S. Those profit margins, you’ll be glad to know, are close to record highs, nearing 13 percent of company revenues – their highest levels since the mid-1960s. And since medical costs are far higher today than they were back then, how, you may wonder, have those companies climbed back to the profit margins of those earlier, lest costly, more innocent times? (more…)

An Urgent Action Call – Ohio Voters Must Be Heard

This November voters will decide the fate of SB 5, but Gov. John Kasich and his political allies are doing everything they can to stack the deck in their favor by attacking Ohio voting rights. Last week, Ohio Republicans passed HB 194 – a voter suppression bill that cuts down on early voting and makes it harder for Ohio voters to cast their ballots. Not satisfied with making it more difficult to vote , extreme senators are now saying they will take up HB 159 – a voter ID bill that would disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Ohioans – as soon as next week. Previously they’d said it would not receive a vote until fall.

Call your senator at 1-888-218-5931 and tell him or her you oppose HB 159 because it will disenfranchise nearly 900,000 Ohioans.

If HB 159 is enacted, Ohio will have one of the most restrictive voting laws in the country. HB 159 targets students, seniors, people of color and low-income voters who have been hit hardest by the recession, have some of the highest unemployment rates and need more than ever for elected officials to focus on creating good jobs. We can’t let this happen. (more…)

If Jim DeMint gets his way, the Senate will vote any day now on repealing the historic Dodd-Frank financial-reform law. While Senator DeMint is receiving a big assist from conservative lobbying groups, his amendment is sure to fail given the Democratic majority. Still, the tireless war against Dodd-Frank – a law that marks its first anniversary next month – will go on.

Like the assault on the health-care law, the campaign to roll back financial reform is a sophisticated operation bolstered by big money and animated by ideological fervor. What’s different is that cracking down on Wall Street is popular with the American public, and so – DeMint’s frontal assault aside – much of the push to destroy Dodd-Frank has been carried on over power lunches and in the back offices of congressional committees.

Opponents of financial reform have mounted a three-pronged attack.

First, Republican lawmakers hope to block the funds that executive-branch agencies need to implement Dodd-Frank. The legislation that President Barack Obama signed last July is more akin to an outline than a detailed regulatory mandate. It will only have teeth when numerous rules are written and oversight mechanisms are put into place. Getting the money for this work wouldn’t have been a problem if Democrats still controlled the House–but they don’t anymore. (more…)

When it comes to jobs, Republicans and the Right unfailingly roll out the same solution no matter what the economic situation nor how many times it has failed: more tax cuts for the Job Creators in Corporate America and the investor class.

The Democrats, for their part, have also tended to promote the same mantra on unemployment without regard to the lack of job opportunities or how serious America’s job shortage has become.

Unemployment is back over 9 percent again and we risk falling into another recession, much as the United States did when President Roosevelt prematurely pulled back on stimulus and job-creation programs in 1937.

In particular, President Obama and the congressional Democrats have relentlessly focused on the need for greater educational attainment and skills re-training for those with new college diplomas or community college certificates. But this solution fails to address the lack of job openings that new graduates are already facing. (more…)