America

How quickly the sins of the past are forgotten.

Roughly 10 years ago, a Mexican immigrant working as a strawberry picker in Bakersfield, California, making $14,000 per year, was lent every single penny he needed to purchase a $720,000 home.  And, as crazy as that sounds to most of us, stories such as that were all too common leading up to the 2008 housing crash as everyone, and their brothers, became expert real estate investors buying and flipping multiple houses every month...which worked really well, until it didn't.

Submitted by Farron Cousins via DeSmogBlog.com,

On January 16, 2016, President Obama declared a federal emergency for the city of Flint, Michigan, over the contamination of the city’s drinking water.

One year later, not only is the city still struggling to provide clean sources of water to the Michigan city’s population, but the plight of residents in Flint has opened up the conversation about a water crisis in the United States that very few people even knew existed.

Authored by Alastair Crooke, originally posted at The Automatic Earth blog,

If I had to craft a satirical letter about a butthurt mega rich silicon valley executive complaining over the Trump victory, I could not have done a better job than the real letter the CTO from Uber, Thuan Pham, sent to his fellow employees.

In what could only be described as a rift at Uber, in light of their CEO, Travis Kalanick,  agreeing to join Trump's select group of business advisers, Mr. Pham has made it clear that he does not agree with his CEO, and he most certainly does not accept America's democratically elected leader, Donald J. Trump.

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

It's your choice, America--you can keep your cartels and the captured government that enables and protects them, or you can fix what's broken and unaffordable.