TPP? Don't let these "conservative" politicians pretend they are for anything except rigging the rules for the giant corporations and billionaires that fund their campaigns, and hire them at lucrative, obscene reward-salaries after they leave office.
The "Walmart model" has become the model of our economy. The billionaires that model creates use their wealth to bribe -- I mean, "influence" -- our government to keep things the way they are. It is time to take back our government from the billionaires, fix trade, fix taxes and fix wages.
Americans have long lived in a nation made up primarily of middle-class families, neither rich nor poor, but comfortable enough, notes NPR's Marilyn Geewax, but this year - for the first time in US history, that changed. A new analysis of government data shows that as of 2015, middle-income households have become the minority, extending a multi-decade decline that confirms the hollowing out of society as 49% of all Americans now live in a home that receives money from the government each month.
When Australia released its October jobs data a month ago (printing an astonishing 58k increase - almost 6 times expectations of a 10k increase), the media threw up all over the farce of the best jobs gain in 3 years (amid commodity price collapses, mining industry bankruptcy fears, and China trade implosions) saying simply "don't believe the jobs figure for October." So we cannot wait to see what the men from downunder make of November's print.
The Republicans seem to have made up their minds: they will divide, degrade and secede from the Union. They will do so by gerrymandering and denying the vote to as many of the poor, the elderly, struggling low-paid workers, and people of color as they can. And by appealing to the basest impulses of human nature: anger, fear and bigotry.