Authored by Thomas Palley,
2016 was supposed to have been the year of Jeb Bush versus Hillary Clinton: the year when the established Bush dynasty confronted the upstart rival Clinton Dynasty. But the year of the insider has turned into the year of the outsider. On both sides, voters have unexpectedly given vent to thirty years of accumulated anger with neoliberalism which has downsized their incomes and hopes.
In what he assures will be "an easy decision," Donald Trump has released details of his plan to "compel Mexico to pay for the wall." In a 600 word statement, Trump proposes, in a potentially devastating move for Mexico’s economy, to block billions of dollars in payments immigrants send back home until the nation made "a one-time payment of $5-10 billion" to the U.S.
A reader sends in this op-ed from a teacher, writing in The Guardian about the death of white working-class culture for British kids. The author, a white man, was raised working class, and focuses on a new think tank report showing that white working-class youth are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to educational achievement. The writer blames Thatcherism for breaking the unions in the 1980s. Excerpts:
Following this morning's disappointing trade data (but... but... surveys showed that the workers in the service sector are more optimistic... just ignore the actual hard data) we asked if today's Atlanta Fed GDP update would be above or below 0.3%.
Atlanta Fed Q1 GDP update today: over/under on 0.3%
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 5, 2016
Moments ago we got the answer: it was over, but by the smallest possible increment. And the answer is....
Vulnerable children, including survivors of last year’s earthquake in Nepal, are being sold to British families as domestic slaves, according to an investigation. An investigation by the Sun newspaper claims that boys and girls as young as 10 are being sold for £5,250 ($7,468) in India’s Punjab province, close to the Nepalese border. Black market gangs are preying on the children of Nepalese refugees and destitute Indian families, according to the newspaper.