The Pentagon, January 2008 (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)
With high unemployment, massive poverty, inequality, and a weak economic recovery, the economy is obviously the number-one issue in public consciousness. President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney continue to trade barbs on the presidential campaign trail. Romney accuses Obama of being “anti-business”, while Obama criticizes Romney’s record with Bain Capital, Romney’s private equity firm that was involved in outsourcing American jobs overseas. Amidst this cacophony of superficial babble and quacking from two politiciansbacked by multinational corporations and Wall Street, one fact is conveniently left out of the discussion — the $1 trillion national security budget.
Wall Street is a highly influential financial district but its history is rarely talked about. In order to understand the largesse of Wall Street and the system of global capitalism, it is crucial to know Wall Street’s history. Wall Street was founded on slavery and, to this day, it remains a key pillar in upholding racial inequality and economic oppression.
New York City was a Dutch settlement known as New Amsterdam in the Dutch colonial province called New Netherland during much of the 17th century. Through the Dutch West India Company, the Dutch utilized labor of enslaved Africans who were first brought to the colony around 1627. The African slaves built the wall that gives Wall Street its name, forming the northern boundary of the colony and warded off resisting natives who wanted their land back. In addition, the slaves cleared the forests, built roads and buildings, and turned up the soil for farming. Slavery was not a phenomenon limited to the southern American colonies. Northern colonies, such as Boston and New York, participated in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Read the rest of this entry »
About two weeks ago, I wrote an opinion piece for turnstylenews.com, which is a great website powered by young (18-34) producers, reporters, and writers. I re-posted it on my blog here.
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Despite his reputation, in some quarters, as a friend of the downtrodden, former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and current presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, is an ally of Wall Street and Corporate America.
Last week, Santorum made a racially charged comment that garnered a lot of criticism. Speaking to Republicans in Iowa, Santorum said his administration would cut welfare programs because they make people “dependent” on the government for help. His full statement was: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families. The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling.” Read the rest of this entry »
It has been three months since the Occupy Wall Street movement began on September 17, 2011. For the first few days, the movement was largely ignored by the mainstream media. Now it has gotten to the point where it cannot be ignored. The movement has spread to over one thousand cities across the United States and around the world. Occupy Wall Street does not have a clear set of demands nor is there an easily identifiable leadership. Yet, it is united by the economic suffering shared by millions of people. The movement’s lack of clear demands is the most persistent criticism people (both detractors and supporters) make against Occupy Wall Street. While demands are important, this criticism misses what the movement is really about. Read the rest of this entry »
This video has been sparking a lot of controversy on the Internet and the media — and for good reason. In a shocking display of honesty, independent trader, Alessio Rastani, openly said:
“For most traders, we don’t really care that much how they’re going to fix the economy, how they’re going to fix the whole situation. Our job is to make money from it. And personally, I’ve been dreaming of this moment for three years. I have a confession, which is, I go to bed every night, I dream another recession, I dream of another moment like this. Why? Because people don’t seem to remember but the ’30s depression wasn’t just about a market crash. There were some people who were prepared to make money from that crash. And I think anybody can do that. It isn’t just for some people in the elite. Anybody can actually make money, it’s an opportunity. When the market crashes, when the Euro and the big stock markets crash, if you know what to do, if you have the right plan set up, you can make a lot of money from this.”
The state of the economy remains one of the top issues in the media and in people’s minds. And rightly so. Last week, the Labor Department released a report stating that no new jobs were created in the month of August. Official unemployment remains at 9.1% at the end of August, which is up from 8.8% at the end of July, according to Gallup. This dismal jobs situation put pressure on Obama to create a jobs bill, which he outlined in a speech to a joint-session of Congress yesterday evening (which I’ll come back to later on). Given the coverage and obvious importance of the current economic situation, I decided to show some useful statistics that portray the depth of this crisis and show, in my opinion, that things are actually worse than the media says it is. Read the rest of this entry »
Blues African 