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Stiglitz: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the1% (may2011)

Stiglitz: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the1% (may2011)
It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. Economists long ago tried to justify the vast inequalities that seemed so troubling in the mid-19th century—inequalities that are but a pale shadow of what we are seeing in America today. Some people look at income inequality and shrug their shoulders. First, growing inequality is the flip side of something else: shrinking opportunity. None of this should come as a surprise—it is simply what happens when a society’s wealth distribution becomes lopsided.

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105

'Occupy': A catalyst for change? - Inside Story The 'Occupy' movement is holding gatherings around the world as protesters meet in the financial centres of several cities. The movement's central site, United for Global Change, says 951 cities in 82 countries will participate in rallies. Dozens of protesters were arrested in New York as thousands marched through the city's financial district before moving on to Times Square. Protests were also held elsewhere in the US and Canada, notably in Washington DC, the US capital. And several cities across the world - from Tokyo to Alaska via London, Frankfurt and Washington - held demonstrations in a show of solidarity with the rallies that began last month in New York. State of the Blogosphere 2011: Introduction and Methodology Welcome to Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2011 report. Since 2004, our annual study has followed growth and trends in the blogosphere. This year's topics include: blogging and social media, bloggers and traditional media, traffic and analysis, brands and marketing in the blogosphere, bloggers' motivations and consequences, monetization, and changes within the blogosphere over 2011.

Occupy Wall Street to a global intifada? On Wednesday, October 5, I joined thousands of others and marched down lower Manhattan to 'occupy Wall Street'. Seeing thousands of people marching peacefully together under the banner of occupying struck me in profound and contradictory ways. The marches and occupation were orderly and disciplined. There was neither a mob mentality, nor a sense of anarchy, nor any violence.

a speech to the 2012 graduates City 2 | Santa Barbara | Read Local + Write Local Hello / account / admin / log out Sign Up / Log In step by step The 'Last Place Aversion' Paradox If ever Americans were up for a bit of class warfare, now would seem to be the time. The current financial downturn has led to a $700 billion tax-payer-financed bank bailout and an unemployment rate stuck stubbornly above nine percent. Onto this scene has stepped the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, which seeks to bring together a disparate group of protesters united in their belief that the current income distribution is unfair.

Newman Library Idea Lab Great Intro to What a Repository Is On the Open Access @ CUNY blog, Jill Cirasella has posted a nice entry all about repositories: disciplinary repositories (like arXiv for phyics), institutional repositories (that are tied to a university or college), and commercial repositories (like Academia.edu). I was especially intrigued by the news that the CUNY Grad Center is about to launch its own institutional repository and that soon(ish) we’ll be seeing a CUNY-wide repository! The Future of Newspapers…in 1981 A Movement Too Big to Fail - Chris Hedges' Columns A Movement Too Big to Fail Posted on Oct 16, 2011 By Chris Hedges There is no danger that the protesters who have occupied squares, parks and plazas across the nation in defiance of the corporate state will be co-opted by the Democratic Party or groups like MoveOn. The faux liberal reformers, whose abject failure to stand up for the rights of the poor and the working class, have signed on to this movement because they fear becoming irrelevant. Union leaders, who pull down salaries five times that of the rank and file as they bargain away rights and benefits, know the foundations are shaking.

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Nation Waiting For Protesters To Clearly Articulate Demands Before Ignoring Them NEW YORK—As the Occupy Wall Street protest expands and grows into a nationwide movement, Americans are eagerly awaiting a list of demands from the group so they can then systematically disregard them and continue going about their business, polls showed this week. "The protesters need to unify around a shared agenda with precise policy goals so I can begin paying no attention to them whatsoever," said Tulsa, OK poll respondent Kaye Petrachonis, echoing the thoughts of millions across the country. "If they don’t have a clear power structure organized around specific demands first, then I'll never be able to completely tune them out due to a political conflict of interest or an inability to comprehend complex, detailed economic concepts.

How to Make Your Own Web Mashup So you want to make a mashup but aren't entirely sure where to begin? This page can help you get there. 1. Pick a subject Occupy Wall Street Really 'Becoming A Force' On Monday, Kanye West and Russell Simmons stopped by to show support for the Occupy Wall Street protesters. But they weren't the first hip-hop celebs to lend their time to the cause. Last week, Talib Kweli also made a surprise appearance, which included a performance of his new song "Distractions." Can't get to New York City? Take our guided tour of the Occupy Wall Street headquarters. Citizen Radio Watches Occupy Wall Street Grow How to auto tweet and create your own Twitter bot UPDATE: Please note that the functionality described in this blog post relises on Twitter API version 1.0 which has now been deprecated by Twitter. This means that the functionality described may no longer work for you. If you are building a business and are perhaps too busy to be manning TweetDeck 24×7, then augmenting your real social media activities with the help of a bot may be just what you need. Or perhaps you want to build a new twitter account that curates and auto-tweets specialist content.

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