Tomorrow, November 5th, 2011, has been unofficially designated as ‘Bank Transfer Day‘, which is ‘a consumer activism initiative calling for a voluntary switch from commercial banks to not-for-profit credit unions and community banks by November 5, 2011‘. It’s been adopted and supported by the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protesters, but it predates them, and is not… Continue reading Bank Transfer Day
Tag: Corruption
State and municipal finances – the bust goes on
Michael Lewis, whom we’ve met in these pages before, has written a superb article in the latest edition of Vanity Fair analyzing the breakdown of US state and municipal finances. Here’s a brief excerpt. The people who had power in the society, and were charged with saving it from itself, had instead bled the society… Continue reading State and municipal finances – the bust goes on
Is Project Gunrunner another Watergate?
That’s the suggestion of Forbes magazine. Here’s a very short excerpt from their lengthy exposé of the scandal. For political context we … need to step back to April 16, 2009 — four or five months before we think Fast and Furious began. On this day President Barack Obama was visiting Mexico. While there he… Continue reading Is Project Gunrunner another Watergate?
‘Machine politics’ is alive and well . . .
. . . or at least, that’s what two recent articles seem to suggest. From Philadelphia comes a report of influence-peddling and strong-arm tactics that one hopes will lead to criminal charges; but I’m not holding my breath. In 1999, when John F. Street first ran for Philadelphia mayor, he said his campaign contributors had… Continue reading ‘Machine politics’ is alive and well . . .
It must be nice to be a union boss in Chicago
That’s the only conclusion I can draw from an article in the Chicago Tribune yesterday. Here’s an excerpt. The Tribune reported that in 1991, state law was quietly changed to allow Chicago union bosses to cash in and base their city taxpayer-funded pensions not on their wages from their city jobs but on their salaries… Continue reading It must be nice to be a union boss in Chicago