June 26, 2015

Dutch City to Experiment With Universal Basic Income

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/dutch_city_to_experiment_with_universal_basic_income_20150625


via truthdig:



The Dutch city of Utrecht is considering introducing a universal basic income—an income unconditionally granted to all its residents on an individual basis, without a means test or work requirement.

The city has teamed up with a local university to place people on welfare on a living income, to analyze how a system of welfare without requirements will function.

As the Basic Income Earth Network explains, basic income is “a form of minimum income guarantee that differs from those that now exist in various European countries in three important ways: it is paid to individuals rather than households; it is paid irrespective of any income from other sources; and it is paid without requiring the performance of any work or the willingness to accept a job if offered.”

The Independent reports:

The concept is to allow people to choose to work more flexible hours in a less regimented society, allowing more time for care, volunteering and study.

The Netherlands as a country is no stranger to less traditional work environments - it has the highest proportion of part time workers in the EU, 46.1 per cent. However, Utrecht’s experiment with welfare is expected to be the first of its kind in the country.

Alderman for Work and Income Victor Everhardt told DeStad Utrecht: “One group ... will have compensation and consideration for an allowance, another group with a basic income without rules and of course a control group which adhere to the current rules.”

“Our data shows that less than 1.5 percent abuse the welfare, but, before we get into all kinds of principled debate about whether we should or should not enter, we need to first examine if basic income even really works.

“What happens if someone gets a monthly amount without rules and controls? Will someone [sit] passively at home or do people develop themselves and provide a meaningful contribution to our society?”

The city is also planning to talk to other municipalities about setting up similar experiments, including Nijmegen, Wageningen, Tilburg and Groningen, awaiting permission from The Hague in order to do so.

Read more here.

June 26, 2015

I guess Clarence Thomas thinks it's better to remove all doubt than just be thought of as a fool....

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — In a dissenting opinion to Thursday’s Supreme Court decision that favored fair-housing advocates, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas drew on the racial composition of a profession where minorities dominate: basketball.

“In our own country, for roughly a quarter-century now, over 70% of National Basketball Association players have been black,” Thomas wrote. “To presume that these and all other measurable disparities are products of racial discrimination is to ignore the complexities of human existence.”

He wrote: “Racial imbalances do not always disfavor minorities.”


Taking another tack, he also criticized “racial balancing” that is limited to certain groups.

“If, for instance, white basketball players cannot bring disparate-impact suits — then we as a Court have constructed a scheme that parcels out legal privileges to individuals on the basis of skin color,” Thomas wrote. ..............(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/thomas-dissents-from-fair-housing-decision-by-noting-nbas-racial-composition-2015-06-25

June 25, 2015

Twice as many Americans now forced to delay marriage, college, kids

(MarketWatch) Thanks to crushing financial concerns, more Americans are now being forced to put off major life events like going to college, getting married and having kids.

According to a survey released Thursday of 1,010 adults by the American Institute of CPAs, more than half of American adults (51%) say they delayed at least one important life decision — like having kids or retiring — because of financial reasons. This is up from just one in three (31%) who did that in 2007. Despite an improving economy and job market, “the specific life events Americans are delaying for financial reasons have more than doubled from the 2007 survey,” the institute reveals.

This may be thanks to the fact that we’ve learned some hard lessons since the recession, says Ernie Almonte, the chair of the AICPA’s National CPA Financial Literacy Commission, an organization devoted to helping Americans with financial literacy. “When you peel the onion back, you start to see that what they have experienced — their parents, friends losing their homes or jobs or people in so much debt they file for bankruptcy — stuck with them,” he says. “They have learned from those lessons…people are looking at things now and saying ‘I don’t have enough savings for that’ or ‘I will put it off for a year or two until I’m financially stable.’”

The number of Americans delaying higher education due to financial concerns saw the largest jump since the 2007 survey (from 11% in 2007 to 24% in 2015). This is likely thanks to the skyrocketing costs of college (tuition and fees at public four-year colleges have increased 17% in the past five years, according to The College Board) and other higher education, combined with a fear of being one of the many graduates struggling to get a job amidst record-high levels of student debt, which averages nearly $30,000 per student. Other surveys seem to provide support that people are delaying their higher education: Enrollment in law school has dropped to levels not seen since 1973 http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/law-school-enrollment-falls-to-lowest-level-since-1987/, and some colleges are seeing enrollment declines as well http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/03/04/college-enrollment-trouble-signs/. .........................(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/twice-as-many-americans-now-forced-to-delay-marriage-college-kids-2015-06-25?link=MW_Nav_NV

June 25, 2015

"Indiana man" is tired of "Florida man" grabbing all the headlines

An Indiana man was arrested on Sunday for trespassing after he licked a toad while dancing around the parking lot of a local bar, authorities say.

Richard Mullins, 41, was escorted out of JJ's Sideout Bar & Grill in LaPorte early on Sunday morning after failing to show valid identification, police said, according to WSBTV.

After he left the bar, witnesses said Mullins began dancing around the parking lot. He then picked up a toad and started licking it.

“The subject ... reportedly picked up a toad and was licking it prior to our arrival,” Officer Vincent Bowman of the La Porte Police Department noted in a police report obtained by The Smoking Gun. ................(more)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/24/indiana-toad-licking_n_7653688.html

June 25, 2015

What will happen to a sinking California? Just ask San Luis Obispo

from Grist:





For those wondering why California is sinking, look no further than San Luis Obispo. Not too long ago in that idyllic Central Coast city, an overdependence on groundwater became a destructive and expensive problem that today could serve as a warning to cities and counties throughout the state.

In 1989, amid one of the longest droughts in California history, the city’s water supply had reached a critically low level. Officials implemented mandatory water reductions of 20 percent for businesses and their 40,000 residents. And, for the first time in San Luis Obispo’s history, it began pumping groundwater. It drilled massive water wells. By 1990, the city was getting about 40 percent of its water from the ground.

Slowly, the earth began moving. The ground underneath buildings started to sink as the water supporting it was pumped to the surface. One family reported a quarter-inch crack that started in the kitchen floor and began creeping throughout the house.

The Bear Valley Center, a shopping center near one of the city’s major extraction wells, began to bend into a V-shape as the land beneath it sank. It suffered from what geologists call differential subsidence, in which varying soil composites result in certain spots sinking faster than others. The middle of the shopping center was sinking quicker than the rest, and it was causing major problems. Sidewalks cracked and sloped back toward the building. Doors and windows in the shopping center became jammed in place. Business owners couldn’t fully close their doors at night and were forced to use large chains and padlocks to secure their shops. ................(more)

http://grist.org/climate-energy/what-will-happen-to-a-sinking-california-just-ask-san-luis-obispo/

June 25, 2015

Blinders (cartoon)

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/blinders_20150624

June 25, 2015

Chicago: After Month Without Yellow Line, News Gets Worse in Skokie

June 20--Yellow Line trains have not rolled along Skokie's tracks for more than a month now, a closure that commuters will have to deal with into the fall after the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District announced Friday that service would not be restored until October.

The Yellow Line was shut down May 17, when the ground collapsed underneath tracks between Howard and Oakton streets across from McCormick Boulevard. CTA officials said the collapse took place during a construction project undertaken by the district and performed by Walsh Construction. No one was hurt.

Much of the past month was spent assessing the problem and determining the best way to tackle it, according to a release from the water district.

"This was the plan we accepted to restore service as quickly as possible while maintaining safety as the top priority," said CTA spokesman Jeff Tolman, referring to the repair timeline.

Many Yellow Line commuters said they were feeling the impact after only a month without service, and now they have months more to wait. ................(more)

http://www.masstransitmag.com/news/14011709/after-month-without-yellow-line-news-gets-worse-in-skokie

June 25, 2015

Captains of Industry Speak (cartoon)

http://www.truth-out.org/art/item/31523-jen-sorensen-captains-of-industry-speak

June 25, 2015

Domestic Terrorism: From the Charleston Massacre to 1964 Slaying of Mississippi Civil Rights Workers

Published on Jun 23, 2015
http://democracynow.org - Sunday marked the 51st anniversary of another hateful act tied to another historic black church. It was June 21, 1964, when three young civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner went missing after they visited an African-American church which the Ku Klux Klan had bombed because it was going to be used as a Freedom School. We speak to David Goodman, brother of Andrew Goodman. On Sunday, the 51st anniversary of Andrew’s death, he wrote an editorial for Mississippi’s Clarion-Ledger newspaper headlined "U.S. Has Turned Pages, Not Closed Book on Racism."

June 25, 2015

Question submitted by marmar