Worker Cooperatives are more productive

Worrker Cooperatives Are More Productive Than Normal Companies
by Virginie Pérotin

Imagine an economy without bosses. It’s not a utopian vision but a growing daily reality for many enterprises. A close analysis of the performance of worker-owned cooperative firms—companies in which workers share in management and ownership—shows that, compared to standard top-down firms, co-ops can be a viable, even superior way of doing business.

The term “co-op” evokes images of collective farming or crunchy craft breweries. But Virginie Perotin of Leeds University Business School synthesized research on “labor-managed firms” in Western Europe, the United States and Latin America, and found that, aside from the holistic social benefits of worker autonomy, giving workers a direct stake in managing production enables a business to operate more effectively. On balance, Perotin concludes, “worker cooperatives are more productive than conventional businesses, with staff working ‘better and smarter’ and production organized more efficiently.”

more at link:

http://www.thenation.com/article/worker-cooperatives-are-more-productive-than-normal-companies/


About Virginie Pérotin:

Before joining Leeds University Business School in May 2001, Virginie Pérotin was a Senior Research Economist at the International Labour Office in Geneva (Switzerland). In the past, she has held research positions at the London School of Economics and the Centre d'Etude des Revenus et des Coûts (CERC), a research centre of the French Prime Minister's Office in Paris. Prof. Pérotin has also acted as a consultant to the World Bank, the OECD and the European Commission on issues of profit-sharing, employee ownership and employee involvement schemes.

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This is the way to save democracy from capitalism.

Hillary needs 70% of remaining delegates to secure the nomination

Here's my math:

Total 2016 delegates (no supers): 4,051

Current delegates by person:
1,644 (Hillary) + 1,364* (Bernie) = 3,008

*I added the 48 delegates from Washington state to Bernie's count, since they're missing from the google totals.

Remaining delegates (left to vote): 4,051 - 3,008= 1,043

Number of delegates required to secure the nomination: 2,383

Hillary needs: 2383-1644= 739

739/ 1043 = .708 (70%)

It's not over and won't be until after the convention. Please let me know if I've got anything wrong here...

Source: google

Edited: Fixed Bernie's total -- should be 48 not 50 delegates from WA to add in.

 The Problem With Hillary Clinton Isn’t Just Her Corporate Cash. It’s Her Corporate Worldview.

The Problem With Hillary Clinton Isn’t Just Her Corporate Cash. It’s Her Corporate Worldview.
Clinton is uniquely unsuited to the epic task of confronting the fossil-fuel companies that profit from climate change.
By Naomi Klein

There aren’t a lot of certainties left in the US presidential race, but here’s one thing about which we can be absolutely sure: The Clinton camp really doesn’t like talking about fossil-fuel money. Last week, when a young Greenpeace campaigner challenged Hillary Clinton about taking money from fossil-fuel companies, the candidate accused the Bernie Sanders campaign of “lying” and declared herself “so sick” of it. As the exchange went viral, a succession of high-powered Clinton supporters pronounced that there was nothing to see here and that everyone should move along.

The very suggestion that taking this money could impact Clinton’s actions is “baseless and should stop,” according to California Senator Barbara Boxer. It’s “flat-out false,” “inappropriate,” and doesn’t “hold water,” declared New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman went so far as to issue “guidelines for good and bad behavior” for the Sanders camp. The first guideline? Cut out the “innuendo suggesting, without evidence, that Clinton is corrupt.”

That’s a whole lot of firepower to slap down a non-issue. So is it an issue or not?

First, some facts. Hillary Clinton’s campaign, including her Super PAC, has received a lot of money from the employees and registered lobbyists of fossil-fuel companies. There’s the much-cited $4.5 million that Greenpeace calculated, which includes bundling by lobbyists.

But that’s not all...

http://www.thenation.com/article/the-problem-with-hillary-clinton-isnt-just-her-corporate-cash-its-her-corporate-worldview/

It's not over by a long shot...

Delegate count without supers

I was looking for the democratic candidate delegate counts without the superdelegates and found this:

http://www.vox.com/a/presidential-primary-delegate-tracker

which seems to be updated regularly. (Scroll down to see the Democratic candidate counts).
I thought others might be interested as well.

Maximum wage

I find it interesting that we talk about a minimum wage all the time and how much (or little) it should be, but never discuss a maximum wage. In other words, how much money one person should be able to take just for him/herself per year. I've never heard a figure for that-- perhaps it's out there?