profits
GRITtv: The F Word: Why Tax When You Can Freeze?
Corporate profits are up, especially in finance, and yet hiring and wages aren't. No matter how much productivity spikes, wages stay stagnant. They haven't budged. That means workers doing more work for less pay. So what's a Democratic administration to do? Freeze federal workers' wages! That's what. Distributed by Tubemogul.
Email this pageGRITtv: The F Word: Profits, Pensions, and the Return of GM
Today marked the return of automaker GM to public trading on the stock market. All hail the American automakers, returning to profitability in a little over a year after bankruptcy proceedings and billions of government dollars in bailouts, right? Not so fast. Though the stock prices are expected to be high and papers have called it “historic,” let's not forget that bailout dollars and profits for shareholders come on the backs of union worker concessions, buyouts, and layoffs. And that's still not enough for some. Distributed by Tubemogul.
GRITtv: BP's Cleaning Only Skims the Surface
"Anything BP does and doesn't do is to preserve their profits and their future ability to operate in the United States, no more, no less." That's according to "Martha," a hazardous waste worker in the Gulf, who joins us via Skype anonymously to report on the conditions workers are facing cleaning up BP's mess. "Martha" has been reporting on conditions to the blog The Political Carnival, where more of her stories of workers being fired, prisoner labor used in cleanup, improper training and safety conditions, and of course, following the money around the trail of contracts and confusion that is the Gulf Coast post-Deepwater Horizon.
GRITtv: The F Word: Newsweek and New Media
It was in 1933 that Newsweek magazine got its start pitted against Henry Luce's Time and its virulent anti-New Deal politics. This week Newsweek's owner, The Washington Post Company, put it on the block, its ink turned to red and its fiscal outlook poor. A thirst for diverse news and opinion not available in the era of concentration of media outlets drove Newsweek to the brink, combined with an ever-increasing need for Big Profits from Big Media, now coming down even as CEO's pay keeps going up. In its place -- a diverse menu of reporting and opinion on the Web, satellite, and public access. We here at GRITtv are part of that new media. For Wall Street, a jobless recovery is just fine, a shrinking media is similarly okay. What matters is sky high profits, low taxes and minimal regulation. Widgets or words or, better, the wonders of computerized futures trading, it all comes down to return on investment. But Big Media with its big budgets did send reporters to far off spots -- and paid their expenses -- There is no substitute for first hand observation in the streets, an original take on just-released government data and investigation backed by real bucks - and lawyers. That requires resources and a way to support "seeing it first hand" is one of the most critical issues our society faces. New media provides a wider range of voices than the old, but the biggest challenge remaining is how to match those budgets. The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Support us by signing up for our podcast, and follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com. Distributed by Tubemogul.
The F Word: Catastrophes Every Day for Profit
"It's premature to say this is catastrophic." The words of Gulf Coast Coast Guard Commander Mary Landry about the BP oil spill Tuesday were spoken as the families of eleven rig workers were still waiting for word of their loved ones, now presumed dead. While Landry may have reviewed her assessment, the word still makes one think. How do we define catastrophe? By Iraq's uncounted dead? By the uncounted casualties of greed on Wall Street? By the 40,000 dead a year due to lack of health insurance? How about by the 5,000 workers who die every year on the job? April 28 marked Workers Memorial Day, when workers and their unions pause to remember those who die or are injured at work. This year’s toll already includes 29 men killed in a dangerous but money-making mine, 195 coalition forces in a couple of imperial wars. And how about the thousands in Haiti impoverished so we can have cheap shirts? Those eleven oil rig workers might have been saved by a safe-guard switch that other oil producing countries require but US regulators don't. And as I speak, two more miners are trapped beneath the rubble of a Kentucky coal mine's collapsed roof. Maybe at the end of Confederate History Month, it's time to admit that's it not just good ol' boy Southern governors who like to hush about slavery and loss. In an economic climate that prizes wealth over life, the erasure of pain in pursuit of profit is as American as mining or drilling. As American as making a killing. The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Support us by signing up for our podcast, and follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com. Distributed by Tubemogul.
GRITtv: Who Owns You? Corporations Patenting Your Genes
The ACLU recently filed a lawsuit with the Public Patent Foundation, charging that two patents on human genes associated with breast cancer and ovarian cancer are unconstitutional and invalid. Most of us probably think of our genetic code as something natural, part of us, certainly not "intellectual property" in the traditional sense. Yet corporations doing medical research use the patents on these genes to prevent anyone else "from studying, testing or even looking at a gene," calling into question the whole idea of where property begins and ends. David Koepsell and Gene Quinndebate whether granting corporations the right to patent genes provides financial incentive to invest in further research, or whether certain natural phenomena should be outside the reach of profits.
Action Update: Sick for Profit
Expose How Health Insurance Industry Profits by Denying Care: The American Academy of Family Physicians and Brave New Films have teamed up to launch the website http://sickforprofit.com. Their goal: use the internet to counter insurance industry efforts to kill health care reform. The campaign website is urging visitors to go online today to take action and win real health care reform for all Americans. Share the short video Sick for Profit with friends and help expose how the health insurance industry profits by denying care. For more information about how you can get involved in the campaign, go to sickforprofit.com.
The Health Insurance Racket: Getting Rich by Denying Americans CareUnitedHealthcare CEO Stephen Hemsley owns $744,232,068 in unexercised stock options. CIGNA's Edward Hanway spends his holidays in a $13 million beach house in New Jersey. Meanwhile, regular Americans are routinely denied coverage for the care they need when they need it most. Welcome to the American health insurance industry. Instead of helping policyholders attain the health security they need for their families, big insurance companies get rich by denying coverage to patients. Now they're sending lobbyists to Washington, DC to twist the arms of lawmakers to oppose reform of the status quo. Why? Because the status quo pays. Visit http://sickforprofit.com to learn more about the glamorous lives of billionaire health insurance executives and to add your story about being victimized by their greed. Then share the Sick for Profit video to help get the word out about the health insurance racket.
