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In Cities, Weak Social Ties May Boost Mental Illness
Addressing Negative Thoughts Most Effective in Fighting Loneliness
Brain Cells — Not Lack of Willpower — Determine Obesity, Study Finds
Reading Food Labels, Combined With Exercise, Can Lead to Weight Loss, Study Finds
Plus lots more.
More than one million French workers have taken to the streets to protest against austerity measures planned by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government.
The rallies came as a 24-hour national strike disrupted flight and rail services, and closed schools.
I keep thinking about that scene in “Sicko,” where an American ex-pat tells Michael Moore, “Here in France, the government is afraid of the people. In America, the people are afraid of the government.
Superstition easier than coping strategies
Short Sleepers at Higher Risk of Type 2 Diabetes and Heart Disease, Study Finds
Cognition problems linked to diabetes
Excessive Drinking May Lead to Poor Brain Health Via Obesity
Plus lots more.
. . . ideas.
Some bleary-eyed thoughts from Japan on the reported administration proposal for $50 billion in new spending:
1. It’s a good idea
2. It’s much too small
3. It won’t pass anyway — which makes you wonder why the administration didn’t propose a bigger plan, so as to at least make the point that the other party is standing in the way of much needed repair to our roads, ports, sewers, and more– not to mention creating jobs. Once again, they’re striking right at the capillaries.
Washington Wire:
Small Business to Obama: Tax Cuts Won’t Work
The chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Businesses said today that small business doesn’t need more tax relief. Instead, Washington should aim its firepower at consumers so they begin spending money and creating demand.
If only we the people had gotten some benefit to cause this shift.
In both the first and second quarters of this year, the broad finance, insurance and real estate sector has favored Republican candidates and committees in its political giving, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis finds. The same holds true for both the more narrow commercial banking and securities and investment industries.
Timothy Noah, Slate (thanks to Susie):
All my life I’ve heard Latin America described as a failed society (or collection of failed societies) because of its grotesque maldistribution of wealth. Peasants in rags beg for food outside the high walls of opulent villas, and so on. But according to the Central Intelligence Agency (whose patriotism I hesitate to question), income distribution in the United States is more unequal than in Guyana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and roughly on par with Uruguay, Argentina, and Ecuador. [Emphasis added.] Income inequality is actually declining in Latin America even as it continues to increase in the United States. Economically speaking, the richest nation on earth is starting to resemble a banana republic.
459 million U.S. vacation days skipped
After $75,000, Money Can’t Buy Day-to-Day Happiness
10 No-Cost Strategies to Fight Depression
Fast-Food’s Catch? It’s Not the Calories
Plus lots more.
Marshall Ramsey, The Jackson Mississippi Clarion Ledger:
It’s an important point that the rich, by their greedy gut ways, are destroying the U.S. economy, which is the source of their riches. They’re fouling their own nest—and ours.
Welcome to the worst Labor Day in the memory of most Americans. Organized labor is down to about 7 percent of the private work force. Members of non-organized labor — most of the rest of us — are unemployed, underemployed or underwater…
Face it: The national economy isn’t escaping the gravitational pull of the Great Recession. None of the standard booster rockets are working…
That’s because the real problem has to do with the structure of the economy, not the business cycle. No booster rocket can work unless consumers are able, at some point, to keep the economy moving on their own. But consumers no longer have the purchasing power to buy the goods and services they produce as workers; for some time now, their means haven’t kept up with what the growing economy could and should have been able to provide them…
Even if nearly everyone was employed, the vast middle class still wouldn’t have enough money to buy what the economy is capable of producing.
Where have all the economic gains gone? Mostly to the top. The economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty examined tax returns from 1913 to 2008. They discovered an interesting pattern. In the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in about 9 percent of the nation’s total income; by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income.
It’s no coincidence that the last time income was this concentrated was in 1928. I do not mean to suggest that such astonishing consolidations of income at the top directly cause sharp economic declines. The connection is more subtle.
The rich spend a much smaller proportion of their incomes than the rest of us. So when they get a disproportionate share of total income, the economy is robbed of the demand it needs to keep growing and creating jobs…
What … could be done to raise wages and thereby spur the economy? I don’t pretend to have all the answers but some initiatives seem worthwhile.
[Pause for a commercial announcement. These points, and others, are developed at length in my upcoming book, “AFTERSHOCK: The Next Economy and America’s Future,” out in two weeks from Alfred Knopf.]
We might consider, for example, extending the earned income tax credit all the way up through the middle class, and paying for it with a tax on carbon…
Another step would be to exempt the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes and paying for it with a payroll tax on incomes over $250,000…
In the longer term, Americans must be better prepared to succeed in the global, high-tech economy. Early childhood education should be more widely available, paid for by a small 0.5 percent fee on all financial transactions. Public universities should be free; in return, graduates would then be required to pay back 10 percent of their first 10 years of full-time income.
Another step: workers who lose their jobs and have to settle for positions that pay less could qualify for “earnings insurance” that would pay half the salary difference for two years; such a program would probably prove less expensive than extended unemployment benefits.
These measures would not enlarge the budget deficit because they would be paid for. In fact, such moves would help reduce the long-term deficits by getting more Americans back to work and the economy growing again.
Here’s the point. Policies that generate more widely shared prosperity lead to stronger and more sustainable economic growth — and that’s good for everyone.
The rich are better off with a smaller percentage of a fast-growing economy than a larger share of an economy that’s barely moving. That’s the Labor Day lesson we learned decades ago; until we remember it again, we’ll be stuck in the Great Recession.
I … get told on a regular basis that if I don’t shut my pie hole about all this and vote Democratic that it will all be my fault when tEh crazies get elected. Please explain to me in simple, clear, elementary language how the [Democratic failures] are my fault. To wit: I voted for a candidate who promised to close GITMO within a year. I voted for a candidate who promised to end DADT and provide equal rights for all Americans. I voted for a candidate who promised immigration reform. I voted for a candidate who promised to put Americans, all Americans, back to work. I voted for a candidate who promised to protect our social contract and expand the economic safety net.
Obama has not only not done any of it, he’s made shit worse.
Now, tell me why I should vote for the Democrats in 2010? Because tEh crazies are coming? Fuck that: tEh crazies are here.
Glenn Greenwald:
The President’s Deficit Commission is designed to be as anti-democratic and un-transparent as possible. Its work is done in total secrecy. It is filled with behind-the-scenes political and corporate operatives who steadfastly refuse to talk to the public about what they’re doing. Its recommendations will be released in December, right after the election, to ensure that its proposals are shielded from public anger…
That’s why Commission co-chair Alan Simpson — with his blunt contempt for Social Security and and other benefit programs (such as aid to disabled veterans) and his acknowledged eagerness to slash them – has done the country a serious favor. His recent outbursts have unmasked this Commission and shed light on its true character. Unlike his fellow Commission members, who imperiously dismiss public inquiries into what they’re doing as though they’re annoying and inappropriate, Simpson — to his genuine credit — has been aggressively engaging critics, making it impossible to ignore what the Commission is really up to…
But perhaps the most significant result of Simpson’s candor is that Obama loyalists and Beltway media voices are now forced to publicly defend Social Security cuts, because Simpson’s comments have prematurely dragged out into the open what has been an open secret in Washington but was supposed to be a secret plot for everyone else until the election was over…
One of the most significant developments in the U.S. is the rapidly and severely increasing rich-poor gap. A middle class standard of living is being suffocated and even slowly eliminated, as budget cuts cause an elimination of services that are hallmarks of first-world living. Because the wealthiest Americans continue to consolidate both their monopoly on wealth and, more important, their control of Congress and the government generally, we respond to all of this by enacting even more policies which exacerbate that gap and favor even more the wealthiest factions while taking more from the poorest and most powerless. And now, the very people responsible for the vulernable financial state of the U.S. want to address that problem by targeting one of the very few guarantors in American life of a humane standard of living: Social Security…
In the Post…, [Dana] Milbank justifies the targeting of Social Security recipients and wounded veterans on the ground that nothing should be “sacrosanct” when considering how to solve America’s deficit problem. Leaving aside the fact that Social Security is not really a deficit issue, the true causes of America’s debt and deficits are absolutely sacrosanct and will never be attacked by this Commission. Does anyone believe it’s even remotely possible that meaningful cuts in America’s war and military spending, surveillance and intelligence networks, or even corporate-plundering of America’s health care system will be enacted as a result of this Commission process? Of course not.
Employers Push Costs for Health on Workers
The Business Case for Disease Prevention
Doctors Seek Way to Treat Muscle Loss
No Surprise: Walking, Cycling Linked to Healthier Weights
Plus lots more.
Groups of friends key to changing health behaviors
Antidepressant patch doesn’t help smokers quit
Study Contends Pot Isn’t a Major ‘Gateway Drug’
Mouse Study May Help Explain Fish Oil’s Benefits
Plus lots more.
New Evidence That Fat Cells Are Not Just Dormant Storage Depots for Calories
Link Between Everyday Stress and Obesity Strenthened
How Do Organisms Make Dietary Choices?
How to End Emotional Eating
Plus lots more.
