We fill our lives with media. Day in and day out the screens and voices spin a tall fictional tale of Americans with good jobs, houses, cars, educational opportunities and money. Frontline brings home the real America, the one we don't want to face. Gone is the American Dream, replaced with foreclosures, food stamps and work that doesn't pay enough to even make the most modest rent. The new America is a wasteland of broken dreams, broken promises and broken people working themselves into the ground and still not even getting by.
Retirement is something most of us don't like to think about. It is not due to aging and fear of death. Instead, most of us are just scraping by, if that, and our retirement funds do not exist. Out of sight, out of mind is a way to deal with the deathly fear of having absolutely no money to take care of ourselves with in old age.
Ah, Turkey day. The time of family, good food, friends, football and shopping. Or, is that what we have been told to believe? With 15% of America on food stamps, the call to shopping seems a little insulting. Even being thankful seems disingenuous.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
This week's videos are two shorts by PBS Frontline. The first is about workers falling from Cell Towers. At first you might think, that's an easy fix through safety and regulation. Think again. Literally young boys are climbing up cell towers for $10 bucks an hour. It's a poster child for what has happened to work in America. The cheapest price wins and training, safety, experience be damned. This short puts new meaning to the phrase working yourself to death.
Pay close attention to the description of contracts, the chain of subcontracts all the way down to the worker, who also are contractors, not employees. Use of contracts, contract law to subvert U.S. worker rights, deny benefits and remove any sort of liability is extremely common these days.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
Frontline did a documentary on all of the sleazy backroom deals done to pass Obama's Health Care bill.
The White House encouraged Baucus to quietly negotiate deals with the insurance lobby, drug companies and other special interest groups, despite promises to run a different kind of White House.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
Considering how Lehman Brothers is looking good to be the new Enron, revisiting memory lane on the last $200 billion dollar Wall Street debacle is in order. Amazing isn't it? Ten years later and all that has happened is we get to have new Economic Armageddons that are 100 times worse.
Ah, Turkey day. The time of family, good food, friends, football and shopping. Or, is that what we have been told to believe? With 
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
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