Watch the Times Square ball Drop Live Online - Happy New Year

Watch the Times Square ball drop to bring in 2012 here. But before that watch live performances of top musical performers:

Watch live streaming video from 2012 at livestream.com

Video: Occupy Charlotte Does not Condone Flag Burning

There are always a few bad apples. I would venture to say there are more Tea Partyers with disloyal views than the Occupy movement:

Citizens United loses in Montana, Supreme Court upholds state ban on corporate spending

A victory for democracy. Now for the U.S. Supreme Court:

 Citizens United loses in Montana, Supreme Court upholds state ban on corporate spending.

Source

Video: Syrian man Records his Own Death

Basil Al-Sayid, a 24-year-old man in Syria, was shot to death while documenting violence committed by the government:

Obama and the Economy: Not as Bad, Not Good

The Obama administration argument is that the economy isn't collapsing like it was before they took office. That isn't good enough. This isn't change. It's not as bad. And after 4 years not as bad isn't good:

[...]the fact that people who've given up looking for work don't show up in the unemployment rate -- is not present in the EMPloyment rate: the share of the population working. That's fallen over the past couple of years and has been basically flat-lining for a year. It's probably the most pessimistic labor market indicator out there, and is a reliable sign that labor demand remains weak.

[...]The figure shows the year-over-year changes in the real weekly earnings of blue-collar, non-managerial workers (it's a good proxy for the median, or middle-class wage). It was already falling slightly in 2009 (Dec/Dec) but is falling faster now (down 1.5%, Nov10-Nov11).

[...]The other pothole indicator for the president is the increase in profit shares of GDP along with the decline in compensation shares. The figure shows these movements from 2009 compared to now, and while they don't look like big changes in the figure, they're actually quite significant-these variables usually move pretty glacially.

[...]Profits as a share of GDP are way up and compensation/GDP is way down. Now, it's not like high profits are a bad thing, and they often recover before wages. But their distribution is highly skewed, and they clearly signal the return of rising income inequality, a major concern for a lot of people today, myself included.

The decline in the compensation share is a symptom of the weak job market, high unemployment, and weak wage growth. It's why a lot of families still feel squeezed while flush corporations sit on trillions in cash.

Source: Jared Bernstein, HuffingtonPost

Credit card debt: Are consumers returning to bad habits?

Americans have no income to pay for things. So we charge. And the banks profit:

Americans are edging back toward their bad old pre-recession habits, when they charged whatever they wanted on their credit cards and didn’t worry about the build up of debt. After starting 2011 by paying down over $32 billion in credit card debt, consumers are on track to end the year with a $64 billion increase in their net credit card debt, according to Card Hub’s latest survey of credit card debt.

That’s a far bigger increase than in either 2009 or 2010. Unfortunately, the situation in 2012 will worsen before it improves. You can thank the busy holiday shopping season for that. It occurs during the year’s fourth quarter, which is largely why the fourth quarter sees debt build up faster than in the second and third quarters combined.

Full article 

Pittsburgh City Council Gives Itself a Pay Raise

Unless Pittsburgh's economy is booming a pay raise is outrageous. But they don't care. They'll still won't be held accountable come next election. Most incumbents get to keep their jobs no matter what. And we have no choices:

Pittsburgh City Council members gave themselves more taxpayer money to play with when they approved a 2012 operating budget, a decision that sends the wrong message in tight economic times.

Members say it's not their intention to play Santa, but each of the nine will get $94,000 for staff salaries next year, up from the current $88,000. Council will decide later on how to allocate the funds, by giving raises to some or all of their staffers or by increasing the hours of work available for part-timers.

Full article

Police: More cars set afire in LA, arson suspected

The Associated Press: Police: More cars set afire in LA, arson suspected

Several more cars burned in suspected arson attacks in the Los Angeles area early Saturday morning, and authorities investigated if they were connected to nearly two dozen deliberately set blazes a day earlier, police said.

Seven or eight cars burned Saturday in the North Hollywood area, said officer Robert Collier.

He said he didn't have further details of the blazes, but said arson is suspected and there could be a link to the earlier blazes.

Santorum defends his use of pork-barrel spending

Santorum defends his use of pork-barrel spending

The Dysfunction of America (1): The Rule of Greed

A Canadian perspective on greed in America:

The U.S. economy remains the most powerful, creative and dynamic in the world, but it faces major difficulties. No longer is it a true capitalist free-market system. It has become a gigantic welfare state whose prime beneficiaries are the rich and major corporations.

Think of the legions of millionaire lobbyists in Washington; the shuttle-bus-type ferrying of people back and forth between senior Washington positions and executive suites in the business world; the enormous subsidies paid to myriad industries, including agriculture; the complex loopholes that render the tax code incomprehensible to all but the beneficiaries; the deregulation of the financial system that led to the crisis of 2007 and 2008, followed by the trillion-dollar bailouts; and that’s to say nothing of the dramatically increasing inequality of income distribution.

Greed may be good, as Gordon Gekko famously declared in Wall Street, but it is good only for the rich.

Full article from MontrealGazette

Jason Salzman: The 99 Percent: Income Inequality by the Numbers

Jason Salzman: The 99 Percent: Income Inequality by the Numbers

So, here's a crib sheet for anyone writing about Occupy in 2012.

Income Inequality: Occupy by the Numbers

Percentage of our nation's wealth owned by the top 1% of earners: 33.8%

Percentage of U.S. wealth owned by the bottom 50% of Americans: 2.5%.

Percentage of investment assets (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.) owned by top 1%: over 50%

Percentage of investment assets owned by the bottom half: 0.5%

Percentage of the nation's personal debt owed by the top 1% in the US: 5%

Percentage of the nation's personal debt owed by the bottom 90% of Americans: 73%

...

75 Years Ago Today, the First Occupy

Great story. Working people have had to fight for every right we enjoy today.

75 Years Ago Today, the First Occupy - The Huffington Post

Don Cheadle Says President Obama Should Have Been More 'Gangsta,' Clarifies Comments

He's disappointed like so many loyal supporters who believed Obama's promises.

Don Cheadle Says President Obama Should Have Been More 'Gangsta,' Clarifies Comments - The Huffington Post

Cable Television Bills Have Nearly Tripled In The Past 10 Years

And what we get for our money gets worse every year.

Cable Television Bills Have Nearly Tripled In The Past 10 Years - The Huffington Post

Occupy Philly Is Alive and Well

Written by Joan E. Dowlin (Huffington Post):

I was in town pet sitting for a friend when I went online to find out what is happening with the Occupy movement in Philadelphia. I saw that there was an Assembly Meeting at the Friends Center Thursday evening so I decided to check it out.

I am so glad I did. Previously I had written twice in The Huffington Post about Occupy Philly this past fall describing my trips to Dilworth Plaza and my interviews with various people connected to the movement. I remember coming away inspired and full of hope for the future.

This assembly was an even deeper experience of insightful, spiritual activism. Even though the tents are gone, one occupier shared that "the organic whole of the movement still exists." I would guess there were about 40 people there. There were representatives of all ages and races. It began with business items first: schedules, court dates, the website, and announcements. I almost felt like I was at a church meeting. Occupy is planning a New Year's Eve party and being a part of the Mummer's parade.

Full article

Romney takes the high road as Christie targets Obama

The main reason Christie is campaigning with Romney is in preparation to make him a running mate for the likely winner of the GOP primaries. Christie thought about running for President. He felt he was unprepared. Being VP for 4 or more years would prepare him for an eventual run for the White House. Christie is also popular with Republicans and is more well known than any other potential running mate. He also makes an interesting contrast with Romney. The only drawback? He is a Northerner. But it wouldn't matter for Romney. The South votes Republican, with a few exceptions. Christie is the logical choice:

Undeterred by the cold or by a steady drizzle, some 600 Iowans came out this morning to hear Mitt Romney, along with his surrogate and enforcer, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, rally the troops before Tuesday's Iowa caucus begins the 2012 primary campaign in earnest.

Romney, as he has done all week in Iowa, set the stakes for 2012 high, telling the crowd the race was not about just changing occupants of the oval office, but also about "saving the soul of America."

No one wages that fight better than Christie, said Romney; the New Jersey governor returned the favor.

"As we always do every four years, America's watching Iowa and Iowa's gonna be, gonna be the folks who are gonna help to start this process to get us going to make sure that the Republican Party nominates the very best person to take on President Obama in November," Christie told the shivering crowd. "Now when you look at that stage in these debates, I think you've gotta come to the conclusion I've come to: there is no person better qualified by his experience and his character to take on Barack Obama and to lead the United States of America than Gov. Mitt Romney"

Christie also jokingly warned the crowd that there would be consequences if they did not support Romney at Tuesday's caucuses. Christie said that he would return to Iowa "Jersey Style," a statement with different, but equally terrifying meaning, to fans of "The Sopranos" and "Jersey Shore" alike.

Full article

Bank CEOs Make Big Money 2011

Shouldn't there be a relationship between stock performance and CEO pay? Not in today's corporate environment. The DOW went up .3 percent in 2011. And the wages of American workers didn't do any better. So how is it that those responsible see their personal gain skyrocketing:

Here’s a tough pill to swallow for big bank investors: Your stock was slammed in 2011 but the CEO running the company is making out just fine.

According to data from bank analyst Dick Bove bank CEOs are out-earning their employees and shareholders even as shares of their respective companies dropped this year.

Bove found that while earnings per share increased about 13% at the 23 financial institutions he follows stock prices dropped more than 30%, and CEO salary was more than 65 times than the average employee salary.

Full article

Bank Fees Predicted To Rise In 2012, As Banks Try To Boost Revenue

Because bank profits are not high enough:

Squeezed by regulations under the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, banks are looking to find new ways to wring fees from customers. In 2012, expect to see higher minimum balance requirements and an ongoing push to increase customers' credit card spending, according to a "2012 U.S. Banking Sector Outlook" report from Trepp, an analytics company that provides information to the banking industry.

Other industry analysts predict that some banks could raise overdraft fees from $35 to a new high of $40 and that more institutions will increase monthly maintenance fees on basic checking accounts to between $12 and $15.

Over the past three years, various new regulations under the Dodd-Frank Act and the Credit Card Act have reined in certain aggressive fee practices. More regulations in 2012 are expected to further hamper banks' ability to make big profits off the basic banking activities of consumers.

Yet banks' losses from Dodd-Frank and other regulations haven't been as dramatic as portrayed. In 2007, the percentage of revenue that came from fees was more than 40 percent, according to Trepp. In 2011, that percentage dropped just 4 points to 36 percent.

Full article

It was an off year for the banks. You might even see some CEOs being laid-off:

So is Dodd-Frank “killing” the industry? In fact, “bank profits rose substantially” in the first quarter of the year, with banks showing the biggest profits since before the recession. Things were sunny in the second quarter as well:

    – Profits at JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s second largest bank, were up 13 percent.

    – Third-largest Citigroup’s profits soared 23 percent.

    – Fourth-largest Wells Fargo’s profits shot up 29 percent.

    – Fifth-largest Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, “disappointed investors” when it merely “more than doubled its profits.”

    –Sixth-largest Morgan Stanley’s profits were up an impressive 17 percent.

The only top-tier bank to have a rough second quarter was the nation’s largest, Bank of America, which has been dragged down in part by its acquisition of investment house Merril Lynch — a move that, ironically, would not have been allowed under the Glass–Steagall Act, the repeal of which Gingrich spearheaded as House Speaker in the 90s.

Source

Video: Are the GOP Presidential Candidates part of the 99%

Watch this video and see whether you think the GOP candidates running for President sympathize with your plight. If you think they are then you'll find this video quite amusing:

Hundreds of thousands in Syria protest gov't

We must support the war on tyranny. Let's not forget how America came to be. And we would not have won against the British without support from other nations. Let's keep the heat on Assad just as we did with the tyrants in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, etc. If we don't succeed then we are all in danger:

Source: dailymail.co.uk

 Hundreds of thousands of Syrians poured into the streets across the nation Friday in the largest protests in months, shouting for the downfall of the regime in a defiant display invigorated by the presence of Arab observers, activists said.

Despite the presence of the monitors, activists said Syrian forces killed at least 19 people, most of them shot during anti-government protests.

Rami Abdul-Raham, who heads the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the crowds were largest Friday in Idlib and Hama provinces, with 250,000 people each. Other massive rallies were held in Daraa province and the Damascus suburb of Douma, he said.

Full article