From NYT:

Millions of Americans suffered a loss of wealth during the recession and the sluggish recovery that followed. But the last half-decade has proved far worse for black and Hispanic families than for white families, starkly widening the already large gulf in wealth between non-Hispanic white Americans and most minority groups, according to a new study from the Urban Institute.

“It was already dismal,” Darrick Hamilton, a professor at the New School in New York, said of the wealth gap between black and white households. “It got even worse.”

Given the dynamics of the housing recovery and the rebound in the stock market, the wealth gap might still be growing, experts said, further dimming the prospects for economic advancement for current and future generations of Americans from minority groups.

The Urban Institute study found that the racial wealth gap yawned during the recession, even as the income gap between white Americans and nonwhite Americans remained stable. As of 2010, white families, on average, earned about $2 for every $1 that black and Hispanic families earned, a ratio that has remained roughly constant for the last 30 years. But when it comes to wealth — as measured by assets, like cash savings, homes and retirement accounts, minus debts, like mortgages and credit card balances — white families have far outpaced black and Hispanic ones. Before the recession, non-Hispanic white families, on average, were about four times as wealthy as nonwhite families, according to the Urban Institute’s analysis of Federal Reserve data. By 2010, whites were about six times as wealthy.

The dollar value of that gap has grown, as well. By the most recent data, the average white family had about $632,000 in wealth, versus $98,000 for black families and $110,000 for Hispanic families.

“The racial wealth gap is deeply rooted in our society,” said Caroline Ratcliffe, one of the authors of the Urban Institute study. “It’s here, it’s not going away, and we need to care about it.”

Factory Fire Kills More Than 100 People in Bangladesh, New York Times:

MUMBAI — More than 100 people died Saturday and Sunday in a fire at a garment factory outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, in one of the worst industrial tragedies in that country…

Bangladesh’s garment industry, the second largest exporter of clothing after China, has a notoriously poor record of fire safety. Since 2006, more than 500 Bangladeshi workers have died in garment factory fires, according to Clean Clothes Campaign, an anti-sweatshop advocacy group based in Amsterdam. Experts say many of the fires could have been easily avoided if the factories had taken the right precautions. Many factories are in cramped neighborhoods, have too few fire escapes and widely flout safety measures. The industry employs more than three million workers in Bangladesh, mostly women.

Activists say that global clothing brands need to take responsibility for working conditions in Bangladeshi factories that produce the clothes that they sell …

Bangladesh exports about $18 billion worth of garments and is a big supplier to companies like Walmart, H&M and Tommy Hilfiger. Workers in the country’s factories are among the lowest-paid in the world with entry-level workers making a government-mandated minimum wage of about $37 a month.

Black Friday Wal*Mart Strike:

In 100 cities across 46 states Thursday and Friday, the protesters were likely to be met by honks and fist pumps from cars as they waved signs and chanted outside Walmart stores. At the Walmart in Paramount, Calif., near Los Angeles, about 600 protesters, including an estimated 100 Walmart workers, turned out Friday morning. In Hanover, Md., 400 store employees, union workers, activists and other supporters showed up at a Walmart Supercenter Friday…

OUR Walmart, the worker organization that is coordinating the protests backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, contests Walmart’s estimates. Nationwide, there have been more than 1,000 individual actions and strikes so far, which is in line with what OUR Walmart projected, according to Dan Schlademan, director of the union’s Making Change at Walmart campaign.

On a conference call Friday, Schlademan said his organization does not yet have a precise count of the number of workers who walked off, as the strikes are ongoing. There have been “hundreds” of workers and “thousands” of supporters so far, he said.

Remembering the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire:

The fire at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City, which claimed the lives of 146 young immigrant workers, is one of the worst disasters since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

This incident has had great significance to this day because it highlights the inhumane working conditions to which industrial workers can be subjected. To many, its horrors epitomize the extremes of industrialism.

The tragedy still dwells in the collective memory of the nation and of the international labor movement. The victims of the tragedy are still celebrated as martyrs at the hands of industrial greed.

From Democracy Now:

The Supreme Court opens its 2012-2013 term [yesterday] with a landmark case to decide whether survivors of human rights violations in foreign countries can bring lawsuits against corporations in U.S. courts. The case centers on a lawsuit that accuses the oil giant Shell’s parent company, Royal Dutch Petroleum, of complicity in the murder and torture of Nigerian activists. Some legal analysts are comparing this case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, to the landmark campaign finance ruling in Citizens United. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled corporations have broad rights under the First Amendment and can directly fund political campaigns. The court is now being asked to decide if corporations have the same responsibilities as individuals for violations of international law. The court’s ruling will also impact numerous other human rights cases being heard by lower courts. We’re joined in New York by Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

From ThinkProgress:

In fact, the Economic Policy Institute found that Romney’s plans would actually lead to a net loss of jobs over the first two years of his administration, and the losses could grow even larger if Romney were to stick to his promise of reaching a balanced budget.

EPI had to make assumptions about Romney’s plan because of its lack of specificity, but according to its analysis, Romney’s plan to lower taxes and cut spending would cause a net loss of 554,000 jobs over the next two years if Romney abandons his plan to pay for the massive tax cuts he has promised. But if he maintains his promise to balance the budget while also providing the huge tax cuts, his plan would “lead to employment losses of 608,000 in 2013 and roughly 1.3 million in 2014″

From ThinkProgress:

According to a Tax Policy Center analysis, Romney’s plan would increase after-tax income for those making more than $200,000 annually, while lowering it for everyone else:

The upshot of Romney’s plan is that “taxpayers with incomes over $1 million would see their after-tax income increased by 8.3 percent (an average tax cut of about $175,000), taxpayers with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 would see somewhat smaller increases of about 2.4 percent (an average tax cut of $1,800), while the after-tax income of taxpayers earning less than $30,000 would actually decrease by about 0.9 percent (an average tax increase of about $130).”

This analysis made the most generous assumptions about Romney’s plan, factoring in that he would eliminate tax deductions and loopholes in the most progressive way possible in order to finance his tax cut. And still, it would constitute a dramatic shift in income to the already wealthy.

From ThinkProgress:

On September 8, 2011, President Obama laid out a series of policy proposals known collectively as the American Jobs Act. The plan included stimulus spending in the form of immediate infrastructure investments, tax credits for working Americans and employers to encourage consumer spending and job growth, and efforts to shore up state and local budgets to prevent further layoffs of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public safety officials.

The American Jobs Act never became law, however, because Republicans opposed it from the start, blasting it as another form of “failed stimulus” that wouldn’t help the economy. (They ignored the fact that the first “failed stimulus,” the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, wasn’t a failure at all.) One month later, the GOP blocked the bill in the Senate, preventing the creation of more than a million jobs and the added growth that multiple economists predicted would occur if the bill passed:

–Moody’s Analytics estimated the American Jobs Act would create 1.9 million jobs and add two percent to gross domestic product. –The Economic Policy Institute estimated it would create 2.6 million jobs and protect an addition 1.6 million existing jobs. –Macroeconomic Advisers predicted it would create 2.1 million jobs and boost GDP by 1.5 percent. –Goldman Sachs estimated it would add 1.5 percent to GDP.

The American economy has continued to recover since the American Jobs Act failed. It added 96,000 jobs last month, according to [yesterday's] Bureau of Labor Statistics report, making August the 30th consecutive month in which the private sector has grown. But growth could have been faster: the public sector shed 7,000 jobs in August, adding to the more 700,000 it has lost since 2009. That includes hundreds of thousands of teachers and educators, firefighters, and police officers. Had the public sector spent the last three years growing at its previous rate, unemployment would be at least a full point lower than it is now.

† Criminal InJustice is a weekly series devoted to taking action against inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system. Nancy A. Heitzeg, Professor of Sociology and Race/Ethnicity, is the Editor of CI. Criminal Injustice is published every Wednesday at 6 pm CST.

The Corporate “Person” and Corporate Crime
by nancy a heitzeg

“The Corporation is a person without a soul to save or a body to incarcerate.”
~ Noam Chomsky in The Corporation (2003)

CI typically focuses on the criminal injustice system, and the harsh and, often discriminatory responses to “street crime”. But now that a Corporation — namely Romneyhood, RyanRandRove, Koch, Adelson, et. al., LLC* — is running for President of the United States, perhaps it is time that CI turns the spotlight on the real murderers and robbers of the US public. The Corporate Criminal.

(more…)

From Institute for Southern Studies:

[T]wo community advocates and regional leaders from the Gulf Coast, Bryan Parras and Derrick Evans, brought an urgent message to BP’s board and shareholders at the corporation’s annual meeting. Here are Evans’ remarks as prepared for delivery. Evans is the founder of Turkey Creek Community Initiatives, a founding advisor of the Gulf Coast Fund, and a Bridge The Gulf advisor and contributor. He is from Gulfport, Miss. Read more about the meeting here.

I am here today on behalf of scores of thousands of everyday people in coastal Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and Texas whose livelihoods, physical health, and inter-generational way of life have been disrupted, compromised or outright destroyed by one or more of the myriad impacts caused by the 200 million gallon oil spill that commenced on Earth Day 2010. Unimpeded for three months, the Macondo Well hemorrhage and its multi-sector impacts remain an environmental and social catastrophe of epic proportions that does indeed necessitate an “unprecedented” expenditure of concern, time and money — as well as unprecedented honesty, good will and diligence.

I regret to report, however, that the Gulf is not clean, families and small businesses have not been made whole, and other far-reaching consequences are by no means “over” for anyone directly concerned — including you who are gathered here today. With dispersed, sunken, bulldozed, and buried sweet Louisiana crude still washing ashore, the possibility of a future hurricane storm surge dredging and depositing yet more onto our land-based ecosystems and communities is real if not imminent.

So is the possibility that your stock values will suffer significantly once this happens, or once other unfortunate truths about the company’s behavior, impact or liability become more fully disclosed or manifested in ways that cannot be circumvented. False assurances that the oil is gone or that normalcy has returned to the Gulf Coast should not be taken with any greater confidence than past assurances of Deepwater Horizon’s safety, or of the blown out well’s rate of discharge into the Gulf.