"The new Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the age of Colorblindness"

Michelle Alexander covers one of the primary economic issues in the Black Community in the US: Mass Incarceration of Black Males in the US. She has written a new book, "The new Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the age of Colorblindness" which as web-site here.

Here is a link to part one of a two part interview from Democracy Now: Here.

She writes that the "war on drugs" focused only on Black communities resulting a large number of non-violent, felony arrests results in a permanent incarcerated population. Second, there are rewards and incentives, for increasing the number of drug arrests. Arrests for possession account for 80% of all arrests and 4/5 of those are for Marijuana.

Corporate Consolidation is killing jobs in the US

It looks like we are starting to see an answer on job creation. The over consolidation and monopolization are behind the missing jobs. Here.

WSJ Blog: Multi-National overseas hiring

A very nice piece on US multi-national overseas hiring from WSJ Blogs. Here. The issue is more complicated of course. The US is growing at 2% and overseas is growing at 5%. No one would hire a cook or a driver from the US and send them overseas. Also, the overseas jobs support a lot of US jobs.

WSJ: $1.2 Trillion spent on stuff they don't need.

People in the US spend $1.2 Trillion on stuff they don't according to Commerce Department data analyzed by the Wall Street Journal. Categories include luxury goods like Jewelry, Alcohol. Gambling and Candy.

British Experiment in deficit reduction

Economists are watching closely the "British Experiment" in deficit reduction. Britain is proposing to eliminate it's deficit in 5 years though sharp cuts in the government.

Here is a discussion in the NYT.

Wachovia admits laundering mexican drug money

Just another story of corporate greed and lack of ethics. Wachovia did not scrutinize $378 Billion dollars for money laundering activity. In addition, during the financial crisis in 2008, a UN official said, "Drug money was the only liquid capital available. There were signs some banks were rescued that way." The article also reports that Wachovia had 6000 or 7000 subpoenas related to possible money laundering transactions.

You can read the full story here that was ignored by the US Media.

Respect the Black Consumer Dollar

Munson Steed discuss respecting the Black Consumer Dollar in RollingOut.Com.

"Fire the rich", income inequality, and class differences

Lot's of stories about the rich doing really well in the past 30 years while everyone else is flat.

Here is Altantic Magazine's piece on 12 different types on communities and the effect of income equality. Atlantic.

National Urban League State of Black America and 12 point Jobs Plan

The 12-point jobs plan is here.

The Big Story: GE paid NO taxes for the last four years

This story really captures it all. You just cannot ignore it. Everyone has an opinion or slant on the story. GE files a 24,000 page tax return and their tax department employs 975 people. Corporate tax revenue has fallen from 30% of federal tax revenue to 6% of tax revenue in 2009.


The NY times reported that General Electric (GE) paid no taxes for the last four years. You can read the story here.

And here.

and Working Asset the website is here.

Manning Marable Dies

Noted Black Scholar Manning Marable died on April 1st, 2011 at age 60.

Baltimore / Washington Afro-American is here.