Society's ChildS


Card - VISA

Financial suicide: Credit card debt in the United States is approaching a trillion dollars

Credit cards
For the first time ever, total credit card debt in the United States is approaching a trillion dollars. Instead of learning painful lessons from the last recession, Americans continue to make the same horrendous financial mistakes over and over again. In fact, U.S. consumers accumulated more new credit card debt during the 4th quarter of 2015 than they did during the years of 2009, 2010 and 2011 combined. That is absolutely insanity, because other than payday loans, credit card debt is just about the worst kind of debt that consumers could possibly go into. Extremely high rates of interest, combined with severe penalties and fees, can choke the financial life out of almost any family in no time at all.

These days, most Americans use credit cards for various purposes, and they can be very convenient.

And if you pay them off every single month, they don't become a problem.

Comment: The author of this article assumes that people just willfully go into debt, and perhaps some do. But the US economics/jobs situation is so bad is is also equally likely that many people are barely surviving and need those credit cards to eat and pay rent. Obviously that's a dangerous lifestyle as they are just one step away from joining the homeless. But then, that is how a lot of the homeless got that way. The age-old problem of debt slavery is going to bring down another empire.


Megaphone

Over 600 tractors flood downtown Helsinki as Finnish farmers decry anti-Russian sanctions

Tractor protesters in Finland
© Vesa Moilanen / Reuters Farmers from different parts of Finland with their tractors participate in a demonstration over declining agricultural earnings in Helsinki, Finland, March 11, 2016.
Hundreds of tractors disrupted traffic in the Finnish capital on Friday, when thousands of farmers arrived in Helsinki to protest the catastrophic situation in the agricultural sector and ongoing sanctions against Russia.

Finland's agricultural industry is in financial distress, and farmers lost two-fifths of their income in 2015. The national agricultural sector union MTK wanted make sure the message was well-heard at the very top, and members of the organization drove an estimated 600 tractors to the Finnish capital's downtown Senate Square early on the morning of March 11.

Bizarro Earth

Australian and Western corporate media ignore the unfathomable numbers of abused and kilIed children in war and peace

abused children

Comment: This extremely well researched article puts together some dizzying and horrifying statistics and counts that are sure to shock many. In recent months we have heard reported that over 10,000 refugee children have gone missing in the EU to take but one example. But what happens when we go back over several years? And how is it that such things continue to occur without a torrent of public outcry? Dr. Polya puts a lot of it together here in societal and geopolitical terms. Read it and weep.


Australians are quite rightly upset because the Catholic Church hierarchy failed to act to expose and stop long-term, egregious child sexual abuse of about 40,000 Australian children by Catholic Church personnel. However look-the-other-way Australia resolutely ignores 4.4 million Australians adults who have been sexually abused as children, and the deaths this century of 11.9 million under-5 year old infants and 15.8 million avoidable deaths (half of children) in Muslim countries being war criminally violated by pro-Zionist, pro-Apartheid Israel, US lackey Australia.

Australia has a long-running, $0.5 billion-cost Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that has been investigating child sexual abuse by government institutions and by non-government institutions including church organizations. It has recently investigated child sexual abuse by Catholic Church personnel (priests and Christian brothers) in the Victorian city of Ballarat. The Royal Commission demanded the attendance of Australia's top Catholic prelate, Cardinal George Pell, who had served in Ballarat, but when Cardinal Pell (based in the Vatican) declined for medical reasons, the Royal Commission permitted him to be questioned at length in Rome via a video link. In short, Cardinal Pell claimed that he didn't know of these awful crimes, a position that many regard as implausible.

Top Australian ABC TV journalist Leigh Sales interviewing a Catholic priest over the silence of the Catholic Church over egregious child sexual abuse over many years by Catholic Church personnel in Ballarat: "Let's start with the first scenario and if I just take the example of Ballarat, where we know there were just so many egregious examples of abuse. How is it that there was not one good man there who was willing to stand up and say - and blow the whistle on this?" [1].

Snakes in Suits

Pharma executives knowingly providing cartels with drugs to manufacture methamphetamine

pharma drug cartel
Prosecutors in Belgium have recently announced that executives with pharmaceutical companies based in the country will be charged with knowingly providing drug cartels with prescription drugs that were used to manufacture methamphetamine.

The companies are accused of providing the Mexican drug kingpin Ezio Figueroa Vazquez with several tons of ephedrine, knowing that it would be used in the production of methamphetamine.

Prosecutors have said that there are seven executives who were charged with crimes, but they have not named these executives or the companies that they represent. However, Reuters uncovered that Sterop and Andacon are two of the three companies involved in the charges.

The companies claim that they had no clue who was buying the drugs, but prosecutors say that they have evidence proving that the executives had full knowledge of what they were involved in. The evidence reportedly includes email and phone surveillance.

Comment: It's becoming clearer that there is very little difference between the pharmaceutical industry and organized crime:


Light Saber

Whistleblowers claim Veteran Affairs retaliated against them for complaints about mentally impaired doctor

Veterans Affairs whistleblower
© Scott Olson / Getty Images / Agence France Presse
Two staffers at a Veteran Affairs hospital have lodged complaints saying that hospital management retaliated against them for reporting a doctor's loss of cognitive functions in his treatment of patients.

Whistleblowers James DeNofrio and Dr. Timothy Skarada of the James E. Van Zandt VA Medical Center (VAMC) in Altoona, Pennsylvania claim that management violated Veteran Affairs (VA) regulations for two years by failing to prevent a mentally impaired doctor from practicing, and by harassing the whistleblowers who pointed out the problem, according to a letter released last week.

Starting in 2013, the letter says, several people complained that Dr. Frederick Struthers, who was the head of the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Services (PM&RS) Department, was showing signs of impaired cognitive functions.

Struthers once conducted a testicular examination without gloves in front of two female employees, did not wash his hands afterwards and never documented the encounter, the whistleblowers say. On another occasion, the doctor unnecessarily delayed pain treatment to mitigate the suffering of a dying patient. Other incidents the two men described involved Struthers treating patients in the hallway, problems with chronic tardiness, and difficulty remembering conversations.

Wolf

Wounded Warrior Project execs Nardizzi and Giordano fired amid scandal

veteran group funding scandal
© Molly Rile / ReuterWounded Iraq war veteran Joe Beimfohr sits among injured war veterans during a news conference held by the Wounded Warrior Project.
Wounded Warrior Project aims to empower wounded veterans, but a recent exposé revealed that the charity spent nearly half of its funding empowering its executives instead. The board of directors responded by beginning to clean house, starting at the top.

Wounded Warrior Project has raised more than a billion dollars in donations since 2003, according to CBS News. Donors might expect their money would be used "to honor and empower Wounded Warriors," as the nonprofit's mission states. However, CBS revealed the charity spends between 40 to 50 percent of their money on overhead - while other veterans' charities spend an average of 10 to 15 percent on the same expenses.

Wounded Warrior Project Chief Executive Officer Steven Nardizzi and Chief Operating Officer Al Giordano were both removed from the organization after accusations arose alleging that the charity's donations were being misused. The nonprofit's website says that Nardizzi was a founding member, who spent 10 years as an attorney representing disabled veterans for several veterans service organizations, among other charitable positions.

Heart - Black

Cops brutally beat 72 y.o. Alzheimer's patient for breaking into his own house

Albert Schmeiler
Albert Schmeiler
Colorado Springs Police are in hot water with a possible lawsuit over the brutal beating in July of a 72-year-old man who has Alzheimer's.

Albert Schmeiler's mother-in-law, Margot Alvarez, witnessed the attack and said it was absolutely unnecessary for officers to punch, kick, and slam her son-in-law to the ground.

"The minute [CSPD officers] got out of the car, I told them he has Alzheimer's, he's confused, he's hallucinating, he's 72-years-old," Alvarez explained to KKTV 11 News.

According to the police report obtained by the outlet, officers were initially responding to a call that Schmeiler was breaking into a house. Though his sister-in-law was renting the property at the time, Schmeiler is the owner.

2 + 2 = 4

Elevated lead levels found in 30 New Jersey public schools

water fountains
© uncoolbob/flickr/ccElevated levels of lead were found at 30 public schools in New Jersey's largest district, but school officials tell parents they 'should have no concerns'.
Public schools in Newark, New Jersey, were forced to shut off water fountains on Wednesday after test results showed high levels of lead in the water supply.

"Officials say they do not know how long students at nearly half of the Newark's schools may have been drinking water with elevated levels of lead," reported Dan Ivers at NJ.com.

The water supply at a total of 30 Newark schools tested higher for lead than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s "action level," 15 parts per billion, at which point the agency requires "additional testing, monitoring, and remediation," according to ABC.

But despite the EPA's designation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tells parents that "no safe blood lead level in children has been identified."

Arrow Up

Landmark precedent: Families win lawsuit over fracking contamination of groundwater

fracking
© Les Stone / Reuters A man places an anti-fracking sign outside his house in Dimock, Pennsylvania



Comment: This is a hopeful development, but we can expect a huge push-back from the O&G industry which will continue to bury the overwhelming evidence that fracking poses huge risks to human health and the environment.


A federal jury has ordered Cabot Oil & Gas to pay more than $4.24 million in damages to two families in Dimock, Pennsylvania, who claimed the company's fracking operations contaminated their groundwater with methane.

The jury reached its verdict on Thursday in the lawsuit that accused the company of polluting the families' well water as a result of its natural gas drilling operations, according to Reuters. Cabot Oil & Gas said it will appeal the verdict.

Six jurors in federal court in Scranton awarded $1.3 million each to Scott Ely and Monica Marta-Ely, and $50,000 to each of their three children.

"This has been an exhausting six and a half years," Scott Ely said after the verdict, according to Reuters.

Comment:


People

'Made in the USA': Companies are making a killing by using prison labor

Prison labor
© Buycott
The prison-industrial complex: some may have heard of it, but this term is still widely unknown amongst the masses despite it's huge effect on the American economy. This complex is described as "the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems." The interests of the government are their efforts to increase their policing of people rather than solving the root of the problems, which leads to over-incarceration. The interests of industries are their financial holds over privately-owned prisons and their exploitation of prison workers who are underpaid and overworked.

How does this affect America? First of all, outsourcing, which is frowned upon by those who know about it because of its economic effect on American citizens, is replaced with "insourcing," which is when corporations employ prisoners for as little as $0.23 per hour. Outsourcing affects the American economy by choosing to employ workers in foreign countries rather than displaced workers in America itself, thus causing a rise in unemployment and poverty.

Comment: See also: