Now we get a summarized Budget... Oh Boy...

  The government sure has its way of taxing its individuals especially in the Middle to Lower class. This article says around 88 percent of the money that is being found to fix the 'budget emergency' is being ripped out of health and social services. But according to this article it seems like many groups of people will have it tough finding a way to make a living. Young and unemployed people will find it difficult to find job opportunities. 16,500 public servants are losing their jobs and companies will get a $10,000 gift if they employ an old person. Disabled people who have been on pensions will also be thrown into this job searching frenzy. For younger people it will be harder to get the pension because there will most likely be people who are disabled that are more qualified. On top of that you have to be unemployed for six months until you get employee benefits. So whatever happens in those six months no matter how many jobs people like me apply to we get nothing! And lets say you manage to get a job that pays about $45,000 a year with a couple of kids and you rent a house. Of course it's impossible to live on that much money – that's why the Government has always stepped in to help, so your kids have enough to eat. Those benefits are going to be frozen, which means that even though the cost of your fish fingers and two minute noodles goes up, the money coming in doesn't. Once your youngest kid is six, you'll stop getting part of the benefit completely. And don't expect your wage to go up – with all those newly unemployed people competing for jobs, you're lucky to have it. You'll be too worried about old people taking your jobs to be brave enough to ask for a pay rise. As for the High Income earners they don't pay much tax at all, in fact Middle to Lower class make up for what they pay. If you're still at school, you can look forward to some good old US-style debt for the rest of your life. That's right, as of 2016 universities will be able to charge whatever fees they like. You'll still be able to get a loan from the Government, but they're going to be higher, and you'll be charged a higher interest rate on them too. Good luck ever trying to get a loan for a house with those debts. The debt just keeps going up!!

Mother's day flowers come with more than just a price!

   This article focuses on a Columbian woman named Lorena who has worked minimum wage for years working in the cut-flower industry. She started a family at the age of 19 and since then she has needed more money to raise a family. Cutting flowers were the only source of labor in the region of Columbia where she was located known as Bogota Savannah. She didn't have very many alternatives to her job choices but to arrange carnations, alstroemerias, and cut flowers to export to US consumers. Her two daughters have gotten the chance to get an education and one of them is actually involved in missionary work. Years of work making minimum wage of $333 per month has left Lorena with debilitating injuries, she remarks that she wants to support her family and doesn't want the same for her children. The National Retail Federation estimates that this Mother’s Day weekend, Americans will purchase more than $2 billion worth of flowers. Almost 80 percent of those flowers come from Colombia. These flowers are often prone to attracting pests and disease and to combat this, companies pump highly toxic pesticides and fungicides into the greenhouses where these flowers are kept. When exposes to these chemicals in unsafe working conditions, workers often suffer from rashes, headaches, impaired vision, skin discoloration, and female workers report substantially higher instances of birth defects and miscarriages. Lorena says that over the years she has worked countless hours of huddling over flower beds, trimming stem after stem. Years of cutting, bunching, and arranging bouquets in massive factories she's developed tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, a spinal column disability, and a torn rotator cuff. The company provides minimal healthcare, Lorena has to fight to see a doctor she remarks, "Every time I go they say there are people with more serious problems and they push her to the back of the line. The company offers precautions by providing the workers with masks and gloves to protect themselves from the harmful chemicals sprayed on the flowers. She even recounts a story when a co-worker collapsed in the middle of his shift with his face turning purple was said to have died from a heart attack, but there's a rumor that he had succumbed to the chemical sprays. This is something to think about the next time you consider giving flowers to your significant other when these workers in South America who live off of peanuts trying to support their family working marathon shifts with very little rest in between.
   
    This also parallels the strenuous work that illegal immigrants engage in here in America just to find a job opportunity with a decent amount of money to support themselves and in many cases their families. The US is known for giving their lowest paying jobs that nobody wants to do to immigrants and those who earn low income. This country also heavily relies on jobs provided to people who work for American companies over seas just to make a living. This country runs on the strenuous labor and extensive work hours that these workers must endure just to give service to those who are more fortunate than they are.

Michael Zelenko, May 8th 2014, Vice.com

U.S. Postal service gambles with the people's money.

    Corruption seems to find it's place in pretty much any institution, group, or any governmental establishment. Lately corruption and fraud has found its way through the U.S. post office and its employees ever since they were given government credit cards. Workers have not only withdrawn money, but they have used it for personal expenses, gambling, personal bills, and other expenses. There have been several incidents regarding the use of taxpayer's money for personal interests. One of them being a manager withdrawing $32,000 to gamble and used a government credit card to rent cars and pay gas, he then blamed it on another manager saying he withdrew $42,000. Another employee paid herself $8,500 dollars in salary and gave herself travel advances in one month. Another employee used a travel card for personal cash advances and hotel stays. The worker's were compensated with disciplinary actions. These activities go to show that our money that we pay still goes into the wrong hands, even when we have a national debt that needs to be paid. I'm pretty sure things like this have been going on for a while in government agencies which explains a lot of the problems that have been going on in our country. It is never quite clear who has the authority to spend money from government funds and how that money is protected to prevent things like this from happening. Not only are there frauds that are stealing money, but government institutions pointlessly spend money on things that can add up to $1.5 million like the EPA storing unused pamphlets and brochures in a warehouse in Ohio.  In fiscal year 2013, the entire federal government spent $1.3 million on alcohol. General Services also held a conference in Las Vegas that included a $31,208 reception. To think that people higher than us are using money that is being taken out of our paycheck is egregious. It's disrespectful to the citizens who play their part in paying taxes and manage to get by in an unstable economy.

"Wasteful Government Spending, Post Office Edition" Teapartypatriots.com, Conger Michal, Swarts Phillip, March 27th 2014

Big Business and Big Corruption in Indonesia

   Some of the the biggest American brands are being boycotted in places like Jakarta Indonesia all because of the influence that one rich man holds who goes by the name of Syjamsul Nursalim. This business tycoon embezzled over $607 million U.S. dollars from his own bank, BDNI, during the financial crisis in Asia that happened in 1997 with the subsequent Jakarta riots. After channeling his cash to offshore accounts, BDNI customers made a run on their accounts. Nursalim then convinced the state bank to bail out his flailing business to the tune of over $2.5 billion. He was indicted and imprisoned in April 2001 by Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office, but oddly Nursalim was granted medical leave to go to Japan for treatment shortly after. But since then he hasn't returned and its unclear why Indonesia's Attorney General's Office hasn't pursued him since. (maybe he tipped off the police.) Now Nursalim is free and filthy rich with a personal wealth of over $950million sitting comfortably in Singapore while 100 million Indonesians scrape by on $2 a day. The brands he owns under his primary company include brands like Starbucks, Burger King, and Zara among many other well known American brands. Jakarta has more malls than any other city in the world, and in order to compete, they need the big brands. While many latte-sipping Indonesians are unaware of Nursalim’s involvement, the green and white giant cannot plead the same ignorance. Insider sources gave info to Vice have also confirmed that Starbucks knew full well about Nursalim's underhand activities before they formed their highly profitable partnership. But not everyone is willing to support the relentless lining of Nursalim’s bulging pockets. Bambang Harymurti, CEO of one of Indonesia’s oldest news organisations, renowned upholder of the free press and qualified astronaut, is leading the charge. Bambang, who likes his coffee strong and tasty, continues to pass the truth about Nursalim (and other such cronies) onto his young generation of journalists in an attempt to make them more socially conscious. He, and many of his staff, now boycott Starbucks and the other brands of Nursalim to make an example of those Indonesians who have benefited while others have suffered.

McDonald's swindles employees!

    Basically tens and thousands of employees have found out they have been swindled by McDonald's, a company that serves billions and billions is being accused of stealing their worker's wages with various illegal practices. One of these practices is "off the clock" work which requires employees to pay  and clean their uniforms when it's the companies duty to take care of the costs of that themselves. Another employee was told to punch out shortly after arriving to work and being forced to wait around without pay until managers allowed his to punch in. Lawyers say McDonald’s franchisees use corporate computer programs to closely monitor the ratio of labor costs to revenues. When it exceeds a corporate-set target, managers allegedly tell workers arriving for their shifts to wait for up to an hour to clock in. Low wage fast-food workers often don't have a schedule to work with and cant get enough hours, so they have a second or third job. McDonald's practices this and other forms of wage theft that cause employees to lose an average of $2,600 per year. Around 25,000 McDonald's employees are named in just one of the California lawsuits, representing the totality of class action lawsuits. This drive to organize fast food workers began with relatively small NYC protest at a KFC in late 2012. In 2013 the December one-day strike saw fast food workers walk off the job in over 100 cities. A KFC employee explained that she can only get 15 hours a week at the KFC where she works and is paid $8 an hour. Previously, LeGrand worked at two separate KFC stores in order to piece together a 35-hour workweek. This clearly shows that the way the fast food industry has gone completely out of hand and is in need for change.

A world with driverless cars...

    In this article it says that driverless cars are going to be on the market surprisingly sometime soon. These autonomous cars are going to be safer and more reliable than traditional cars. This however doesn't come without a great price that the auto insurers and various other groups of people will have to pay.  In the future this will make companies like google and other manufactures very rich while car insurance companies who make their business off of accidents will most likely lose alot of their money. Health insurance companies will also be less in favor because the rate at which people will experience a car accident due to human error will be relatively lower. As said in the article by Chunka Mui "The immediate losers are the people who depend on accidents for their businesses." Governments would lose fines because cars would obey all traffic laws but police forces would need fewer officers on the road and prisons would need less capacity as drunk drivers kept their freedom. People will spend less money on auto repairs, the people who usually man the phones at insurance companies will be laid off, long-haul truck drivers will become obsolete because their services are un-needed. The amount of people this affects is staggering and the list keeps going on and on. Another interesting thing that is said by Mui in this article is that "This is different than outsourcing. We're not just talking about cost savings, it may come down to us choosing live and jobs. Not dollars and jobs, lives and jobs." The services that people provide for transportation will be obsolete because there is a computer at the convenience of the customer. As of now driverless cars are quite expensive and not readily available on the market yet but the price is quickly coming down as the scale goes up. This also brings into question whether technology will prevail in what we can do as humans...


"Driverless Cars are going to Kill Insurance companies", Jason Koebler, Feb 27th 2014. Vice.com

Marijuana Legalization makes Police Departments Poorer

    Since Marijuana has been legalized in Colorado the police have lost a big financial incentive from their raid operations. Not only have they confiscated the drugs but they made a huge profit off of cash and other kinds of property such as homes and vehicles. This has given the departments a huge financial perks of massive proportions. Up until now there have been fewer marijuana raids and more crackdowns on hard drugs such as heroin, meth, and cocaine. Washington state hasn't earmarked any of the tax revenue coming in from the legal weed market to go to law enforcement yet and Colorado may send some of their new dollars towards the cops. The specifics of forfeiture laws vary from state to state but the police can take anything from large amounts of cash from the defendants to taking their property. There's a long way before the warped incentives of asset forfeiture laws are fixed, cops can go after unlicensed marijuana growers or step up their investigations into still-illicit narcotics such as heroin and cocaine.

 "Legalizing pot makes Police Departments Poorer". Lucy Steigerwald. Jan 13 2014.