Examples of how austerity is imposed on those at the bottom while those at the top do very well thankyouverymuch
don't come much clearer than this: at Gatehouse Newspapers,
We will no longer be able to supply coffee service in our newsrooms. We will use up whatever supplies are currently on hand. I suggest you bring in a mug or your own disposable cups. We do have a drip coffee machine available, if you wish to collect for, buy supplies and brew by the pot. Please ask me or Diana for a machine. [...]
We will not be replacing general office supplies in the short term. Please conserve use of paper for copy machines. There really is no need to print 10, 20 30 pages of materials which can be downloaded or aren’t vital to story reporting or page proofing. Please also consider absolute need before printing in color.
But meanwhile, the company's CEO got an $800,000 bonus. That's quite a lot of coffee and office supplies.
And more:
- It's looking like Boeing may have taken the outsourcing a little too far. If you care about safety or planes that function, anyway.
- The Wall Street Journal is super-concerned about poor single mothers making just $260,000 and what's happening to their taxes. It's horrible, people, just horrible!
- The push to privatize public education is so strong in some states that state legislators have been kicked off of their legislatures' education committees in both Mississippi and Tennessee for opposing it.
- Speaking of charter schools:
A CREDO study on Michigan released this week found that 80 percent of charters perform below the 50th percentile of achievement in reading, and 84 percent perform below that threshold in math. On top of that, according to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, 26 percent of Michigan charter schools fall into the bottom 15 percent of the state's schools on 8th grade math exams, and 21 percent in 8th grade reading.
- Ugh, awful people:
The Florida Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday that one of its top legislative priorities this year would be blocking local governments from adopting paid sick-time measures such as the one pending in Orange County.