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Protesters March on Washington
Jake Sherman , Wall Street Journal
Tens of thousands of demonstrators descended on Capitol Hill Saturday, protesting the expansion of government spending and illustrating the network of conservative activists that has emerged in opposition to President Barack Obama’s policies.
Organizers said they believed people from all 50 states came for the “Taxpayer March on Washington.” Crowds filled nearly every pocket of open space near the west lawn of the Capitol, many standing and listening without a view of the stage. They marched from Freedom Plaza, adjacent to the White House, as shouts of “U.S.A.” echoed through downtown Washington and marchers dressed as colonials banged drums. Some people stayed stranded on Constitution Avenue as the program began near the Capitol, unable to find room to watch the speakers.
Current Republican lawmakers also spoke, including Reps. Mike Pence (Ind.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn..), Tom Price (Ga.) and Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.).
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Waterloo!” Mr. DeMint said to a wave of roaring applause, referring to a widely quoted comment he made earlier this summer, professing hope that Mr. Obama failed in his quest for health care overhaul. “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo,” Mr. DeMint told conservative activists on a conference call in July. “It will break him.”
“While some are prepared to write the obituary on capitalism and the conservative movement, I believe we are on the verge of a great American awakening,” Mr. Pence told the crowd. “And it will begin here and begin now and begin with you.”…
(14 September 2009)
Personally I find it ironic that there have been no similar rallies against bankers and Wall Street’s high risk practices which have caused so much damage to the US economy throwing many into debt and wiping out pensions. – SO
U.S. consumers cut debt by record $21.6 billion in July
Jim Puzzanghera and Jerry Hirsch, LA Times
Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington – The amount Americans owe on credit cards and other consumer loans plunged a record $21.6 billion in July, clouding prospects that the budding economic recovery would soon extend to Main Street.
The drop in consumer debt for the month was the largest since the Federal Reserve began tracking the data in 1943 and the sixth straight monthly decline in outstanding consumer debt, the longest streak since 1991.
The amount of the decrease — five times what analysts had predicted — along with continued job losses and an uncertain housing market show that consumers are still skittish about borrowing money for big-ticket purchases, even though economic data show that the deep recession may have technically ended.
Consumer spending accounts for roughly 70% of the nation’s economic activity…
(9 September 2009)
How the World’s Biggest Corporations, From Starbucks to Wal-Mart to Barnes & Noble, Claim to Be ‘Local’
Stacy Mitchell, AlterNet
HSBC, one of the biggest banks on the planet, has taken to calling itself “the world’s local bank.” Starbucks is un-branding at least three of its Seattle outlets, the first of which just reopened as “15th Avenue Coffee and Tea.” Winn-Dixie, a 500-outlet supermarket chain, recently launched a new ad campaign under the tagline, “Local flavor since 1956.” The International Council of Shopping Centers, a global consortium of mall owners and developers, is pouring millions of dollars into television ads urging people to “Shop Local” — at their nearest mall. Even Wal-Mart is getting in on the act, hanging bright green banners over its produce aisles that simply say, “Local.”
Hoping to capitalize on growing public enthusiasm for all things local, some of the world’s biggest corporations are brashly laying claim to the word “local.”
This new variation on corporate greenwashing — local washing — is, like the buy-local movement itself, most advanced in the context of food. Hellmann’s, the mayonnaise brand owned by the processed-food giant Unilever, is test-driving a new “Eat Real, Eat Local,” initiative in Canada. The ad campaign seems aimed partly at enhancing the brand by simply associating Hellmann’s with local food. But it also makes the a claim that Hellmann’s is local, because most of its ingredients come from North America.
It’s not the only industrial food company muscling in on local. Frito-Lay’s new television commercials use farmers as pitchmen to position the company’s potato chips as local food, while Foster Farms, one of the largest producers of poultry products in the country, is labeling packages of chicken and turkey “locally grown.”
Corporate local-washing is now spreading well beyond food…
(8 Sept 2009)
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