Tag: greed

Ocasio-Cortez Regrets Costing NYC 25,000 Amazon Jobs As CoS Backpedals

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is backpedaling after pissing off Amazon, costing New York City 25,000 – 40,000 jobs  after they decided to abandoned plans for a New York City HQ2. 

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AOC’s money-shuffling chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti offered Bloomberg Television a vastly different message to AOC’s February 14th celebration of ‘defeating Amazon’s corporate greed‘ – which NY Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) described as putting her own “narrow political interests” above her community. 

“What she was vocal about was the process by which it happened,” explained Chakrabarti, completely ignoring the fact that the hill AOC died on revolved around the $3 billion in tax breaks the company would receive (which she repeatedly suggested was being “handed” to Amazon). 

In fact, AOC was vocal about far more than “the process by which it happened.” 

  • She said Amazon wouldn’t be a “good or healthy neighbor for NYC”
  • She railed against “giving $3 billion away to Amazon” in the form of tax breaks, calling it “dressed-up trickle-down economics”
  • She questioned whether the deal would in fact bring 25,000 jobs

Amazon cited AOC’s vocal opposition as a key reason they decided not to move forward with a NY HQ2 in Queens. 

Speaking out about the withdrawal earlier this month, Amazon’s head of policy communications, Jodi Seth, pointed blame at Ocasio-Cortez and her anti-Amazon rhetoric. 

‘If you talk to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it’s ‘Never Amazon,” she said. –Daily Mail

Following the decision, a billboard went in Times Square offering a mocking ‘thanks’ to Ocasio-Cortez for her opposition while members of both parties criticized her for helping kill the deal.

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Meanwhile, Cuomo is begging Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to reconsider, according to the New York Times, which reports the Governor is “working intensely behind the scenes” to make a personal pitch. 

The governor has had multiple phone conversations with Amazon executives, including Mr. Bezos, over the past two weeks, according to two people with knowledge of the efforts. In those calls, Mr. Cuomo said he would navigate the company through the byzantine governmental process. –New York Times

Cuomo has offered guarantees for support for the project, according to the WSJ, while Amazon executives have given no indication that the company would reconsider. 

“I’ve had many conversations with Amazon. I hope that they reconsider,” said Cuomo ad a Thursday event in Long Island. “It would be helpful if the State Senate said that they would approve it; that would be helpful. But in the meantime I haven’t heard any changes.“

Perhaps Cuomo doesn’t realize that AOC is the boss? 

 

When The Winter Of Our Discontent Meets Fyre Festival

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“When a condition or a problem becomes too great, humans have the protection of not thinking about it. But it goes inward and minces up with a lot of other things already there and what comes out is discontent and uneasiness, guilt and a compulsion to get something–anything–before it is all gone.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

Sometimes I wonder about strange coincidences. In an email exchange with Marc (Hardscrabble Farmer) in the Fall, he mentioned he had begun reading Steinbeck’s Winter of Our Discontent and planned to write an article about it. Coincidentally, I had just bought a used copy of the same novel at Hooked on Books in Wildwood. I didn’t plan on buying it, but I’ve read most of Steinbeck’s brilliant novels and felt compelled by the title and our national state of discontent to select it from among the thousands of books in the store.

Marc had posted his Steinbeck-esque article in December, but I didn’t read it until I had finished the novel. Marc’s perspective on the value of money and his diametrically opposite path from Ethan Hawley, the discontented anti-hero of Steinbeck’s final novel, was enlightening and thought provoking. I’m sure it impacted my consciousness as I wrote this article.

Steinbeck’s title was taken from Shakespeare to reflect the unhappiness of Ethan Hawley at the outset of the novel. The quote, “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York”, is the first line of Shakespeare’s Richard III, written in 1594. Shakespeare was using the summer/winter weather as a metaphor for the fortunes of the English House of York and its rivalry with the Plantagenets for the English throne. The ‘sun of York’ was a comment on the ‘son of York’ Edward IV, a harbinger of better times ahead. This theme of discontent was true in 1594, in 1961 when Steinbeck published his final novel, and is true today, as discontent blows across the land like a deadly polar vortex. At this point, it is difficult to see better times ahead.

The reason Steinbeck’s Nobel Prize winning novel still resonates today is because humans do not change. The human condition, our frailties, foibles, moral shortcomings, greed, avarice, narcissism, ability to forgive and seek redemption has remained constant through the ages. Steinbeck wrote the novel to address the moral degeneration of American culture during the 1950s and 1960s. The game show scandals, nativism and plagiarism of the 1950’s was representative of the decay.

Twenty-two years before, in 1939, Steinbeck addressed man’s inhumanity to man and the greed of evil men creating the suffering of the common man during the Great Depression in his classic novel Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck’s characters have biblical aspects, as the battle between good and evil is always a subplot. If Steinbeck thought American culture had degenerated in 1961, I wonder what he would think today.

The definition of discontent is dissatisfaction with the prevailing social or political situation. If ever a word defined the current state of our world, it would be discontent. And it so happens, we are also in the depths of a bleak tumultuous winter season. The social and political discontent is reflected in the epic struggle between far-left treasonous Deep State operatives and the deplorables supporting Trump’s battle to retain the presidency.

An open coup has been in progress for two years as the Obama/Clinton surveillance state cronies, fully supported by the left-wing fake news propaganda outlets, attempt to remove a democratically elected president. This is truly a dark moment in our history and could mark a turning point in the demise of our Republic.

“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

Steinbeck’s story about the moral decline of Ethan Hawley was a parable about the human condition set in the 1950s, but applicable throughout human history, and as relevant today as it was then. Ethan was a war hero whose integrity and honesty were the noble standards he lived by every day. His father recklessly lost the family fortune and he was left as a lowly grocery store clerk working for a foreigner.

It is a story of how easy it is for a good man to be corrupted through societal expectations, the opinions of prominent people, and the disapproval of family for their status in the community. The love of money is the root of all evil, as presented by Steinbeck. Ethan Hawley’s fall from grace was self-imposed as he allowed his darker nature to control his actions in order to regain his once prominent station in the community. The opinions of others considering him a failure led to his fall from grace.

“Men don’t get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

He sacrificed his self-respect, life long friendships, and the lives of two men, in order to climb the social ladder and regain the wealth and influence his father had squandered. Ethan’s ego and sense of self worth led him down a path paved with evil intentions. He had his boss deported, provided the means for his best friend to commit suicide, planned to rob a bank, and eventually came to the realization his own disregard for morality had been passed on to his son, who saw no problem with cheating to get what he wanted in life.

Ethan knew right from wrong. He was well read. He had killed Germans fighting for his country. He willfully chose to manipulate, lie and scheme in order to achieve his materialistic ambitions. The difference between Ethan and the materialistic, delusional, dishonest masses inhabiting our country today, is his sense of guilt impelled him to take his own life. But the unwavering love of his daughter convinced him to soldier on and redeem himself.

Our society is now infinitely more materialistic, narcissistic, and greedy than it was in the 1950s. Moral degeneration has reached new lows, unthinkable during the relatively innocent 1950s. But the common theme is human failings, foibles, and fallacies. Whatever a culture values you get more of. Our culture values achievement, wealth and power, at any cost.

Achieving success through hard work, intellectual accomplishment, or a superior product is antiquated and passé. Success is achieved through regulatory capture, bribing politicians, financial engineering schemes, monopolization of markets, and the power of propaganda. As Ethan cynically expounded, strength and success, even if achieved through criminal means, is all that matters in the end. The victors write the history books.

“To most of the world success is never bad. I remember how, when Hitler moved unchecked and triumphant, many honorable men sought and found virtues in him. And Mussolini made the trains run on time, and Vichy collaborated for the good of France, and whatever else Stalin was, he was strong. Strength and success—they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn’t seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

A modern-day parable of moral degeneration presented itself to me shortly after finishing the Steinbeck novel. I happened to stumble across a documentary about the Fyre Festival fraud on Netflix. The protagonist of this illustration of discontent and delusion was Billy McFarland. He is representative of the modern-day Ethan Hawley, except with no redeeming qualities or conscience.

He conned investors, entertainers, super models, the media, employees, and gullible millennials. His ultimate purpose was no different than Ethan Hawley’s, to be wealthy and admired by his peers. His outrageously criminal exploits were detailed in the documentary as he lied, falsified, and conducted a ponzi scheme until it all blew up in a shocking display of hubristic folly. The story is a reflection of our shallow, narcissistic, gullible, low IQ society.

What leaps off the screen is how businesses are created out of thin air delivering no value to society. It’s all smoke, mirrors, and superficial virtue signaling designed to lure intellectual lightweights to pretend they are a mover and shaker in their social media driven world. The entire festival was designed to promote some ridiculous music booking app. These frivolous social media-based companies are built upon false narratives, self-absorbed millennials, easy money, and celebrity worship. They have zero value.

After watching how easily young people could be lured into handing over tens of thousands of dollars to this shyster because he paid some super models to do a bikini video and tweet falsehoods about the fake festival, you realize how they can believe socialism can work. Alexandrea Ocasio-Cortez is a perfect role model for these dullards and sycophants. Young people appear incapable of thinking for themselves, critically assessing situations, or going against the crowd. They want to be told what to believe and what to do.

Of course, this sickness is not confined to only young people. Our entire society is permeated with greed, narcissism and lemming-like behavior. Keeping up with the Kardashians has replaced keeping up with the Joneses. Ethan Hawley’s desire for status and respect among his peers in small town America during the 1950s is no different than the social climbing happening in our high-tech social media crazed world of today. Human nature does not change.

The Netflix documentary brought a term to my attention I had not heard before – “influencers”. The shallowness and trivial nature of our culture is captured perfectly by the essence of the importance of “influencers” to marketing products and events.  The Fyre Festival was promoted on Instagram by “social media influencers” including socialite and model Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and model Emily Ratajkowski, who did not disclose they had been paid to do so.

“In business and in politics a man must carve and maul his way through men to get to be King of the Mountain. Once there, he can be great and kind–but he must get there first.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

Rather than make up our own minds about what we like, what we wear, where we eat, or what entertainment we enjoy, we need to be influenced into our decisions by famous people who are famous for being famous. These “influencers” generate their influential power through the number of social media followers they have accumulated by posting pictures of themselves in their underwear, leaked sex tapes, nude selfies, or generally being attractive.

Most of them are low IQ mouth breathers who can’t do basic math or write a comprehensible paragraph. But those 36DD breasts and pouty lips classify them as a grade A influencer. I can’t decide whether these narcissistic icons are more pathetic or the feeble-minded wretches who are actually influenced by these vacuous bimbos. Moral degeneration of society seems to have reached a new low.

Billy McFarland used any means necessary to maul his way to the top. He figured if he pulled off this spectacular social media extravaganza, his new music app demand would skyrocket and he would become a superstar music business mogul like Jay-Z. As his lies and debt continued to pile up, he double downed and used his dynamic personality to convince naïve rich women into “investing” millions into his doomed to failure venture.

Ultimately, thousands of suckers landed on a Caribbean island expecting luxurious accommodations and dozens of A list entertainers, but experienced mass confusion, flimsy tent accommodations with soaked mattresses, little to no food, and a canceled concert as unpaid bands pulled out. The disaster was reported in real time through the same social media that promoted this festival farce.

“In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

In the case of Billy McFarland we know the consequences of his actions. Lawsuits totaling $100 million were filed against him. He was charged with the Federal crime of wire fraud and convicted. He is currently serving six years in a Federal prison and was ordered to forfeit $26 million. Based on the warped personality I witnessed in the documentary, he will resume scamming people the second he walks out of that prison, and more suckers will eagerly hand him their money. You can’t cure stupid.

The future of fictional character Ethan Hawley is left to your imagination. He had been a moral upstanding citizen who faced a crisis of conscience and fell prey to the darker side of his nature. His boss had been deported and his best friend was dead. At the end of the novel he was left with ill-gotten wealth, a loving wife, a son who felt no guilt in cheating, and a daughter who saved his life.

I want to believe Ethan spent the rest of his life redeeming himself through his actions by doing good for the town, helping his friends achieve success, teaching his son right from wrong, using his wealth to benefit humanity, and proving to his daughter his life was worth saving. Ethan’s struggle is the existential crisis we all face as human beings. The love of money is the root of all evil. Whether we are poor, middle class or rich, when our priorities become warped by greed, narcissism, envy, or worldly desires, it only leads to discontent.

We see the discontent revealed by the billionaire crowd who rig markets to pillage more of the nation’s wealth. We see it among corrupt politicians being bought off by crooked corporate CEOs. We see it when media pundits broadcast fake news to push their agenda. We see it exhibited by the blatant coup attempt against a duly elected president by arrogant treasonous men who consider themselves above the law. We see it play out in office politics all over America. We see it with cheating on our taxes or lying to our spouses. We see our youth plagiarizing and cheating on tests. It seems we are a society of scammers, liars, and dishonest discontents.

Steinbeck was not one for happy endings. He pondered morality and the human condition and found it wanting. A battle between the good and evil is fought within the conscience of every human being. An inner dialogue takes place regarding every moral decision we make. The continuation of a civilized society is dependent upon more human beings choosing the path of good versus the path of evil.

We can be the most technologically advanced civilization in history, but if we allow moral degeneration to dominate our culture, our civilization will be doomed. It feels as if our society is leaning towards the dark side and this realization is leading to an epic showdown between good and evil. We are truly experiencing a winter of discontent. The winner of this battle will determine the future course of our country.

“We can shoot rockets into space but we can’t cure anger or discontent.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

The Price Of Empire

Authored by Umair Haque via Eudaimonia & Co,

Why America and Britain Are Self-Destructing (And What the World Can Learn From it)

It’s a striking fact of today’s world that the two rich societies in shocking, swift, sharp decline are America and Britain. Nowhere else in the world, for example, are real income, life expectancy, happiness, and trust all plummeting, apart from maybe Venezuela (No, “but at least we’re not Venezuela!” is not the bar to aim for, my friends.) 

Their downfall is, of course, a self-inflicted catastrophe. But the interesting question is: why? And what does it tell us about what it takes to prosper and thrive in the 21st century, which is something that America and Britain clearly aren’t doing, and maybe aren’t capable of doing?

Here’s an equally curious observation. America and Britain aren’t just any countries. They are the former hegemons of the world’s most powerful empires. Britain, until the first half of the 20th century, and America, picking up where Britain left off. Is this just a strange cosmic coincidence — that it is the two greatest empires of the most recent past who are the ones seemingly most incapable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century? There aren’t coincidences that great, my friends. Such tides of history always whisper lessons to be learned. What is this one trying to urgently teach us?

That there is a price to empire. A grave and ruinous one. And that price has grown over the centuries  –  so high that now, it is not worth paying anymore.

Let me explain what I mean — because it is not just about spending too much money and grasping too high. Not at all. It is about the kind of a place and people such a country ends up limited to being — and perhaps can then never really easily outgrow.

To be a great empire, you must also be a certain kind of culture, society, place— a people with a certain set of values, a certain kind of attitudes. You must cherish control and prize possession over humanity and empathy and wisdom. You must value brutal competition above all else — and train your children to be little warriors, basically, whether tossing them into seas, like Spartans, or making them do “active shooter drills.” You must be domineering and controlling and vengeful, feared, not loved — you must come to prize anger and rage as the only true or worthy emotions in life, not, say, intelligence gentleness, kindness, or happiness. The primary objective of your institutions, the aspiration of your best and brightest, must be subjugating others, instead of lifting them up — after all, empires are made of subjects, not equals. You must instill in people an admiration for violence — since empires are run with bullets, whether fired from drones or armies. Your science and art and so forth must be dedicated, fundamentally, to the proposition that somehow, you are the natural masters of the world which is your dominion — no matter how they claim to admire freedom and equality and truth. You cannot plan for any kind of long term good — your primary motive is simply to acquire, colonize, plunder, take the next possession.

In other words, to be an empire, you must cultivate the qualities of cruelty, of selfishness, of greed, of tribalism, socially. Of materialism and acquisitiveness and conformity to greed and selfishness, mentally. You must encourage the rise of supremacy and triumphalism and bigotry and misogyny, culturally. You must attach to all human life just one purpose: not happiness, or belonging, or the growth of meaning and purpose, but material gain, whether it’s measured in colonies, protectorates, slaves, bodies, or GDP. Thus, the overarching organizing principle of your entire empire must be just this: the strong survive, and the weak perish. Everyone — even the weak — must come to buy into this principle, treasure it, cheer it, applaud it — even when they themselves are the ones being destroyed. Just think of how Donald Trump embodies all those values to a comical, disgusting degree.

How else are you to run an empire? How else are you to convince people to go out there and conquer the world for you — instead of happily tilling their fields and loving their children, taking fields and children from others? You can’t do it without accomplishing most or all of the above. Every empire from Rome to Egypt to America to Britain has needed to build these ramparts and beams of the human mind and spirit to be an empire. Empires are Darwinian things, little pecking orders of humanity — what they are not is democracies, really, though they might be so in name, they cannot be in spirit, in intellect, in sentiment, in truth.

Now. Let’s observe the state of America and Britain today — and then connect the dots. What’s really curious about them? Just think of Trumpism and Brexit as you read the next paragraph.

These are societies which cannot brook the idea of being equals with any other. Isn’t that Trumpism and Brexit are really about — we must be number one? They are societies which cannot cooperate with any other — or even cooperate amongst themselves. They are societies which cannot plan for the long term. Societies which seem to revel in both their cruelty and their ignorance, while the world looks on, aghast. They prefer being Darwinian places to being humane ones. They would rather build walls than build schools and hospitals, minds and bodies. They are societies which cannot tolerate the idea that they do not still reign supreme — and the moment their supremacy is threatened, bang! They lash out even at their closest neighbours, allies, friends, and partners.

Don’t these two lists seem weirdly, eerily, strikingly similar to you — the list of the qualities it takes to be an empire, and the list of savage, intractable problems afflicting Britain and America, which have caused them to crater into extreme ruin? That’s not a coincidence either. It is cause and effect. Let me put that more clearly.

America and Britain built the world’s two biggest, most powerful empires — ever, period. Sure, America didn’t call countries it’s colonies — it said (LOL) that it “liberated” them. What that means is that they effectively became colonies of American style predatory capitalism (take a look at Puerto Rico — or Iraq.) Just a century ago, half the world was a British colony — I don’t need to tell you that story.

Now, the problem with a colonial mentality, attitude, society, way of life is this. What happens when you run out of stuff to colonize? After all, sooner or later, you’re going to run out of tempting frontiers, helpless savages, Manhattans to trade for beads, fish in the ocean, and so on, right? That day might seem a long way away — but it has to come, after all. Well, then, my friends, you are screwed — if you can’t give up the colonial mindset, then you will have to colonize yourself. What do I mean by this curious phrase, “colonize yourself”? I mean that you will have to exploit your own people the very same way that you exploited others before. You will have to teach them to exploit each other, just the same way that they once exploited poorer people of different “colors” and creeds, when there are no more of those strangers in new frontiers left to conquer, no more fresh mountains left to plunder.

And that is exactly what happened in America and Britain. It’s most obvious in America. When there was no one else left to exploit — first it was slaves, then it was subhuman blacks kept segregated, then it was various countries who were “liberated” by war for their oil and cheap labour — bang! Americans were told to turn on themselves. They obeyed. What else did they know? That is what they’d been told all their lives — that this mindset of exploitation and violence is good. So off the American went to work as a manager at an HMO, where his job was to deny people healthcare, or as a minor-league corporate droid, where his job was to find cleverer ways to jack up profits he never even saw a larger share of.

(It happened in Britain, too — only in a roundabout way. Though Britain tried to overcome empire’s hangover, by building great public institutions, like the NHS, in the end, the values of greed and selfishness and hate, the need to be supreme, won out. But all that meant was that Brits began to exploit each other. That is not just what Brexit clearly shows — but its root causes, Brits getting poorer for a decade or two, as they turned on each other.)

The lesson is as simple as it is crystal clear. Empires require colonial mindsets. Attitudes of materialism, selfishness, greed, cruelty, domination. But what happens an empire runs out of things to colonize? Do you see any countries in the world left to colonize easily? I don’t. What happens when a country that used to be an empire runs out of things to colonize is this: it colonizes itself. Bang! That is the story of American collapse and Britain’s stunning decline in one sentence.

You see, giving up something like a colonial mindset is not easy. It is addictive, just like any easy pleasure. It’s much easier to suppose that my prosperity comes from taking yours, at the point of a gun — whether or not I call it “liberation” — than it does from recognizing you as a human being, doing the hard work of lifting you up.

But the truth is that is precisely where prosperity comes from: me lifting you up. Not me colonizing you. That is the greatest lesson of the 20th century. How do we know? From the nations which truly turned their backs on empire. Many other nations had empires, too — just not ones as great and strong. So perhaps they were easier to let go of. Or perhaps it was the great war and its horrors which taught them the lesson better. Still, nations like France, Germany, and Spain did a better job of letting the colonialist mindset go. After the war, Europe tried hard to build a new continent on a new attitude — wealth would not come from seizing it from others anymore, but from cooperating to lift one another up. What had the road of seizing wealth, life, prosperity from others ended in after all — but horror and ruin?

But English speaking societies, it seems, never learned this lesson. There are days I wonder if they can. They are too wedded to their colonial mindset — attitudes of supremacy, of being-number-one, of not being able to treat anyone else as an equal, of an inability to cooperate, of anger as the primary emotion in life — to make any progress now, it seems to me. The English speaking countries probably won’t lead the world in the 21st century. That shouldn’t be controversial. They can barely manage themselves at this point. But the lesson, I think, cuts deep and true.

The price of empire is that maturity, psychologically, socially, economically, culturally, becomes harder and harder, every day. Maturity beyond what, exactly? Beyond violence. Beyond stupidity. Beyond greed and selfishness and cruelty. You see, the Anglos of the world have never given up their strange love of and lust for all these things — whether it comes in the form of suddenly insulting their neighbours, building walls, starting needless wars, whether wars of trade or wars fought with missiles, drone-bombing children to death, or the subtler violence and greed of people taking their neighbours’ healthcare and jobs and savings away.

But violence and greed and cruelty cannot lead anyone anymore to prosperity in the 21st century. There is nobody left to colonize and exploit left but yourself, your very own society, in a world which is out of easy frontiers and helpless peoples. Nobody’s trading Manhattans for beads anymore, are they? And so violence and greed is only left in one form: self-destruction. Funnily, ironically, foolishly, tragically, the only choice that English speaking world seem able to make anymore is self-destruction — because the problem is that empire’s price is an addiction to ruin in the first place, but in the end, there is no one to ruin but yourself.

Indonesian Tsunami — Thievery, Ineptness and Presidential Elections

How low can a country governed by an unbridled greed, a notorious lack of morals and ubiquitous servility to its neo-colonialist masters, really sink?

And how can people tolerate lies, the naked cynicism and fanatical incompetence of the rulers? Can …

The post Indonesian Tsunami — Thievery, Ineptness and Presidential Elections appeared first on Global Research.

Pope Francis: Christians Must Reject Sovereignty; Embrace Globalism

Pope Francis says Christians should reject sovereignty and embrace Islam

In his traditional Christmas speech, Pope Francis urged Christians to reject sovereignty and embrace globalism in order to make the world a better place.

Addressing the rise in populism and increasing hostility about illegal immigration among westerners, Pope Francis warned:

“Our differences are not a detriment or a danger; they are a source of richness. As when an artist is about to make a mosaic: it is better to have tiles of many colours available, rather than just a few,” the Pope told a large audience in the Vatican.”

“The experience of families teaches us this,” he said, “as brothers and sisters, we are all different from each other. We do not always agree, but there is an unbreakable bond uniting us, and the love of our parents helps us to love one another.” 

Voiceofeurope.com reports: Among other things, the Pope also talked about materialism and its side effects:

“An insatiable greed marks all human history, even today, when, paradoxically, a few dine luxuriantly while all too many go without the daily bread needed to survive,” he said.

“Standing before the manger, we understand that the food of life is not material riches but love, not gluttony but charity, not ostentation but simplicity,” the Pope added.

Major American Magazine Time Column Reports About Bitcoin’s Liberating Potential

by Adrian Zmudzinski, Coin Telegraph: Bitcoin (BTC) has a substantial liberating potential, American mainstream newspaper Time reportson Dec. 28. The aforementioned article claims that “speculation, fraud, and greed in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry have overshadowed the real, liberating potential of Satoshi Nakamoto’sinvention.” According to the article’s author, Bitcoin “can be a valuable financial tool as a censorship-resistantmedium of exchange.” lejandro Machado, a cryptocurrency researcher […]

The post Major American Magazine Time Column Reports About Bitcoin’s Liberating Potential appeared first on SGT Report.

Occupy Chicago Protestor Getting Paid $22/Hour Plus Overtime? [VIDEO]

A Chicago-based “Occupy Wall Street” protestor is allegedly getting paid — more than many Americans with actual jobs — to protest corporate greed and the unemployment rate in the United States.

Business Insider has obtained a video interview of a seemingly well-informed Chicago protestor who mentions — almost in passing — that he gets paid $22 an hour plus overtime to participate in a Chicago offshoot of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests.

The man describes his protesting work as a “full time gig” and added that an unnamed benefactor, who is presumably providing the salary, is “getting [his] money’s worth.”

An hourly wage of $22 per hour is three times the current minimum wage of $7.33.

Read full article on International Business Times

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