Dollars & Sense articles from March 2002

Dollars & Sense archives from March 2002

Correction.(Correction Notice)
March 1, 2002... In "Dockworkers Stand up to Racism, Repression, and Corporate Globalization--and Win!" by Derek Wright (January/February 2001), we reported that a mass demonstration occurred in Charleston, South Carolina. The demonstration took place in...

Passing the buck. (Culture).(Chumbawamba)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Chumbawamba, the activist British pop band known stateside for ITS 1997 hit "Tubthumping," was initially wary of accepting money from General Motors for the use of one of its songs. In the end, though, the band decided that selling out isn't so...

Just shred it. (Corporate Secrecy).(National Association for Information Destruction)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Since investigators discovered that accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP had shredded reams of documents related to the Enron scandal, shredding has gotten a bit of a bad name. This has the National Association for Information Destruction...

Stars and stripes and dollar signs. (Products).(patriotic products)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... If red, white, and blue are your favorite colors for everything from underwear to prom gowns, advertisers everywhere have something to sell you. Since the September 11 attacks, merchants have been selling huge quantities of flags and...

Lords of the rings. (Sports).(Olympic Games; corporate marketing opportunities)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Ah, the Olympic Games. The biannual sporting spectacle provides millions with captivating images of human endeavor, and maybe a warm, fuzzy feeling about the prospects for peace and harmony in the global village. It's the perfect opportunity...

Fast food fuel? (Energy).(fuel from animal fats)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... The answer to the United States' dependence on fossil fuels may lie with another unsavory national addiction-greasy, fatty fast food. Researchers at the University of Georgia are leading the way on "bio-fuels" such as chicken fat, pork...

Prospector's park. (Cities).(corporate naming rights for New York City's public parks)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Suppose you're a multi-billionaire businessman and the newly elected Republican mayor of a major city facing a $4 billion budget gap. How do you rustle up some fast cash for your troubled burg? What do you have lying around useless, waiting to...

Letters.
March 1, 2002... To the Editor: Good article in the November/December 2001 issue of Dollars & Sense on the Bajos de Coyula Civic Association fight against their land expropriation (Wendy Call, "Lines in the Sand: A Tourism Debacle in Southern Mexico"). I...

Right-wing freak-out. (Media).(Rod Dreher's coverage of the World Economic Forum protesters)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... With this year's World Economic Forum being held in the media capital of the world, New York City, protests at the four-day conference of world leaders and corporate bigwigs were sure to attract plenty of attention. Some of that attention came...

Human rights for all. (Active Culture).(Institute for Food and Development Policy's The Time Has Come! campaign and Kensington Welfare Rights Union's Poor People's Economic Human Rights campaign)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... America is the "land of the free." There is "liberty and justice for all." Most of us have heard this rhetoric all our lives. But how often do we seriously consider its validity? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the United...

Lying on top: Many are up in arms about the Enron scandal--but our political leaders are just as disgraceful as their corporate counterparts. (Comment).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... "The third quarter is looking great." That's what Enron chair Kenneth Lay said last September to a roomful of workers, who had come to hear about the company's prospects after a recent wave of bad news had sent the stock price plummeting....

Balancing state budgets: Who will pay? How can states solve their fiscal dilemmas? (Making Sense).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... In this time of war and recession, state budgets across the country are plunging into a sea of red ink. Who will be making the greatest sacrifice? Many state legislatures have already begun to answer that question, by reflexively cutting...

Trying to reform "welfare reform": As the federal welfare program comes up for reauthorization, could the recession help to further a progressive agenda? (Making Sense).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... As the recession takes its toll on millions, it's hard to see a silver lining through the clouds. But as advocates for poor women and children prepare for the upcoming battle over "welfare reform," shaky economic conditions could provide just...

The surplus vanished: President bush claims that war and recession wiped out the projected federal budget surplus, but his massive tax giveaway to the wealthy deserves the bulk of the blame.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Whew, four trillion gone," muttered Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Maryland) upon receiving the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) January 2002 report. The "bipartisan" CBO found that, of the $5.6 trillion in federal budget surpluses that it had...

Organizing after September 11.(political activisim)
March 1, 2002... I hear people saying everything is different now, but I see that there is lot that is not so different. Gabriel sayegh, Prisoner within For the last seven years, United for a Fair Economy has provided media skills, face-to-face...

The Enron fun pages.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... TAKE THE D&S ENRUN QUIZ! 1. Number of times Vice President Dick Cheney claimed he thought he was meeting with the chair of Frito-Lay when he scheduled one of his six meetings with Kenneth Lay, the chair of Enron: a) 0 b) 3 c)...

Economic debacle in Argentina: The IMF strikes again: In the face of economic collapse, the people of Argentina brought down the government. But will they be able to keep the IMF at bay?
March 1, 2002... In the days just before Christmas, with increasing cut backs in social programs and an official unemployment rate approaching 20%, Argentinians took to the streets in protest. At the time, Argentina was in the midst of its fourth year of...

From Rachel Carson to Oprah: Forty years after the publication of silent spring, corporations are still producing poisons--and still trying to keep critics from fighting back. (Industry Attacks on Dissent).
March 1, 2002... In March 1996, the British government announced that ten people had died after eating beef from cattle sick with "mad cow disease." A month later, financier, movie actress, and talk-show host Oprah Winfrey discussed the topic on national...

Does the "New Economy" tilt to the right? New information technologies did not require deregulation, and a changing political tide could reverse the ways those technologies have been implemented.
March 1, 2002... Back in the 1950s, the Soviet Union proclaimed that computerization heralded the triumph of centralized economic planning over decentralized markets. Computers would allow planners to process unprecedented amounts of information and accurately...

Libertarians in space: Is that where they belong? Like wild westerns in an earlier era, is science fiction the new fantasyland of rugged individualism? (In Review).
March 1, 2002... During my junior year of high school, I wanted a society regulated by markets instead of laws, a culture built on the sovereignty of individuals and the property they own. I was, I'm not ashamed to admit, a libertarian. My primary...

Ask Dr. Dollar.(U.S. Federal Reserve system and interest rates)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... To answer your question, it helps to understand how the U.S. Federal Reserve system works. The quasi-public Federal Reserve has two parts, neither of which is actually part of the federal government. First, there are the district banks--12...

How states are spending their welfare money--or not: Not only have states diminished their support for cash assistance, but other resources for poor people are drying up too. (Economy in Numbers).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... The destruction of "welfare as we knew it" dramatically transformed how the U.S. government assists poor families. Under the old entitlement program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the federal government matched a percentage of...