Dollars & Sense articles from March 2006

Dollars & Sense archives from March 2006

From the editors.
March 1, 2006... Hurricane Katrina has certainly not lacked for coverage in the media. Moreover, that coverage has already faced criticism, particularly for its careless racism: white people in New Orleans "found" food in unattended grocery stores, while black...

Justice for war profiteers?(the short run)(Custer Battles LLC fraud case)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... On March 6 a federal jury in Alexandria, Va., found for the plaintiffs in the country's first civil fraud case against a U.S. military contractor accused of war profiteering in Iraq. Under the False Claims Act, individuals who have evidence of...

Striking results.(the short run)(Vietnam strikes for minimum wage)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... For the first time in six years, the Vietnamese government has raised the country's minimum wage in foreign-owned factories by nearly 40%, effective April 1, Labor Notes reported in February. Workers in Vietnam's two biggest cities will now...

Adult entertainment industry on top.(the short run)(microbilling at HotMovies.com)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The Internet's adult entertainment industry has triumphed again, with groundbreaking advances in digital content delivery. James Seibert, owner of the fast-growing adult site HotMovies.com, attributed the industry's upsurge to "micro-billing."...

Where shall we autumn, darling?(the short run)(third home ownership)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The New York Times reports that the American dream of owning at least three homes is finally coming within reach--for some. According to a survey conducted by the National Association of Realtors, the number of people with three homes is...

The best we've got.(the short run)(trend of sending corporate CEOs to represent US)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... In an effort to shore up the United States' international image, Karen Hughes, Bush confidante and State Department public relations czarina, has hit on a new strategy to boost global goodwill: when all else fails, send in the CEOs. According...

Lovin' it?(the short run)(fair trade coffee)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Scientific management long ago expanded from manufacturing to the service sector, including fast-food restaurants, retail, and telemarketing: service workers are now routinely required to follow scripts, and are under surveillance by...

Ampersand.(the short run)(Cartoon)
March 1, 2006... amptoons.com [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Henry Ford and Wal-Mart: an exchange.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... To the editors: In the January/February 2006 issue of Dollars & Sense, you refer on the cover and in John Miller's article to Henry Ford's desire "to pay his workers enough so they could buy the cars they produced," in contrast to Sam...

Report from the World Social Forum VI: civil society meets Chavez's state.(making sense)(Conference news)
March 1, 2006... Every year in late January, the world's corporate and government elites gather under tight police security in the Swiss resort town of Davos to plot the future of corporate-led globalization. In 2000, community organizers, trade unionists,...

Repopulating New Orleans: how did San Francisco do what a top economist says New Orleans cannot?(comment)(Henry George's single tax movement)
March 1, 2006... Our latest Nobelist in economics, Thomas Schelling, offered the following advice in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: "There is no market solution to New Orleans. It is essentially a problem of coordinating expectations...." By that he meant...

Gone to Mississippi.(post-Katrina report on Mississippi housing destruction)
March 1, 2006... You have to come here... you just can't understand unless you see it... please come," Gayle Tart said to me. Kermit Moore, an organizer from the Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights, had referred me to Tart, an African-American...

"Ground zero of someone else's future": a Dollars & Sense interview with Mississippi activist Derrick Evans.(founder of Turkey Creek Community Initiatives)(Interview)
March 1, 2006... They say you can't go home again. You can, of course, except that "home" will be a different place from the one you left. No one knows this better than Derrick Evans. Evans grew up in Turkey Creek, an independent African-American settlement...

From the right: cronyism and corruption.(DOLLARS & SENSE SPECIAL PULLOUT SECTION ON KATRINA)(political and business profiteering on post-Katrina reconstruction)
March 1, 2006... The roster of corporations that have secured government contracts for relief and reconstruction on the Gulf Coast looks sadly familiar: many of them have lengthy histories of scandal, incompetence, and corruption in Iraq and elsewhere. With...

The Katrina Diaspora.(DOLLARS & SENSE SPECIAL PULLOUT SECTION ON KATRINA)(statistics on Katrina victims)
March 1, 2006... Accurate information about the 1.5 million Hurricane Katrina evacuees spread around the country has been nearly impossible to find. The most useful data come from the 2,549,359 FEMA Individual Assistance applications survivors have filed. This...

From the left: organizing and activism.(DOLLARS & SENSE SPECIAL PULLOUT SECTION ON KATRINA)
March 1, 2006... Although the list of profiteers, cheats, and downright villains is long, there are also quite a few individuals and organizations that deserve accolades for their tireless efforts. We've compiled a short list with contact information if you'd...

"The storm of life after Katrina": a Dollars & Sense interview with East Biloxi community activist Jearlean Osborne.(Interview)
March 1, 2006... Disaster fosters an urgent and pragmatic kind of activism. Jearlean Osborne is one of the many Mississippians who have stepped up to do whatever it takes to meet the immediate needs of people in their communities--in her case, East Biloxi,...

Katrina hits cancer alley: a Dollars & Sense interview with environmental justice activist Monique Harden.(Interview)
March 1, 2006... The environmental, economic justice, and antiracism movements have not always been on the same page. A growing number of activists in all three, however, have begun to recognize that comprehensive analyses and strategies that address ecological...

Down by law: Orleans Parish Prison before and after Katrina.(New Orleans Police Department after Katrina)
March 1, 2006... Third in an occasional series on the political economy of the prison crisis. When the levees broke in New Orleans, flood-waters flowed into Orleans Parish Prison (known to locals as "OPP"). During and after the storm, some prisoners were...

Bringing them all back home: six months after Katrina, many New Orleans evacuees are still homeless.
March 1, 2006... Thank goodness for cell phones. We could keep in touch. We could find our friends and family, plan and strategize, and find out what was going on at home." So began New Orleans evacuee Shana Griffin's recounting of her experiences after the...

Terror in the workplace?(Fear: The History of a Political Idea)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... Corey Robin. Fear: The History of a Political Idea. Oxford University Press, 2006 (paper). 336 pages, $14.95. For all our talk today of the fear of terrorism, or before that, of communism, the most important form of fear is that which...

New Orleans by the Numbers.(economy in numbers)(census description of Lower Ninth Ward)
March 1, 2006... The city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana were in trouble long before Hurricane Katrina flooded the city and long before the Federal Emergency Management Agency decided that the director's dinner engagements were more important than...