Het Neoliberale Geloof 14

Het gaat financieel uitmuntend met de neoliberalen, zowel in de VS als in Nederland. Met de armen in de wereld gaat het een stuk minder goed. De kloof tussen arm en rijk is de afgelopen halve eeuw verdubbeld. 'It is estimated that one billion people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition. That's roughly 100 times as many as those who actually die from these causes each year.
About 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes. This is down from 35,000 ten years ago, and 41,000 twenty years ago. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five.' Lees verder
http://www.thehungersite.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CTDSites

´These people need our help. $20 supplies a meal for up to 25 people. $100 will nourish up to 25 children for one week. Please pray and consider how you can help out.´
Lees verder
http://www.christianaid.ca/pages/needs/hunger/hunger.html

'Big bucks on Wall Street stirs up outrage.


It's a single check worth more money than most people will make in a lifetime, and this year's record-breaking Wall Street bonuses, including one at a whopping $53.4 million, are fanning outrage in the papers, on the Web and on the streets.

"Goldman Sachs is very concerned about their image with the public," said Peter Cohan, an investment consultant and business professor at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. "But it's tricky for them. They have employees they need to keep, and for that they have to pay them a lot."

Goldman Sachs disclosed this week it paid CEO Lloyd Blankfein a nearly $54 million bonus in cash, stock and options.

The immense bonus breaks a record set just last week when Morgan Stanley gave a $40 million bonus for CEO John Mack.

To put it into perspective, New York State residents make an average of $46,000, or less than one-tenth of one percent of Blankfein's bonus.

The bonuses come after a banner year for investment banks, including Goldman Sachs' 70% rise in profits to almost $10 billion, the highest in the history of Wall Street.

In New York City alone, securities employees will earn almost $24 billion in bonuses this year. Those bonuses are being condemned in the press, including editorial cartoons depicting Wall Street bankers as common criminals.

"One of the reasons there has been so much negative press is that journalists are obsessed with their own poverty," said John Carney, editor of financial blog dealbreaker.com.

"Three hundred days a year they are happier than investment bankers. But when bonus season rolls around the journalists realize there is a price to pay for their career decisions. The highest paid editor at The New York Times makes less than what the lowest paid analyst at Goldman Sachs makes."

Carney pointed out that the press and the public tend to be more shocked by Wall Street bonuses because unlike high-paid athletes, little is generally known about how investment banking actually works.

"I wish I could pass some law restricting bonuses," said Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn), "or mandate that you have to give some money back to the people who made you rich in the first place."'

Lees verder: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/nationworld/am-bonus1221,0,6338667.story?coll=scn-newsnation-headlines