zanesworld1

I have been personally processing large amounts of information over the past several days regarding the NSA / PRISM data liberation, and the responses of the U.S. Government to same. There seem to be 2 points of the affair which are most contentious: Is the massive, all-encompassing spying being done by the government of grave concern, or no big deal? And whether the people involved in the release of the classified data are heroes or criminals. There has been plenty of heated debate on both of these points, but I have some thoughts on several things which have not received much attention – in fact, you may not have heard or thought of them at all.

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       Edward Snowden, the former spy who gave the documents in question to the press, stated he was making $200,000 per year. Booz Allen, his most recent employer, recently stated Edward’s salary was…

I think I’m still in shock. When the sun rose this morning it was blistered with the face of Donald Trump, bronze and smirking hideous, and all I can think about is Hillary Clinton. It’s what I know. Throughout the entire election, one slow-motion clip of a clown car ramming into a crowd of pedestrians, I’d assumed that the danger of Trump and the danger of Clinton were of two different orders. Trump was dangerous because of what he said and what he represented, the waves of fascism and violence that rippled out from the dead plopping weight of his speeches. Clinton was dangerous because of what she would actually do, because Clinton was going to win the election. I was a sucker, the kind who gets duped precisely by believing himself to be too smart for any kind of con. I thought I saw through it all, the whole…

A good and balanced article in the New York Times about the division among black organizations about charters.

The writer, Kate Zernike, also wrote this stunning article about the failure of school choice in Detroit. Lots of choice but no good choices.

Howard Fuller runs Black Alliance for Educational Options. BAEO has been lavishly funded by rightwing foundations for many years, to advocate for vouchers and charters.

Shavar Jeffries, of course, speaks for Democrats for Educational Reform, which has zero roots in the black community. Its members and funders are hedge fund managers. DFER probably hired him so it would have a voice in this conversation. It has long claimed to speak for “the civil rights movement,” but no one could take that claim seriously when DFER consists only of billionaires, millionaires, and others whose roots are in Wall Street, not Main Street or Harlem or BedStuy.

The NAACP and…

People, can we face some hard truths about how Americans save for retirement?

It Isn’t Happening

Here’s a fact: most people aren’t seriously saving for retirement. Ever since we chucked widespread employer based pension systems for 401K’s and personal responsibility, people just haven’t done very well saving. They take money out for college for their kids, or an unforeseen medical expense, or they just never put money in in the first place. Very few people are saving adequately.

In Fact, It Shouldn’t Happen

Next: it’s actually, mathematically speaking, extremely dumb to have 401K’s instead of a larger pool of retirement money like pensions or Social Security.

Why do I say that? Simple. Imagine everyone was doing a great job saving for retirement. This would mean that everyone “had enough” for the best-case scenario, which is to say living to 105 and dying an expensive, long-winded death. That’s a…