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G8/G20 Summits Begin

1:20 pm By la Macha · Immigration|Money · 7 Comments

25 Jun 2010

It’s been a busy time around here with all the conferences (AMC and now the USSF) and now the G 8 and 20 summits are blasting off with rounds of protests. I was most interested to hear about this protest, which involved (as near as I can tell) indigenous peoples and immigrants.

Via BChannelNews.tv

In the days leading up to the G8/G20 Summits, activists and community organizers have been co-ordinating events and actions around Themed Days of Resistance, which highlight different issues each day, as a build-up to the Days of Action that are scheduled for June 25-27.

The theme for June 24 was Indigenous Sovereignty and the streets of Toronto saw a First Nations led march of over 1500 people.

Later in the day a press conference was held, and members of Defenders of the Land and No One is Illegal (two groups involved in the march) spoke to reporters in front of the three kilometre, $5.5 million security fence that has encircled the area around the summit site in downtown Toronto.

Here’s another good one:

We’ll be keeping our eyes out for more interesting news, let us know if you’re at the protests!

New Study Shows that for Latinos in NYC, The Recession is a Depression

10:35 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · economy|Immigration|Money|New York City|Uncategorized · 1 Comment

29 Oct 2009

empty-pockets Latino NY’ers are have been especially impacted by the current economic crisis according to a study released today by the Community Service Society (full disclosure, I worked for CSS many years ago).

-More than 1 in 4 Latinos lost their jobs. More than 4 in 10 low-income Latinos either had their hours, wages, and/or tips reduced, or lost their jobs—or both—in the past year.

-Low-income Latinos are more likely than Whites or Blacks to frequently worry about having enough money to cover expenses and bills. Latinos are more likely to worry about housing as well.

-Low income Latinos are more likely to have multiple workers in their household, but less likely to report that they have employer-sponsored benefits;

-For moderate to higher income Latino families, one in five fell behind in housing payments, and over a third had their health care costs increase;

- Latina and Black low-income working mothers are most worried about not being able to find or keep a job.

Puerto Rico’s Unemployment Numbers : So How’s that Colony Thing Working Out For Ya?

10:25 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · economy|Labor|Money|Puerto Rico · 15 Comments

26 Aug 2009

puerto_rico For as long as I have believed in self-determination for Puerto Rico, I have thought that talk about the island becoming the 51st state was just that, talk. This is partially because of issues of race and identity. Despite the post-racial times the U.S. finds itself in (allegedly), the U.S. will not accept a brown, Spanish speaking nation as a state. I also think though, that annexation isn’t attractive because economically, Puerto Rico isn’t attractive. Claro, the island has been exploited economically, pero statehood would require the U.S. to invest more than it would get back from the island. Just take a look at the unemployment numbers coming out of la isla del encanto:

The unemployment rate in Puerto Rico stands at 16.5 percent, the highest of all U.S. jurisdictions, and the government is announcing even more layoffs of public employees.

Via / Latin American Herald Tribune

Madoff Sentenced to 150 years in Prison

1:56 pm By la Macha · Money · 2 Comments

29 Jun 2009

Breaking news right now is that Bernard Madoff, the same guy who started the current economic downturn the U.S. is in by creating all sorts of economic schemes, was just sentenced to 150 years on prison.

From Huffington Post:

When asked by the judge whether he had anything to say, Madoff slowly stood, leaned forward on the defense table and spoke in a monotone for about 10 minutes. At various times, he referred to his historic fraud as a “problem,” “an error of judgment” and “a tragic mistake.”

He claimed he and his wife were tormented, saying she “cries herself to sleep every night, knowing all the pain and suffering I have caused,” he said. “That’s something I live with, as well.”

He then finally looked at the victims lining the first row of the gallery.

“I will turn and face you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t help you.”

Afterward, Ruth Madoff _ often a target of victims’ scorn since her husband’s arrest _ broke her silence by issuing a statement through her lawyer. She said she, too, had been misled.

“I am embarrassed and ashamed,” she said. “Like everyone else, I feel betrayed and confused. The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years.”

At first, I was really happy to read the sentence–but then I read about all these different interactions–and now I’m just sad. We’ve all been screwed so badly. And for some reason that I can’t really explain, it seems wrong that one man is taking responsibility for how fucked the economic system we all live under has screwed us all.

Hugo Chavez Hearts Obama

3 Jun 2009

After all that hate, then some awkward moments, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez appears to be warming up to Barack Obama…if you consider calling Obama more leftist than he and Fidel Castro showing love (and I do). Reuters reports:

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday that he and Cuban ally Fidel Castro risk being more conservative than U.S. President Barack Obama as Washington prepares to take control of General Motors Corp.

During one of Chavez’s customary lectures on the “curse” of capitalism and the bonanzas of socialism, the Venezuelan leader made reference to GM’s bankruptcy filing, which is expected to give the U.S. government a 60 percent stake in the 100-year-old former symbol of American might.

“Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right,” Chavez joked on a live television broadcast.

Chavez’s message is not lost on Republicans, who were quick to jump on Obama’s bones for the move. Check out the RNC’s video attacking Obama after the jump. Read more…

Remesa Reversal

9:34 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Dominican Republic|Dominicans|economy|Money · 1 Comment

18 May 2009

g_3472__324612fbc718498 The current economy has had an impact on all communities, but especially Latinos, who were already feeling the pinch. This has caused a reduction in the amount of money that immigrant communities are sending to their home countries, and anti-immigrant scapegoating has a role to play as well. Pero here’s a very interesting development, as reported by Feet in 2 Worlds, remesas have started to change their usual traveling direction, with money coming from Latin America to the United States.

“We have seen a significant increase in the number of money transfers made from the D.R. to the U.S.,” confirmed Reny Pena, supervisor of customer services and transfers at the company’s office [La Nacional] in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights.

Pena said that the volume of transfers from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. grew from between 80 and 120 monthly transfers in 2006 to the current rate of about 150 transfers a day. The increase has prompted the agency to expand the department that deals with U.S.-bound remittances from one to five employees.

Dirty Lender Charged Latinos More for Loans

11 May 2009

000004273718xfeature With all of the corruption and dirtiness and in finance-related industries of late, it should perhaps come as no surprise that beyond just “legally” taking advantage of unsavvy consumers by lending them money they could never pay back, at least one of these institutions made it a policy to charge Latinos more for borrowed money. A federal investigation has been opened on California lender Golden Empire Mortgage, Inc., of Bakersfield, which allegedly cannot explain the drastic differences in prices between white customers and Latinos. ConsumerAffairs.com reports:

According to the FTC’s complaint, Golden Empire violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) in pricing mortgage loans. They allegedly gave loan officers and branch managers wide discretion to charge, in addition to the risk-based price, “overages” through higher interest rates and higher up-front charges. The defendants allegedly paid loan officers a percentage of the overages as a commission and failed to monitor whether Hispanic consumers were paying higher overages than non-Hispanic white borrowers.

The complaint alleged that the company’s policy and practice of allowing loan officers to charge discretionary overages resulted in Hispanics being charged higher prices because of their national origin – price disparities that are “substantial, statistically significant, and cannot be explained by factors related to underwriting risk or credit characteristics of the applicants.”

I don’t know why I am surprised by this. It seems that when it comes to the finance sector, the news just gets more and appalling as the days go by. Is it any wonder why we are in the situation we are in now, with so many dirty banks in control of our money and our homes?

Via / ConsumerAffairs

Up Too Early on a Sabado Morning Links

18 Apr 2009

Unfortunately toddlers don’t understand the idea of a weekend so I’m up watching the sunrise con un cafecito and reading.

If you’re in the NYC area, check out the 10th Havana Film Festival

Tax day came and went with a little racism for good measure

Sean Bell will get a street named after him, and the assholes are just further Brutalizing the dead man (as in don’t read the comments).

How did Goldman Sachs manage to do so well? Conspiracy? Yeah, well probably. (P.S. I used to work for GS, still feel dirty)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M – Th 11p / 10c

Clusterfu#@k to the Poor House – Goldman Sachs’ Connections

thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Economic Crisis

Political Humor

And don’t forget you can still enter to win a Pantech Matrix Phone here.

It’s a lovely day. Go outside and enjoy it!

Cuba Wary of Possibility of American Visitors

10:28 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Cuba|Money|Politics|travel · 5 Comments

6 Apr 2009

2830612461_5924b6eba9 Last week we told you about an initiative among several U.S. Senators to lift the ban on U.S. tourism to Cuba. While some — both on the Cuban side and the U.S. side — might see this as a good thing for the island, Spain’s El País reports (and editorializes) that the Cuban government is proceeding with caution:

Authorities in Havana are looking anxiously at the possibility that the U.S. might lift the travel ban that impedes American tourists from visiting Cuba “too soon”. On the one hand this is desired and seen as a salvation in these times of crisis, but on the other, the end of the banning of U.S. tourism is perceived as a challenge, with a high potential for destabilizing the political and idealogical landscape, according to observers and diplomats.

To provide perspective on what this major change in U.S.-Cuba relations could mean to prolongation of Cuba as we know it today, El País points to statements made by Cuban politician Armando Hart, who warned against the effects of a lifting of the embargo on Cuban society:

If he [Obama] keeps his promise [of lifting the embargo], a new age of idealogical combat between the Cuban revolution and imperialism will be born. Within it, the design of a new theoretical and propagandistic concept around our ideas and their origin will be needed…a broad migration towards distinct objectives could come upon us and we need to culturally prepare ourselves for that.”

I think this pretty much sums up the overall point: this isn’t just about welcoming dollars into the Cuban economy via American tourism, but rather what that will actually mean to Cuba: an influx of everything the revolution has been trying to combat all these years. American tourism is a demonstration of rampant consumerism which is capitalism at its maximum expression, and that flies in the face of the Cuban way of life. Sure, it’s been filtering through for years now via European tourism, but this sudden aperture is bound to push communist leaders on the island to reconsider the way the reconcile the ideals they wish their people to live by and the fact that the enemy is coming in and leaving a piece of their culture of consumption on the island.

What do you think? Will U.S. tourism to Cuba radically change Cuban society? How will leaders deal with this? What will Cuba look like after, say, 20 years of U.S. tourism to the island? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Via / El País

Immigrant Detention is the New Money Maker

11:17 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration|Justice|Money · 3 Comments

18 Mar 2009

In these economic times, those with the least suffer the most and become the new fodder for the prison industrial complex.

Washington paid nearly $55.2 million to house detainees at 13 local jails in California in fiscal year 2008, up from $52.6 million the previous year. The U.S. is on track to spend $57 million this year.

The largest federal contract in the state is with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, whose 1,400-bed detention center in Lancaster is dedicated to housing immigrants either awaiting deportation or fighting their cases in court. The department received $34.7 million in 2008, up from $32.3 million the previous year.

Some smaller cities have seen their income rise much faster. Glendale received nearly $260,000 in 2008, triple what it got the previous year. In Alhambra, last year’s $247,000 was more than double the previous year’s payments.

For some cash-strapped cities, the federal money has become a critical source of revenue, covering budget shortfalls and saving positions.

Via / The LA Times y gracias to Nezua via the Twitter

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