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Showing posts with label college tuition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college tuition. Show all posts
Once again, Starbucks has raised the bar on how to
treat employees. Last year, the coffee house chain announced they would
offer their workers two years of free undergraduate college tuition.
Later in the year they upped the opportunity to a four-year college
degree under the Starbucks College Achievement Plan. Recently, the magnificent coffeemaker announced they were extending educational benefits to the spouse or child of any current/former military veteran working with the company.
“We have a responsibility as a nation to honor our veterans and
their families for their service and sacrifice, but it goes beyond
saying thank you – we must put our thanks into action and collectively
help those who are making the transition from military to civilian
life,” said Starbucks chairman and ceo Howard Schultz. “Not only do we
have a moral duty to engage veterans once they leave the service, we
know that doing so in a meaningful way will ultimately strengthen our
nation.”
Starbucks is more than halfway to meeting its goal of hiring 10,000 veterans by 2018. Helping
our men and women in the military build lives for themselves through
employment and higher education can only be seen as a good thing.
“Those leaving the military deserve the very best support as
they plan to reintegrate into their communities. When Americans complete
their military service, the USO is there to support the transition back
to civilian life,” said Lisa Anastasi, USO Chief Development Officer.
“Partners like Starbucks play an important role in supporting our
efforts and enriching our nation’s workforce. With our combined
commitment to the USO Transition 360 Alliance, we strive to help the
nearly half a million service members and their military families who
start the process of transitioning out of the military each year.”
Big thanks to over 22 million veterans, for
serving the people of the United States and helping to keep us
free. Our gratitude cannot be expressed enough. This college education
benefit, given to Starbucks employees in the military, shows other companies one way our gratefulness can be given.
Partnering with ASU, Starbucks has already covered the college tuition of 4,000 employees. The average tuition for one year at ASU is $15,000. Student employees can study whatever they want and are not under obligation to stay with the company after earning their degrees. In a addition to extra college education benefits for employees in the military, Starbucks is also giving a free tall Starbucks coffee for all veterans on Veterans Day.
SEN BERNIE SANDERS I VT is committed to fixing our financial system, here is a brief outline of what he will do when he is elected President. You can find more on his political platform at Bernie 2016
Wall Street's greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior drove
this country into the worst recession since the Great Depression. For
too long, this billionaire class has corrupted our political system. We
must act decisively to make our economy fair again.
Wall Street's dangerous manipulation of our economy has helped divert
most of all new income to the top one percent, contributing to the most
unequal level of wealth and income distribution of any major country on
earth.
Today, we live in the richest country in the history of the world, but
that reality means little because much of that wealth is controlled by a
tiny handful of individuals. The skyrocketing level of income and
wealth inequality is not only grotesque and immoral, it is economically
unsustainable.
The reality is that for the past 40 years, Wall Street and the
billionaire class have rigged the rules to redistribute wealth and
income to the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country. As a
result, Wall Street exists as an island unto itself, benefiting only the
extremely wealthy while using our money to get rich.
Tax Wall Street Speculation to Make College Tuition Free
Too many firms on Wall Street using high-speed trading to try to make a
quick buck. But it's risky and unproductive. Banks can execute thousands
of stock trades a second thanks to sophisticated computer algorithms.
Wall Street can keep doing this if it wants—but they'll have to pay a
tax on every one of those trades. And this tax on Wall Street
speculation would be enough to pay for my plan to make tuition free at
every public college or university.
Break Up Banks that are Too Big to Fail
In the midst of all of this grotesque inequality in our country sits a
handful of financial institutions that are still so large, the failure
of any one would cause catastrophic risk to millions of Americans and
send the world economy into crisis.
Most of the major Wall Street financial institutions that we bailed out
because they were "too big to fail" are now bigger than they used to be.
The six largest financial institutions now have assets equivalent to
nearly 60% of our GDP, issue 35% of the mortgages, and oversee 65% of
credit cards.
My view: If it's too big to fail, it's too big to exist. That's the
bottom line. As president, I will break up the big banks and restore
some sanity to our banking system.
Make Banking Boring: Reign in the Recklessness
Banking should be boring. It shouldn't be about making as much profit as
possible by gambling on esoteric financial products. The goal of
banking should be to provide affordable loans to small and medium-sized
businesses in the productive economy, and to Americans who need to
purchase homes and cars.
That is not what these huge financial institutions are doing. They're
instead creating an economy which is not sustainable from a moral,
economic, or political perspective. It's a rigged economy that must be
changed in fundamental ways.
We need banks that invest in the job-creating productive economy. We do
not need more speculation with the American economy hanging in the
balance.
Unrig the Tax System
Our tax system is wildly unfair — rigged to benefit the very rich. Major
corporations that earn billions in profits stash their money in tax
havens and pay nothing in federal income taxes, while billionaire hedge
fund managers pay a lower effective tax rate than nurses or teachers.
In order to reverse the massive transfer of wealth and income from the
middle class to the very rich that we have seen in recent years, we need
real tax reform which makes the wealthy and profitable corporations
begin to pay their fair share of taxes. It is fiscally irresponsible
that the U.S. Treasury loses about $100 billion a year because
corporations and the rich stash their profits in the Cayman Islands,
Bermuda and other tax havens.
We need a tax system which is fair and progressive. Children should not
go hungry in this country while profitable corporations and the wealthy
avoid their tax responsibilities.
We Can Do This
The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of
our time, it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the
great political issue of our time.
I can understand how this might feel daunting. We are up against a
billionaire class that has bought our political system to enrich itself,
and is now faced with the breakup of their oligarchy.
Know this: when people come together to organize, we can beat any amount
of money thrown around by the Koch Brothers, Goldman Sachs executives,
or anyone else.
Our political revolution is underway, and when it is built, we will win
not just against Wall Street, but we will win the White House.
This week, Jeb Bush said people should work longer hours. Bernie Sanders said no, workers need better wages. Hillary Clinton tweeted
about rising worker productivity and stalled earnings. (Link to Bernie Sanders' campaign site added by me, not the PCCC)
Martin O’Malley became the first candidate to release a debt-free
college plan covering all costs at public colleges and universities --
not just tuition. Jeb Bush attacked him immediately. Marco Rubio has a
"plan" also: Indenture students to rich people. (Really!) How have events this week affected your opinions on the 2016 presidential race?
Scandal: /’skandl/ noun Occurs when a Republican accidentally says what he/she really thinks.
Every week brings new developments that change the landscape of this
race. Help us keep our finger on the pulse -- moment to moment -- of how
progressives think candidates are doing. Take the very short 2016 presidential survey. Together, we can turn real-time changes in progressives'
presidential opinions into game-changing organizing to make big, bold,
economic-populist ideas central in 2016.
Thanks for being a bold progressive.
-- Jack Hilson, PCCC Organizer Want to support the Warren Wing? Senator Elizabeth Warren says,
"PCCC members were with me since the beginning -- even before there was a
beginning! Now, we have lots of work to do together." Chip in $3 to help push Warren's ideas in 2015 and 2016.
Paid for by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC (www.BoldProgressives.org)
and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
Contributions to the PCCC are not deductible as charitable contributions
for federal income tax purposes.
THE same wall street banks that brought our nation's economy to it's knees is making huge profits off student college loans, at taxpayer expense! Sen Elizabeth Warren D MA is introducing legislation to end this excessive profiteering, and would like to introduce her legislation with as many signatures of ordinary citizens as possible on her petition to Congress to show the American people want college to be affordable for all who want to go. Check this out from the PCCC and click the link to sign if you agree.
Last year, I ran for Senate on the idea of sticking up for the little guy against a system rigged for the big guy.
It's outrageous that the Federal Reserve loans money to big banks at 0.75% interest, while interest rates for college loans will be 9 times higher starting July 1. That's why I introduced a bill saying college students should get the same low rate. I am proud that more than 385,000 Americans have signed a petition to Congress supporting byproposal -- in less than a week. Can you join them, and add to the momentum? Click here.
Members of the the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, MoveOn, Credo Action, Daily Kos, and others will be critical to passing this bill into law.
As people like you stand with me in this fight, Washington takes notice -- and for that, I can't thank you enough. The simple fact is that big Wall Street banks wrecked our economy. College students did not.
Students are the future of our country and our economy, and they should get the same good deals as Wall Street – they shouldn’t be saddled with debt. Will you join me, and add your voice to 385,000 others who support investing in our students? Click here.
PCCC members were with me every step of the way in my campaign. Now, I need your help to build momentum for my first bill in the U.S. Senate.
Thank you.
mitt romney will make much of the report from the Dept of Labor today, but he isn't going to discuss his economic record in Massachusetts because it was anything but a miracle. This from The Daily Beast.....
What’s Romney hiding in his record?
Jae C. Hong / AP Photos
In
his speech on April 24 kicking off his general-election campaign,
Romney began, sensibly enough, by promising to tell us a little bit
about himself. He bragged about his picture-perfect family. He spoke
with pride of how his father had lifted himself from struggling salesman
to CEO and governor. Then he recounted his time as a businessman,
helping build companies like Staples and Bright Horizons. Finally, he
launched into how Barack Obama couldn’t organize a one-car parade and
how he (Romney) would make a much better president.
Wait
a minute, Mitt. You missed something. Family: check. Wealth: got it.
Gonna be a keen president: right. Wasn’t there something else on the
résumé? Oh, yeah: Mitt Romney served as governor of Massachusetts.
It’s
weird. Most governors who seek the presidency can’t shut up about how
great their states are. Right now, there’s an even-money chance that
Bill Clinton is telling someone that Hope, Ark., produces the biggest,
juiciest watermelons in the world. But not Mitt. In the most important
speech of his presidential campaign thus far, he ignored the only time
he has ever held public office.
That
is a mistake. Romney should be defining his record in Massachusetts
before his opponents can define it for him. Two days before Romney’s
kickoff speech, appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, Obama
strategist David Axelrod began carpet-bombing the Massachusetts record,
noting that Romney is touting his business acumen, but also that he did
the same when he ran for governor. “He said, ‘I’m going to get the
economy moving again. I’m a businessman. I know how to create jobs.’
[The state] went from 37th in the nation in job creation to 47th in the
nation in job creation. So we’ve tested the Romney acumen when it comes
to creating jobs, and he’s been found wanting.”
Perhaps
that’s why Romney doesn’t dwell on his record as governor. His state
really was 47th in job creation, behind only Ohio and Michigan, both of
which were being ravaged in the manufacturing meltdown, and Louisiana,
which had been devastated by Katrina. Romney even trailed Mississippi
and Alabama in job growth, breaking the iron law that Mississippi and
Alabama have to be last in pretty much everything except cockfights and
kissin’ cousins. While the country as a whole enjoyed 5 percent growth,
Romney’s Massachusetts grew at 0.9 percent.
It
wasn’t supposed to be that way. Romney sold himself to the voters as a
turnaround artist—a CEO who could lure jobs to the Bay State. He pledged
to use his business skills to “encourage businesses to come grow and
thrive in the most robust portion of the economy, Massachusetts.” Not so
much.
Romney’s
economic failure in Massachusetts is especially problematic because the
central premise of his presidential campaign is the same as it was when
he ran for governor: that he can apply his business skills to our
economic problems. Massachusetts was the guinea pig for Romney
economics. The results weren’t pretty. In addition to almost zero job
growth, the state saw a modest decline in real median income, meaning
that the folks who had jobs were bringing home less.
Romney
did close the $3 billion budget gap he’d inherited (although he then
left a projected shortfall of up to $1 billion). The methods he used are
instructive. He slashed higher education, cut revenue to local
governments, and raised fees on everything from college students to
mortgages, from buying a boat to opening a bar.
Romney’s
cuts to education and job training were especially severe. Fees for
university students shot up 63 percent as Romney hammered college
funding. Robert Karam, former chair of the UMass Board of Trustees, was a
Romney backer. But no more. “I think higher education really stood
still” under Romney, he has said. Romney even annoyed the business
community—his core constituency—by cutting job training, workforce
development, and trade assistance.
The
Romney recipe of cutting education and job training, forcing higher
fees on the middle class, and protecting the rich from tax hikes didn’t
work in Massachusetts. But his approach to health care did.
Paradoxically, the best thing Romney did as governor—and it was a great
thing—is the one thing he dares not talk about as a presidential
candidate. Too bad, because a solid 62 percent of the folks who actually
live under Romneycare—and its dreaded individual mandate—say they like
it.
The
Romney record in Massachusetts suggests that Romney’s campaign has it
backward: instead of talking up jobs and running away from health care,
Mitt ought to be bragging about Romneycare and avoiding scrutiny of the
one time his economic theories were actually put to the test.
The unemployment rate dropped a notch to 8.1 percent in April, the
Labor Department reported on Friday, but the pace of job growth has
fallen off, amid other signs that the economic recovery may be losing
momentum.
The economy added 115,000 payroll jobs last month, a meager showing
compared with earlier this year when the jobs tally was rising at twice
that rate and sowing optimism about the nation’s economic prospects.
Some
of the most quoted figures from the jobs report suggested good news.
The unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 percent in April from 8.2 percent
the month before, and the number of unemployed people declined to 12.5
million from 12.7 million.
But at least part of the reason for the
decline in the ranks of unemployed is that many people decided to stop
looking for a job. People who have stopped looking for work are no
longer counted as unemployed.
The labor force, defined as the number of people working or seeking work, declined by 342,000 in April, Labor Department said.
“The
decline in the unemployment rate is principally because a lot of people
gave up looking for a job in April,” said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S.
economist for Capital Economics. “The economy has created so few jobs
that people are disillusioned with trying to find a job and they’ve just
given up.”
The number of long-term unemployed, those who’ve been
out of work for 27 weeks or more, was little changed at 5.1 million in
April. That group makes up more than 40 percent of the jobless rolls.
The
unemployment numbers, which may be the most closely watched economics
barometer to come to bear in the presidential election, were seized upon by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who called Friday’s report “terrible and very disappointing.”
Romney suggested that job growth in a recovery should be closer to 500,000 jobs a month.
“This
is way, way, way off from what should happen in a normal recovery,”
Romney said on Fox News. “It’s a terrible and very disappointing report
this morning.... We seem to be slowing down, not speeding up. This is
not progress.”
Yet an economy that is consistently adding 500,000
jobs a month has rarely been achieved in U.S. history, according to
Labor Department figures. Over the last 20 years, there have been only
two months - once in 1997 and 2010 - when the economy added nonfarm
payroll jobs at that rate.
Over the last 20 years, the average annual monthly growth in those payroll jobs has been about 200,000.
“Today’s
employment report provides further evidence that the economy is
continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great
Depression, but much more remains to be done to repair the damage caused
by the financial crisis and the deep recession,” Alan B. Krueger,
Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said in a statement.
Stock prices dropped with the news of the jobs report. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 56.91 points, or 0.43 percent.
While
the month of April falls well short of the trend that economists would
like to see, Krueger and other analysts suggested that taking a broader
view, the recovery seems healthy.
Over the last four months, the number of nonfarm payroll jobs has climbed 200,000 a month on average.
Economists
attributed at least part of the recent fall-off in April to the good
weather in January and February: Employers hired people then, boosting
the numbers for January and February but depleting them in March and
April, which have show relatively weak reports.
The 200,000
average monthly job gains “is actually not a bad jobs number,” Ashworth
said. “There’s no reason to think the economy just fell of the rails.”
In
April, employment rose in professional and business services, retail
trade, and health care. Transportation and warehousing lost jobs over
the month.
Staff Writers Philip Rucker, Amy Gardner and Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/economy-adds-115000-jobs-in-april-unemployment-rate-drops-to-81-percent/2012/05/04/gIQAjdq70T_story.html?hpid=z1
