mostly nuggets

blessed britons

Low pay is not just a problem of an extreme underclass or of migrants; it is endemic across the country. One in seven of all working households are poor; one fifth of all workers, 5.3 million people, are paid less than £6.67 an hour (two thirds of the median), the worst low-pay rate of any in Europe. It works out at less than a £12,000 salary. In some regions, the proportion of low-paid is well over 25%, while in some constituencies (in Wales, Birmingham, the West Midlands, even the rural West Country) it is comfortably over 40%.

— Madeleine Bunting

Fair wages are a fantasy in the brutal underside of Cowboy Boss Britain

mad world

[Genocide inflation] occurred before and during NATO’s 78-day bombing war on Yugoslavia and takeover of Kosovo. The pre-bombing propaganda barrage claiming Serb misbehavior was massive, and then during the war itself there was a stream of hysterical claims of indiscriminate killing, official U.S. claims of Bosnian Muslim deaths reaching 500,000, with a very profuse use of the word “genocide.” After the war, the claimed deaths quickly fell to 11,000, and one of the greatest forensic body searches in history produced only 4,000 bodies (with some 2,000 still reportedly missing).

— Edward Herman

Genocide inflation is the real human rights threat

a mere $17.5 million

Submitted by antarchi on July 8, 2007 - 00:08.

[Wal-Mart's] CEO Lee Scott was paid over $17.5 million in total during 2004. This is roughly a thousand times the annual average for workers in Wal-Mart’s 3,600 US stores, where wages range from $7.92 to $9.68 an hour.