Youths’ Job Gains Wiped Out by Slow Recovery

…This is why this blog often says our economy is fucked.

Behind this worsening figure is an even more worrying picture, revealing persistent unemployment, a proliferation of temporary jobs and growing youth discouragement in advanced economies; and poor quality, informal, subsistence jobs in developing countries.

According to the ILO’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2013 report, an estimated 73.4 million young people – 12.6 per cent – are expected to be out of work in 2013, close to the levels reached at the peak of the economic crisis in 2009. This is an increase of 3.5 million between 2007 and 2013.

Global unemployment trends 2007-2013

Earlier projections had put the 2012 figure at 12.7 per cent but this has been adjusted to 12.4 based on new data. The trend, however, remains upward.

<full story is here> (click)

 

Occupy Sandy funds growth of worker-owned cooperatives

We’ve commented before about how Occupy Wall Street really showed initiative and the spirit of “mutual aid” when they set up the Occupy (Hurricane) Sandy stations out on Staten Island, in Brooklyn, and in the Rockaways out on Long Island.

Yes! Magazine has a story about the further development of what Occupy Sandy has done. You may agree with us:  This seems to be about unfucking our (really) fucked economy.  Here’s a short quote, full link is below:

Workers in control

Occupy Sandy has allocated $60,000 of the $900,000 it raised in the initial flood of generosity following the storm toward the formation of cooperatives, an initiative they hope will spread across storm-affected areas if it proves successful in Far Rockaway. The Working World, an organization that provides zero-debt micro-finance loans to new cooperatives, has offered to provide monetary support, but for now the organization is mostly lending advice and training.

At one of the early meetings, Brandon Martin, the Working World’s founder, showed the crowd a slideshow of other projects the organization has helped launch. Images of a beekeepers’ cooperative in the countryside of Nicaragua and a shoe factory in Buenos Aires glowed on the wall behind Martin as he outlined the benefits of workers sharing resources and making decisions democratically.

“A cooperative is workers controlling capital, instead of capital controlling workers,” said Martin. “It’s about reorganizing the economy around who’s really in control.”

Get the whole story here (click)

Occupied Greek Factory Begins Production Under Workers’ Control

“We see this as the only future for worker’s struggles.”
Makis Anagnostou, Vio.Me workers’ union spokesman

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 is the official first day of production under workers control in the factory of Viomichaniki Metalleutiki (Vio.Me) in Thessaloniki, Greece. This means production organized without bosses and hierarchy, and instead planned with directly democratic assemblies of the workers. The workers assemblies have declared an end to unequal division of resources, and will have equal and fair remuneration, decided collectively

FULL STORY on Just Seeds blog (click)

7th Annual Wisconsin Local Food Summit Feb. 1-2 @ Ashland, Wisc.

ASHLAND, Wis. – Northland College will host the 7th Annual Wisconsin Local
Food Summit next week Feb.1-2. The focus of the 2013 summit is “Common
Ground: Everyone Eats!” The Wisconsin Local Food Network (WLFN) is
sponsoring the event.

The Wisconsin Local Food Network chose the Chequamegon Bay region as the
location for this year’s summit because of the area’s commitment to growing
a local foods economy. Nathan Engstrom, regional sustainability coordinator
at Northland College, will share information about its Local Foods
Initiative. The initiative seeks to increase the presence of foods from
growers in the Chequamegon Bay area on campus through a regional
partnership.

“It’s great to come together and hear other people’s success stories, hear
what challenges they’ve faced,” said Engstrom. “This is a particularly
compelling moment for the summit because there’s a lot of good work
happening in the Chequamegon Bay region and state where new farms are being
launched and existing operations are expanding.”

Mary Pat Carlson is the executive director of Algoma, Wis., nonprofit The
Farm Market Kitchen. She will present on food processing models being used
by her group and others to enhance local foods systems.

“The ones that I provide the most assistance to are community-based or
small-scale food processing facilities that have an impact on
community-based economic development,” she said. “They tend to be shared
facilities where a number of different food processors contract for time
and services.”

The experiences that will be shared at the summit serve to support projects
that grow local foods economies, according to summit presenter Jason
Fischbach, agriculture agent for UW-Extension in Ashland and Bayfield
counties.

“A whole lot of learning is the main goal here,” said Fischbach. “The folks
that are involved in local food development work in our region will
hopefully come away with some good ideas that we can implement locally.
Hopefully, we’ll see some new projects and ideas launched.”

Keynote speakers for the 7th Annual Wisconsin Local Food Summit include
Mike Wiggins, Jr., chairman of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior
Chippewa. Wiggins will provide insight into Ojibwe harvesting methods and
how treaty rights play a role in the tribe’s cultural food system. Sharon
Adams, program director and co-founder of Walnut Way Conservation
Corporation, also will offer a keynote address on her experiences with
organizing initiatives that promote healthier, sustainable communities.

Those interested in learning about the Wisconsin Local Food Summit can
contact Jane Hansen at (715) 339-5345. Information on how to register early
is available online at http://www.wilocalfood.wordpress.com/summits.

Northland College is a traditional liberal arts and sciences college with
a unique focus on the environment and sustainability.Northland College and
its Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute are located in Ashland, Wis., near
the shores of Lake Superior. The College is broadly recognized as a leader
in sustainability education having adopted the focus as its mission in
1971. Founded in 1892, Northland now enrolls 600 students from across the
nation and across the world. For more information about Northland College
and its Institute, visit our website at
http://www.northland.edu&lt;https://mail.northland.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=f12746c1dee74f3791e50aa73596bb25&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.northland.edu%2f<http://www.northland.edu%3chttps/mail.northland.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=f12746c1dee74f3791e50aa73596bb25&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.northland.edu%2f>

Unemployed far outnumber job openings in every sector

Sorry this post is again about how our economy is so fucked, rather than being about how we can unfuck our economy.  Most days, the fucked-to-unfucked ratio is running 15-to-1.

 

Unemployed far outnumber job openings in every sector (click to link)

 

 

Coalition of Environmental Groups Urge Legislators to Reject Iron Strip Mine Bill and Protect Wisconsin Water

Sierra Club in Wisconsin have assembled a coalition of 75 other groups to oppose the mountaintop removal mine proposed for the Penokee Hills on the Bad River Watershed which drains immediately into Lake Superior just a short distance away.  Here’s the document they have online, in pdf format.

This is relevant to this blog, because the Penokee Hills mine will do nothing to unfuck Wisconsin’s seriously fucked economy.  It’s merely a political ploy by an unpopular governor to try and fulfill a pledge to “create” a quarter-million jobs during his 4 year term–an impossibility in a fucked economy that’s being daily undermined by the march of the robots.

Coalition of Environmental Groups Urge Legislators to Reject Iron Strip Mine Bill and Protect Wisconsin Water

The Digital Disruption: Technology and Economics for the 99%

The Digital Disruption: Technology and Economics for the 99%

by Peter Brown

Explains why our fucked economy keeps getting more and more fucked. And no “fix” is in sight.

Cut-n-paste link if above click doesn’t work:  http://occupy.com/article/digital-disruption-technology-and-economics-99

And here is a full hour-long video if you want to see some of these concepts in real life, in a real machine shop.

 

100 Best #Permaculture & Homesteading Books: The Ultimate Reading List for Sustainable Living

Pasted-in from Twitter to maintain for ready reading:

Wind and solar power paired with storage to power the grid

http://www.disinfo.com/2012/12/wind-and-solar-power-paired-with-storage-could-power-the-grid-99-9-percent-of-the-time/

Archive: Jay Hanson’s Dieoff references list

The old Peak Oil readings are archived–many of them–here.