Daily Topics - Wednesday December 18th, 2013

Catch The Thom Hartmann Program LIVE 3-6pm ET M-F!!
Hour One: What the Fed's taper plan means for the economy - Dr. Stephanie Kelton, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Hour Two: Why conservatives insist Santa is white - Kevin Jackson, The Black Sphere / Plus, What you need to know about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - Michael Schaffer, The New Republic
Hour Three: Has marriage become a luxury? Koa Beck, Salon
Comments


Pension plans are under attack in part because of outsourcing. A recent article here in Texas points out that the state pension plans are in trouble because 1) underfunding 2) poor return 3) fewer current employees paying into the system. So, as government (or any company) reduces its (US) workforce either through outsourcing or contracting, it robs the pension system. Of course they don't tell us this.
Another way to steal from pension plans is to sell off parts of a company. When a division is sold off, the pension for those employees are supposed to follow the division, but they can play lots of games with this and essentially convert the pension money into profit for the company.
This was a reply to the comment about Jesus having short curly hair according to Time magazine. This is actually a common theme put forth by protestants who quote Saul/Paul and common Jewish texts of the time period. However, Jesus was a Nazareen. This group of Jews practiced wearing their hair long and their beards uncut as was a common practice by many Jews at that time and actually a strict requirement according to the Jewish texts. The practice of cutting their hair and beards was only done in larger cities to appease the Romans and as we all know not many Jews were very fond of appeasing the Romans at that period of history. The common theme of claiming Jesus had shorter hair these days seems to be a shot more at the "dirty hippies" of America and the lower class that the right wing "Christians" are trying so hard to ignore altogether when it comes to real Christianity.