Working Life

New York state, and the city, are having a rough time of it — if we’re talking about the real people. Sure, the very wealthy are buying up all the shit they bought up before. But, workers are struggling.

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   If you are one who is already bored by the 2012 elections and the rhetorical, mind-numbing repetition, here’s a little taste of what you can expect all the way into the distant future of 2016. The poodle-for-the-rich governor of New York has determined that his path to the White House in 2016–and, despite the [...]

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   See, this is a good example of how the conventional wisdom we hear day after day warps the brain. More people are, in fact, being pushed into minimum wage jobs: The number of workers in New York state earning minimum wage has increased sharply since the start of the recession, one of the driving [...]

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   I’ve written a lot about the complete immoral insanity of the obsession over the phony debt and deficit "crisis"and the rush to impose austerity on the people when we really need much more public spending to employ the masses of people who are falling, falling, falling further behind. Well, truth is austerity is not [...]

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    The people are there. Not surprisingly. If the politicians could get their hands out of the pockets of their contributors, we’d have some progress. All the way from the Financial Times: A poll released on Monday by Quinnipiac University found 61 per cent of registered New York City voters supported extending the state’s surcharge, [...]

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    Occupy Wall Street has been a phenomenal awakening–and I have been proud to be a part of the non-sleepover (wimp…) outer ring of regular marchers. Tomorrow, c’mon out for another important phase in holding the economic Thieves Guild accountable–with a tour of the lairs of a few billionaires who hole up in Manhattan and [...]

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   In one important respect, the poodle-for-the-rich governor of New York brings to mind another bullying, immoral politician, George W. Bush. Back when one of the most corrupt and dangerous Administrations in our nation’s history had sky-high approval ratings, thanks to igniting a gusher of misguided and illegal revenge and retribution in the wake of [...]

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   In a crisis, it’s a tough thing to watch people scramble to survive. And those that already have a lot usually are in the driver’s seat, ready to pit one person against the other. The same is true for states–ever desperate to try to get a few jobs for its citizens (and, need I [...]

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   People sometimes repeat certain phrases because they’ve heard them used repeatedly when they actually want to say something else, even if they aren’t conscious. Or, put another way–if you want to know why Democrats lost the special election in New York, I’d argue it has a lot to do with the Obama Administration’s failure [...]

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   Not surprisingly, Bank of America–one of the truly despicable actors in the mortgage scandal–has violated a deal it struck with the state of Nevada. And Nevada wants to sue.  Here you go: The attorney general of Nevada is accusing Bank of America of repeatedly violating a broad loan modification agreement it struck with state [...]

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   Over the last couple of days, I’ve written about the blatant ethical violations of Kathryn S. Wylde, a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. One thing struck me in particular about the Fed’s rules for its Class C directors: Class C directors are prohibited from owning bank stocks, for example,…    [...]

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   Apparently, if you shill for the banks AND violate ethical standards set forth by the institution on whose board you sit, no one really cares. Not the editorial boards of newspapers. Not the transcribers of press releases (formerly known as "journalists"). Not elected officials. And not advocates for the public interest.    Nope. The [...]

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   I doubt few people think the Federal Reserve is anything but a mouthpiece for the big financial institutions. And most people would be right–after all, the Fed’s Board of Governors and the branches are effectively run by creatures of the banks.     But, the least we can do is make sure that we [...]

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   This is the world we live in. When a politician, who represents the people, decides to stand up to powerful interests who have robbed the people, his political peers try to foil him. On the other hand, if you kiss the ass of powerful interests, you get campaign contributions. And we wonder why the [...]

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    What is with our city? We keep attracting the worse of the Tea Party, union-busting Republicans in the nation. First, Scott Walker was in town so two weeks ago to shake the Republican money tree–and we treated him to a Bronx cheer. Today, his Tea Party, low-life, colleague John Kasich came to town for [...]

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    Scott Walker is bringing his anti middle-class, union-busting act to New York City–and we can show him, on behalf of all Wisconsin workers and workers throughout the nation, that he is not welcome in New York City.  Walker is the featured speaker at a fundraiser for the Republican National Committee at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel–which [...]

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