Working Life

   You may recall that Russ Feingold was the only United States Senator to vote against the Patriot Act when it first came up for a vote in the post-9-11 hysteria days. He had good reason to suspect that any Administration–Republican or Democratic–would make reckless use of broad new powers to spy on its citizenry. […]

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    The bad news will keep pulverizing your grey cells: housing prices sliding, stock markets weak, bond yields in the toilet, the dollar down (which I actually have argued is a good thing)…     But, do not make the mistake of thinking that means that companies are lacking for money. Nope. Times are […]

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    Over the next 18 months, brace yourself for a lot of hand-wringing about the economic crisis we’re in. Every so often, we’re going to be told the "recovery" is just around the corner.  Oh, let’s be clear: the worries will have NOTHING to do with what is actually happening to PEOPLE. It will have […]

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   Reaching back all the way to NAFTA (oh, so ancient history…1993), there has been a complete lie and sham underlying virtually every trade deal post-NAFTA–don’t worry, so-called "free trade" advocates tell us (including free trade zealots Bill Clinton and Robert Reich) about these deals…we will put in place "labor protections" to make sure workers […]

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   The usual thing to mention when it comes to unions is how much better a union job is because of higher pay, real benefits and some security. What we often forget is how unions save lives.    We take for granted that when we breathe air not filled with asbestos or some other deadly […]

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    Yesterday, Bill Clinton foolishly called on the country to use the bank robber Willie Sutton’s maxim to address the debt "crisis" (which, in my opinion, is a phony crisis) by going where the money is. Foolish because Clinton pointed the finger at entitlements. But, the real place where the money is lies with […]

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    It is easy if you are a billionaire to get attention. You spend a ton of money on some idea–even it’s sheer lunacy–and you can buy attention. Donald Trump did it–but his  "pursuit" of the presidency was just another comical vanity play in his comical life. Pete Peterson is another story–and the outcome of […]

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    Tomorrow, Peter Peterson is going to hold another one of his dumb national "fiscal summits" to further fan the flames of the phony debt and deficit "crisis"–a non-existent crisis that covers up the bigger problem of the widening divide between rich and poor. Since people want to talk about saving money, let’s start by […]

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   Sigh. Dumb economics again–promoted by a whole lot of good Democrats who just cannot embrace the idea that you cannot fix so-called "free trade" deals by pretending to retrain people for new jobs. It’s a false, cruel promise. At first glance, it looks like a hard fight on behalf of workers: Forty-one Senate Democrats […]

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   I have a good friend who is always sputtering about "how terrible our educational system is because how can people think this?", whatever the preposterous "this" of the moment is. But, I see it differently. Sure, the stupid, mindless invective streaming from FOX News and much of the traditional press is central to framing […]

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