Working Life

Political scientists and historians from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity to Lyndon LaRouche to that woman with short brown hair who, I deduce, must be a scholar of German history, are comparing Obama to Hitler and his likening his health care plan to Nazism. Liberal bullies and freedom of speech haters like Barney Frank are […]

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People are missing the point about the reappointment of Ben Bernanke to head the Federal Reserve Board. Appoint him or not, choose a Republican or a Democrat or not–until we decide to change the way we see the role of the Federal Reserve Board, and how the economy is structured, the power over our lives […]

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   This guy–Allan H. Meltzer, a political economist at Carnegie Mellon University–is seriously delusional: Mr. Meltzer says the risk lies not in pulling back too soon but dithering too long. And he would scrap the stimulus program immediately and replace it with cuts in marginal tax rates for individuals and businesses. "It’s certainly not a […]

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   I’m going to be on CNBC today at 1 p.m. to discuss this article in today’s NYTimes: The rich, as a group, are no longer getting richer. Over the last two years, they have become poorer. And many may not return to their old levels of wealth and income anytime soon. For every investment […]

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   As is pretty common when it comes to the traditional media and the political insiders talking about the Federal Reserve Board, there is way too much deference given the Fed. Today, The New York Times has a story raising the question about whether Ben Bernanke should be reappointed as the Fed chair: In Washington […]

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   Yesterday, I participated in a debate on CNBC about whether unions helped the "middle class". The most comical and childish comment came from the fellow from the Cato Institute who called unions a “leukemia” on American society. I thought of this poor fellow this morning when I read this in The Wall Street Journal: […]

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   i’ve been asked to debate that question today on CNBC–I will post the video later. But, why do we even debate this anymore? It’s entirely about ideology, not economic facts. Union workers make almost 25 percent more than non-union workers–the difference was actually wider not too long ago but I suspect that deep concessions […]

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   I can’t say I’m surprised, honestly. I believe I’ve pointed out before that we were screwed once there was an acceptance that the insurance industry was going to be at the table when the health and welfare of our families, neighbors and friends was at stake. It seemed to obvious to me–and, yet, one […]

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   Krugman is right: What’s still missing, however, is a sense of passion and outrage — passion for the goal of ensuring that every American gets the health care he or she needs, outrage at the lies and fear-mongering that are being used to block that goal.  

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   There are two examples today that make it crystal clear how our society is damaged by corporate power. The first comes in the increasingly depressing arena of health care reform: Behind the scenes, however, Mr. Obama and his advisers have been quite active, sometimes negotiating deals with a degree of cold-eyed political realism potentially […]

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