Working Life

Here’s some political spin that is being pushed by the Administration and the corporate world: people are being squeezed by health care costs and that’s why wages aren’t going up. Well, I’m certainly on board about the crisis in health care–and it’s not going to be solved by either health savings accounts or a “national […]

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The spinning is already underway. Tomorrow, in the State of the Union address, the president will try to convince people that they should feel good about the economy. But, people aren’t buying and they shouldn’t. Just today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released data that showed that in December personal income and disposal personal income […]

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Ben Stein, for those not in the know, is a fairly conservative guy who loves capitalism. But, I like Stein–up to a point–because there’s a consistency in his beliefs: he advocates for capitalism but he also is disgusted by the greed and abuses that I think he believes should have no place in his beloved […]

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Well, here’s the first sign that we’re headed for some trouble with the economy. The numbers are in for economic growth and it’s not pretty: in the fourth quarter, the economy grew just 1.1 percent–the lowest in three years. Now, regular readers of this page know that I’m a critic of government statistics because they […]

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…another so-called “free trade” agreement is trying to impose itself on unsuspecting people. Every time I think of the birth of these agreements, I think of those plant-like things in “Alien” that pop out yet another terrifying monster. This new ugly brew is called the Andean Free Trade Agreement because it will cover Peru, Columbia […]

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I woke up this morning to read about two new attacks against workers. The banner headline in the Financial Times (subscription required) reads: “Delphi seeks to tear up labour deals.” You may remember that back in November the company’s CEO Steve Miller had concocted a deal that would plunge Delphi into bankruptcy, gut the living […]

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The elites are gathering for the annual global conference in Davos, Switzerland. And, today, there’s a little snippet at the Wall Street Journal’s on-line edition (subscription required) that fits with what I’ve been saying for many months: “A gloomy forecast about the world economy greeted the leaders when Stephen S. Roach, chief economist of Morgan […]

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I’ve just finished reading some of the the coverage by the mainstream major media of the jobs cuts at Ford and, really, it’s pathetic. Being out here on the West Coast (my excuse for a post at this late hour for you Easterners), I started with the Los Angeles Times, migrated over to The New […]

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I’m here in Los Angeles (no, not sunning myself at the beach) and caught a disturbing article in The Los Angeles Times by one of its columnists, Steve Lopez. The piece was entitled “Deals So Sweet They’ll Kill Us: Worried about your 401(k) tanking in your golden years? You should become a cop.” The upshot […]

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Nothing seems to agitate The New York Times more than the idea that people in the world are prepared to reject the neo-liberal economic model that is devastating the livelihoods of workers throughout the world. In today’s article about the ascent of the new Bolivian president, Evo Morales, The Times frets: TIWANAKU, Bolivia, Jan. 21 […]

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