Working Life

So, when I read this shit, I admit to laughing: there is a certain about of humor I find, mixed with the disgust, in the absolute ability of the captains of industry to continue to act like pigs at the trough in the face of all the misery of unemployment, low wages, no pensions and fear still coursing throughout every community. The system of greed, fired up by the great, almighty, “free market”, just soldiers on in another fourth dimension. They just do not care

Read the full story

Well, I saw a day or two ago that the Administration was going to cut off Bangladesh’s trade preferences. In one sense, okay, finally. But, on the other hand, it’s sort of a minor thing if you are thinking “this will protect workers”.

Read the full story

Five years ago, I wrote something with almost the same title — and I resurrect this today because the Senate passed an immigration bill. Whatever you think about the bill, in my view, it avoids a central point: we ignore the fundamental reason people flee their homes and what needs to be done to change that forced flight.

Read the full story

I’m always on the lookout for things to add to the George Orwell list of “War is Peace” double talk. So, now, comes a threat to the whole idea of winning neutrality agreements in union organizing campaigns.

Read the full story

Every day, it’s possible to shake your head and wonder: where do they find these people? These people who run for office and are truly clueless about reality and, especially, economic facts. You can throw a rock anywhere in Washington, D.C. and you are almost guaranteed to his a member of Congress walking around in a “I must do everything to help corporations” trance. Like John Delaney.

Read the full story

For a very long time, I’ve pointed out the moral outrage of the so-called “minimum wage”, so-called because it is really a poverty wage, not a minimum wage. Minimum wage gives the impression that it is the minimum a person can live on. But, you can’t live on that wage. That’s where a hike in the poverty wage is welcome, even if it is still not enough.

Read the full story

I’m typically quite critical of the traditional media’s refusal to write about workers’ struggles on a regular basis, and without the “free market” spin. But this is an example of a strong story.

Read the full story

You may have been checking out all the ruckus in the stock market just after the Fed decided to end its bond-buying program to prop up the economy. The strategy of the Fed was simple: try to keep things from really collapsing. But, the mindset before and after this program is really telling about what they don’t get.

Read the full story

As regular readers of this space know, I’ve argued for a number of years that the whole obsession over the debt and deficit is just crazy. It’s a manufactured crisis and evidence just keeps mounting that the entire austerity-budget-cutting mania is just foolish and, on the facts, wrong. But, if you want to worry about the deficit, here’s a nice wrinkle that will frustrate the hell out of the “keep immigrants out” bozos: immigration cuts the deficit.

Read the full story

Yet another installment in the decades-long white flag of surrender to the corporate elite took place in a relatively unnoticed vote — what, with the more important, front-page, relentless coverage of the passing of what’s-his-name Gandolfini. The country has a new trade representative…well, that’s not really accurate — Citibank has a new trade representative.

Read the full story