Working Life

   A good friend of mine often contends that we would have been a lot better off if the Confederacy had won the Civil War, grouping that whole swath of states south of the Mason-Dixon line into their own little country. Perhaps. But, it also seems like actual elected leaders of the country pine for […]

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   I don’t know–does every day that passes seem to you to bring even more bizarre behavior? Republicans write to the Federal Reserve Board and say, don’t you dare do shit to help the people. Ok, not quite in those words: “We have serious concerns that further intervention by the Federal Reserve could exacerbate current […]

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   Hey, as someone who lived just up the road from Redondo Beach for a bit, here’s some good news: In a decision that could have a wide-ranging effect on other cities with similar laws, a federal appeals court ruled that a Redondo Beach ordinance aimed at cracking down on day laborers is an unconstitutional […]

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    Dear Ms. Warren: congratulations for jumping into the U.S. Senate race in your state. And good luck and be well–you will find that being a "candidate" offers challenges quite different from having to answer to discourteous, uninformed Republicans. Respectfully, I’d like to ask your position on a number of issues.    Quick context. There […]

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   Have you evah wondered whether companies are just plum out of cash? Well, you’d be wrong: The Federal Reserve said in a quarterly snapshot of financial flows Friday that U.S. companies continued to accumulate profits instead of spending them. Holdings of cash and other liquid assets at nonfinancial companies rose to $2.047 trillion in […]

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   This is an incredible waste of time, since this will not become law–at least while the Democrats control the White House: The Republican-controlled House is expected to approve an unusual bill that would bar the labor board from pursuing the board’s pending action against Boeing, which Republicans have been denouncing day after day. Republican […]

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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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  Every day that passes, I get the sense that the people who run the big banks are even more brazen in their view that we, the people of the country, are just sharecroppers on their financial plantations. We work, we give–and they take and take…and, then, when they are done with us, we get […]

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    I am continuously amazed by the reverence accorded company bosses. Put aside the incompetent ones, who get huge severance packages when they leave, or those who have looted their companies of tens of millions of dollars in pay and benefits, even when the companies lose money or collapse. I’m talking about even the ones […]

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   I hate to ruin a good party–or at least the world of the liberal bloviators who want everyone to stand in line and praise the president’s speech last night. Heck, I am glad he was there to push for something–ANYTHING–to be done to try to respond to the great crisis we have.    But, […]

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