Working Life

I think it is always useful to see the threads connecting what might seem to be things that happen independently. The big picture is this: we live in a dysfunctional economic system which has created the greatest divide between rich and poor in a hundred years–and that is a global point. Here, for your consideration, […]

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   The deficit hawks are on the march–and this is a bi-partisan din. And it is basically nonsense designed to open the door to some very draconian cuts in our basic social safety net. Here is Dean Baker: Relative to the size of the economy, the deficits that we are running are large and the […]

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   Whew…ten years sure goes by quickly. A decade ago, labor led, along with environmentalists and other civic-minded groups, a challenge to the framework of so-called "free trade" in the streets of Seattle. A few days ago, I wondered why a Democratic president would be on a path to push through a so-called "free trade" […]

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   I am not shocked in the least by this story: Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers paid their executives largely in stock, and that stock lost most or all of its value when those companies collapsed. Many people on Wall Street say these examples help make the case that pay incentives were not what caused […]

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   This caught my eye this morning: Some of the largest shareholders in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have urged the Wall Street firm to reduce the size of its bonus pool, arguing that it should pass along more of its blockbuster earnings to investors, according to people familiar with the situation. The investors hold tens […]

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    Let’s go back in history briefly to the 1990s. In 1993, Bill Clinton pushed through NAFTA, over the objection of a large number of Democrats, with a large number of Republicans joining with the Democratic president to get NAFTA through the House (The Senate has always been far more receptive to so-called "free trade"). […]

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   I do not think it was a coincidence that Goldman Sachs announced its drop-in-the-bucket $500 million fund to help small businesses yesterday. Because the most important news is a report issued by the government bailout inspector that says Goldman got a huge gift from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, led at the […]

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   It is not surprising, given an astonishing level of underemployment, that we learn this: The number of Americans who lived in households that lacked consistent access to adequate food soared last year, to 49 million, the highest since the government began tracking what it calls “food insecurity” 14 years ago, the Department of Agriculture […]

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The Health Care vote in the house was close. And it still needs to pass the Senate. Poor branding, such as the term Public Option, didn’t help the cause.  But it’s not too late to win the support of  Republican enemies and the Teabaggers who control them.  I submit  a list of re-branding alternatives that […]

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   What does it mean when corporate profits are up–but people aren’t buying enough to sustain those profits? As in this report today via The Wall Street Journal: A record number of U.S. companies beat earnings expectations in the third quarter, but a big portion of their profits came from cost-cutting, disappointing investors who were […]

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