Working Life

   In the bigger sense, these two things are related. First, a week ago, I asked whether the president will keep his campaign promise about renegotating NAFTA. The answer seems to be "no": The administration has no present plans to reopen negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement to add labor and environmental protections, […]

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   To start off, I don’t mind paying taxes. Taxes are my dues to live in a country where we get clean water, decent roads, communications systems, you name it. The fact that many of the things we enjoy aren’t always working right has more to do with people evading taxes and, more important, a […]

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   Last week, I wondered whether the president would keep his campaign promise about NAFTA. Today, Colombia is on my mind because of this piece in The Wall Street Journal: President Barack Obama discussed a pending free-trade agreement with his Colombian counterpart Saturday and dispatched his trade representative to discuss U.S. concerns over Colombia’s treatment […]

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   It will be a steep hill to climb but it’s good to read about this, via The Wall Street Journal: The United Food and Commercial Workers union is ramping up organizing at Wal Mart Stores Inc. after a five-year lull, dovetailing with its efforts to win support in Congress for a bill to make […]

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   You may remember–this is old history…a year ago so this might seem like eons ago–that during the Democratic 2008 primary campaign, there was a huge surprise: we learned that NAFTA was a bad thing. Who knew? I couldn’t keep track of all those candidates running for office who suddenly had discovered something that a […]

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  Let’s deal with some facts. The richest one percent of Americans are paying taxes that are too low–and Republicans are pushing budget proposals that would shovel even more money into the hands of the wealthiest Americans. Here are the facts.   Citizens for Tax Justice has released a series of studies in the past […]

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   I recall how striking it was that the issue of immigration barely registered during the 2008 presidential campaign. No one really wanted to talk about it. So, this is interesting news: The nation’s two major labor federations have agreed for the first time to join forces to support an overhaul of the immigration system, […]

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   People behave badly. Well, duh. I tend to be a forgiving sort in most individual cases. But, it’s the people who behave badly who hurt lots of people who can’t be allowed to just quietly slip into the night. I’m reminded of that because of two things I read, one yesterday and the other […]

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   When do things get better? That is all in the eye of the beholder.  The issue is: what and who defines "better"? For example, there is no doubt there are more hotel rooms open in the city. But, does that mean because all of a sudden the industry isn’t making money hand-over-fist that the […]

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   Maybe I’m eating too much Matzoh which is clogging the part of my brain that triggers the "trust" center but I’m not feeling great about this aspect of the government’s effort to conduct "stress tests" on the banks: But the tests, which are expected to be completed by the end of this month, are […]

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