Working Life

In Episode 31 of the Working Life podcast, I reported on the drama of the progressive battle to take over the California state Democratic Party…and the possible shenanigans the insiders employed to squeeze out the chair victory…or maybe not a victory…because breaking today: Formal Challenge Issued in California Democratic Party Chair’s Race For Immediate Release […]

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I kind of love the bottom line message delivered to Democrats by my guest, California progressive leader Karen Bernal: Get Good or Get Gone. In the discussion on this week’s podcast, Bernal was speaking directly about the insider Democrats in California who are trying to hold back the rising wave of progressive activists who came […]

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Why do we let Wall Street run wild with our money? We don’t have to. With my guest Marc Armstrong, I dig into the idea of a public bank–a bank whose shareholders are we, the people. It’s an idea gaining momentum throughout the country. I refer to a piece on public banks that I wrote […]

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Here is something almost no one is talking about but I take it up in this podcast: the repeal of Obamacare, along with its immoral tossing millions of people off health coverage, will cost the country 3 million jobs and $1.5 trillion in economic activity. I break this down for all of us in simple […]

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The House vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act is done. I have a piece posted on CNN.com moments after the vote that argues that it is time for us to rise up, to organize and to demand single-payer, “Medicare for All” health care. Here is the piece The first two paragraphs: Democrats are denouncing […]

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People die at work, and people revolt and organize. All in sharp focus the last few days, I looked at the toll at work of sick, injured and killed workers—and why we mark Workers Memorial Day every April 29th—as well as the May Day mobilization that makes us consider how to change the system. I […]

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I dig into the Top 10 really bad things that have happened so far in Donald Trump’s reign, focusing on workers, and the issues we care about in the political revolution. It’s all an easy-to-understand conversation with my expert guest, Heidi Shierholz, Senior Economist and Director of Policy at the Economic Policy Institute. I also talk […]

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Uber or Isis: Which is really a greater threat to the security of millions of people in this country, and around the world? In conversation with national taxi workers advocate Bhairavi Desai and foreign policy expert Phyllis Bennis, I make the point that, by far, the answer is Uber. ISIS is a brutal extremist gang—whose […]

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Every day, it happens: the tax system puts unfair burden on the 99.9 percent while the very wealthy and big corporations pocket huge bucks…and a lot of those bucks come right out of our pockets thanks to corporate tax subsidies. Just in time for Tax Day, I talked to three of the leading experts in […]

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Poof! Before you noticed it, the Federal Reserve Board raised interest rates and, then, no one much talked about it, even though the Fed probably has more power over your job prospects than any politician. So, we talk about The Fed at length with long-time Fed watcher Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic […]

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