Working Life

The scam is going to get worse in the housing market. I mean the scam that will let the predators and hucksters, who lured people into bad deals, off the hook, either via Congressional bailouts or actions by the Federal Reserve. And the outcry has to build now so that we don’t let, once again […]

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    I was struck today by two trends underway that are, on the one hand, not connected but, in another way, are connected because they paint a picture of what government can do and what it shouldn’t do.     On the one hand, take this story from the Associated Press, printed as a brief in […]

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    It’s a fascinating spectacle reading the news reports about Mattel’s recall of 19 million toys sent from China. Most of the reports and editorials focus, rightly, on the low level of safety standards in China. But, it’s foolish to simply blame the Chinese for the lead in toys. The fact is that those dangers […]

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    Recently, including yesterday, I’ve been on the case of Sen. Chuck Schumer who seemed to be coddling the private equity and hedge fund industry by opposing legislation that would require that these guys–who are raking in obscene profits–pay taxes like the rest…of the rich people in America (yeah, hard to cry for them, either). […]

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    The hedge fund industry–those very close friends of Sen. Chuck Schumer–are apparently finding other ways to avoid paying taxes. Today’s The Wall Street Journal has this story: U.S. lawmakers are examining yet another tax perk enjoyed by hedge funds: Many of these funds lend money like banks, but unlike traditional lenders, often don’t pay […]

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    Guns versus butter. It’s the classic debate that really tells us a lot about our priorities that we set for the kind of society we can expect to live in–how much money a country spends on the military versus how much money is expended on non-military, domestic needs. To perhaps explain the obvious, buying […]

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    It’s been a while since I checked in on the Beast of Bentonville. Turns out that the Beast is not getting a lot of love half way across the world in India. Forbes magazine reports that: Brand recognition isn’t always fun, as retailing giant Wal-Mart is finding out in India. Days after it signed […]

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    Here’s something worth reading–it’s an article by my friend and colleague Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research about the long-term impact of the East Asian financial crisis. It’s called "Ten Years After: The Lasting Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis." Here’s a little from CEPR’s press release on the […]

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The most interesting responses during last night’s presidential "debate" were those on trade, specifically, those answers to Keith Olbermann’s question about whether NAFTA should be scraped or fixed. I admit that I have an abnormal interest in the topic but, to me, it is the defining issue for the future for workers here and abroad. […]

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Today is a significant day for the Democratic presidential race: the unions of the AFL-CIO will be freed up to endorse candidates. But, I suspect that a number of unions may hold back, at least until after Labor Day. Here are a few guesses, some based on information and some wildly speculative and pulled out […]

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