Working Life

There was an amusing little exchange on CNN yesterday that I wonder whether people caught. The anchor (I’m not recalling his name) was speaking with CNN’s reporter in Paris about the decision by the French government to rescind the change in labor laws that had generated widespread protests. Almost beside himself, the anchor said something […]

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People have short memories. Last September, there was a strong rumor floating around that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was miffed at Rep. Ed Towns (NY) for his vote in favor of CAFTA. Well, maybe that was all for show because Pelosi is one of the headliners for Towns at a fundraiser for his re-election. […]

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The Democratic Party machine is going into overdrive to save Melissa Bean, one of the CAFTA 15. I wrote about this a bit last week but the intensity of the Save Melissa effort picked up: Last week, there was a flurry of calls from Sen. Dick Durbin, the senior senator from Illinois, to key labor […]

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I’ve been arguing for these many years–going back more than a decade, actually, to my book on the economy–that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is misused as a barometer for how the economy is doing. When the GDP is up, talking heads, the press and politicians try to convince us that everything is all rosy […]

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We’ve been talking a lot about the demise of the pension system in our country. It’s grim. And it’s been pretty clear, from Delphi and United Airlines, that when companies go into bankruptcy and shed workers’ pensions, the CEOs don’t suffer at all. In fact, they are making out like bandits. The AFL-CIO gives us […]

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Melissa Bean is feeling fairly anxious, from what I hear. Apparently, she is begging unions to support her, knowing that without labor’s strong support she will probably lose re-election in the 8th District in Illinois. But, because of her vote for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), she’s gotten the cold shoulder. A well-informed […]

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So, what would be the harm if nothing passed this week on immigration? After all, it’s only because Bill Frist, the majority leader of the Senate, demanded that a bill pass right now that there is a rush to ram something through. Wouldn’t it be better if we had no bill as opposed to a […]

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Republicans have been brilliant at creating narratives about the vast number of people oppressed by the big-bad tax system. I’ll bet that even some readers here, somewhere deep inside their brains, have retained the idea that the federal estate tax ends up hurting small farmers and people who aren’t really THAT rich that they should […]

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I know you missed the headline on the front-page of The New York Times and the other major newspapers the other day: “Corporate Profits Hit Record Highs But Workers Get Screwed.” Yes, not subtle, but you get the picture–a story like that never hit the MSM but it’s a fact. Corporate profits rose 21.3% in […]

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So, today is a big day in sports for yours truly. I’ll be using the clicker to flip back and forth between the NCAA national basketball championship game and the game featuring those wonderful pinstriped boys from the Bronx (though rain is forecast out in Oakland so it may not come off). In hoops world, […]

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