Working Life

   I wonder if you feel this way. We face the greatest emergency in our adult lifetimes. It’s not the deficit. It’s the reality that one in five Americans does not have decent paying work and that one in four children are on food stamps–in the richest nation in human history. That is a five-alarm […]

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   Yesterday, the president announced that it was time for a new deal with banks: The tougher approach to financial regulation that President Obama outlined on Thursday reflected a changed political climate, the rebound in big banks’ fortunes after their taxpayer bailout and a shift in power within the administration away from those who had […]

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They robbed Americans of their future. They cost perhaps a generation of hard-working people a decent pay check. And they left millions of people with empty 401(k)s, with some seniors being booted from their retirement homes because there was no money left. And, yet, they still don’t get it–or maybe they truly don’t care.   […]

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   The president is going to announce today a tax on the big banks and financial institutions: The tax on banks, insurance companies and brokerages with more than $50 billion in assets would start after June 30 and seek to collect $90 billion over 10 years, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters […]

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   In one sense, this is a good thing: In the strongest employment report since the recession began nearly two years ago, the government said Friday that the nation’s employers had all but stopped shedding jobs in November, taking some of the pressure off of President Obama to come up with a wide-ranging jobs creation […]

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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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    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 want to try to make a subtle distinction here: between something that I’m glad is happening, on the one hand, and changes that fundamentally reshape economic power in the country, on the other hand. The first does not necessarily bring about the second. And it’s important, I would argue, for us to keep our […]

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   Bob Herbert asks the right question today: The big question on the domestic front right now is whether President Obama understands the gravity of the employment crisis facing the country. Does he get it? The signals coming out of the White House have not been encouraging. The Beltway crowd and the Einsteins of high […]

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   The G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh provided what those meetings usually provide–rhetoric and not much chance. I wanted to highlight one point from the president’s press conference there: Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Let me ask you, while we were inside this very safe and secure and beautiful convention center, some 5,000 at least demonstrators […]

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