Working Life

As Labor Day looms on the horizon, I ring up Larry Mishel, distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, to talk about his new study looking at CEO greed. Not a shock, but if you are wondering where that pay increase went, it’s probably in the CEO’s bank account. A logical conversation after digging into […]

Read the full story

In the sea of millions of migrant workers who end up slaves or in forced labor, a pilot project has empowered Nepalese women working in Jordan’s garment industry to make a better deal. I spoke to the International Labor Organization’s Phillip Fishman about how the project works—and whether it can be scaled up. I, then, […]

Read the full story

Today’s lesson is another chapter in why Detroit workers — regular people — don’t get treated like CEOs. Meaning, when someone else screws up, workers get the shaft. But, when the CEO screws up, no problem — he gets to keep a truckload of money. Though one trustee, thankfully, is not buying it.

Read the full story

It is great that JP Morgan has been sued–and congrats to NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. But, we’ve seen this picture before: suits are filed and the executives who committed fraud or financial crimes or misconduct are NEVER–NEVER–held accountable. If we want real change–not phony, uplifting change–these people must go to jail. NO DEALS.

Read the full story

   Have you evah wondered whether companies are just plum out of cash? Well, you’d be wrong: The Federal Reserve said in a quarterly snapshot of financial flows Friday that U.S. companies continued to accumulate profits instead of spending them. Holdings of cash and other liquid assets at nonfinancial companies rose to $2.047 trillion in […]

Read the full story

   I get ginned up as much as the next person when I read about any government action against the financial institutions that robbed millions of people of their jobs and retirement–and their dignity and respect. But, in some way, this is a game.    Unless the heads of these institutions go to jail, nothing […]

Read the full story

   In the list of really annoying habits of the bi-partisan obsession with the phony debt and deficit "crisis" is the inability, or the ideological desire to willfully refuse, to do simple math. Because if you did simple math, then, you cannot be FOR cheaper government without being FOR single-payer health care. Put another way, […]

Read the full story

   The hammer that Verizon is seeking to bring down on its unionized workers is an important story–and the importance is being sorely missed, or at least, buried in everything I have read so far. It’s a story that typifies the broad class warfare underway in America: warfare that is happening largely because corporate executives […]

Read the full story

    Why some people are surprised that the economy continues to be weak speaks more to the bankruptcy of our elected leaders and the cluelessness of the press release transcribers (we used to call them "journalists"). People don’t have money–and that is a real issue when two-thirds of the economy depends on people buying stuff. […]

Read the full story

    It’s a head-scratcher–to some. Wealth has been created globally but, somehow, a suffocating blanket of austerity is embracing the world. But it would be no surprise to the people in the streets in Greece or to the millions of people here who cannot find work to read the headline in the left-wing, socialist rag…Financial […]

Read the full story