Working Life

It’s a funny thing, though obvious, that when you actually look at all the hand-wringing about budget shortfalls and Social Security funding, it always comes down to the same issue: are the richest among us going to pay their fair share, or are they going to continue to be part of a legalized robbery that drains the wealth of the country into the hands of a few, while the burden increase on most hard-working Americas? So, it is with Social Security.

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One of the biggest challenges that we face as a country is not that we lack money or wealth–we have plenty of money. Rather, we have a distorted set of priorities and an ideological frame that walls off many possibilities to create a decent society. For example: the belief in the so-called "free market" that […]

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   One of the things I find most tiring–and there are, granted, many candidates for that list–is the refrain that "well, things may be bad in the U.S. but look how much worse it is in Europe?" I get that nonsense all the time, particularly when I have to debate the free-marketeers and the defenders […]

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   It’s just about that time–the new scare about Social Security. And so The New York Times rolls out its scary story: Even as Congress hunted for ways to finance a major expansion of health insurance coverage, the Obama administration reported Tuesday that the financial condition of the two largest federal benefit programs, Medicare and […]

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   Yours truly is on a plane here early in the morning so this is a quick post. But, it’s a weighty and worthwhile promo for a great statement by Dean Baker from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Readers will probably know that I think highly of the CEPR people–partly because they are […]

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  It was probably pretty obvious but there is a damning report out yesterday that paints a stark picture: the collapse of the housing bubble has created a savings and retirement crisis for millions of Americans who face a bleak future.   The report (which you can get here) comes from the folks at the […]

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    A pet peeve of mine has been the way in which government statistics mislead us–and that is even without actual lying by politicians and their operatives. Take the Gross Domestic Product–it only tells you that stuff is being made, not whether the average person can pay their bills. Even when the GDP goes up, […]

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    Just to take a break from my focus on trade, there has been a lot of discussion about how to handle the crisis facing homeowners. I know this will shock everyone but many of the proposals floating around will provide a huge bailout for banks, and not do much for homeowners. So say my […]

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    Just to take a break from my focus on trade, there has been a lot of discussion about how to handle the crisis facing homeowners. I know this will shock everyone but many of the proposals floating around will provide a huge bailout for banks, and not do much for homeowners. So say my […]

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    Here are a few ways clues that show very clearly the hit many workers are taking. The UAW has had to go on strike against American Axle after talks broke down late last night over a new contract. Check out what the company wants 3,600 workers to accept, according to The Wall Street Journal: […]

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