Working Life

Intuitively, a lot of people understand that war and a fragile economy are related. But, nothing brought home the connection better than the death of Andrew Seabrooks. His life, and death, speak more about what we face than any politician’s rhetoric.   You see, Andrew died because he had no option but to go to […]

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Yesterday, Sen. Obama made comments to a business reporter that leave the impression that he is already shifting his stated position on NAFTA and, by extension, so-called “free trade”. It is worth looking at as a sign where Sen. Obama really intends to lead us on trade if he wins the White House.   A […]

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   I meant the "breaking" as a snark, in case it wasn’t obvious. For everyone but the pro- so-called "free trade" crowd (economists, elites and too many Democrats), it’s been crystal-clear that the driving force behind trade is wages, not efficiency, a better product, lower prices for consumers and all the other nonsense you read. […]

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I almost broke my pledge of sanity not to blog on the weekends when I read Roger Lowenstein’s monumentally stupid article on trade in the Sunday Times Magazine. The piece was so moronic as to…well, let’s go to the text.   Lowenstein starts out by setting the terms of debate thus: According to Political Science […]

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Look no further for evidence that Congressional Republicans will be buried in 2008 then the vote yesterday to extend unemployment benefits. Republicans are threatening to block the bill in the Senate and/or President 28 Percent is promising to veto the bill. Please do–and stand back to usher in a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate and a huge […]

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    My UAW sisters and brothers approved a four-year contract that ends a long strike at American Axle. When I first wrote about the strike, it seemed obvious that the company wanted to destroy the basic standard of living that made it possible for people to have a decent life. And, indeed, that is what […]

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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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    I ended up pondering the issues of taxes this morning–a, finally, fine nice spring morning here in NYC.  The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the government’s receipts from corporate taxes have fallen. The Journal ascribes this to the "turmoil rocking financial markets and housing woes slowing the economy", just another way that […]

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    There has been a movement growing among truckers nationwide to protest not just high gasoline prices but the general attack against workers. It’s an interesting movement in large part because it’s truly grassroots–it has been driven (no pun intended) by a loosely-knit group that has found allies throughout the country but it has no […]

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It doesn’t astound me that people are angry and bitter. What astounds me is that somehow the goodness of most people keeps them from taking to the streets in mass rioting. To wit:    A whole bunch of very powerful and wealthy financiers create an economic disaster and who suffers? Citigroup, caught in the midst […]

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