Working Life

    I have been arguing for some time now that the deficit and debt "crisis" are completely made up and phony. There is no crisis. But, at the very least, if you want to get rid of deficits, there is a simple path: spend MORE on jobs and raise incomes by promoting broad unionization. California […]

Read the full story

   Rhetoric is a good thing–except when you have the facts wrong. And, boy, the relentless, daily idiocy spewed out of the mouths of our elected officials about the economic crisis is astonishing. Consider, this morning, Speaker of the House John Boehner. Two days ago, Boehner gave a speech to the Economic Club of New […]

Read the full story

    Do not get distracted by the claims by people who want your vote. Nothing has changed. The robbery of the wealth of the country continues. And the rhetoric aiding and abetting the robbery is going to get ramped up around corporate tax cuts.     Let’s start with the hardship sweeping the country…It’s been a […]

Read the full story

    I think we make a mistake describing the unrelenting class warfare underway as a campaign undertaken by evil, crazed or demented very rich people. Sure, there are a few of them and it is certainly a part of an ideological belief ("we rich people are just better and more skilled and tough luck"). But, […]

Read the full story

   I have a small amount of sympathy for Kent Conrad, even though he is one of the leading obsessed people about the phony deficit crisis. He is one of the so-called "Gang of Six" in the Senate working to come up with a "bi-partisan" solution to the phony crisis. But, things are tough: Kent […]

Read the full story

    I happened on this one during my Sunday morning check of the West Coast weather (since I have to head out there this week–beach weather? Baseball weather?). California is often cited as the place where national trends start. True or not–here’s some good news: Californians are ready to have taxes raised to preserve a […]

Read the full story

   Let’s get this one out of the way–of course I, and others, should support Obama’s re-election for one reason and one reason only: the Bush tax cuts. My guess is, looking at today’s landscape, which could change, that the Democrats lose the Senate and the House stays with the lunatics. For one reason and […]

Read the full story

   We keep repeating the same mistake–no matter how many times good progressive leaders, writers, thinkers and activists use the word "framing". And we are at it again–offering "better proposals" to address the debt-deficit "crisis". But, we should be saying something much different: there simply is NO debt or deficit "crisis".     As I write […]

Read the full story

   I don’t write this to convince the people who are intentionally lying or have some ideological end-game here (as in, destroy unions and the middle class). I write this for those people who are still living on the planet Earth of reality. So, here it is: Wisconsin has a great, financially-sound public pension system. […]

Read the full story

Jan Schakowsky is really one of my favorite elected leaders. I wish she had run for the U.S. Illinois Senate seat in 2010 but she continues to carry the torch in the House. Yesterday, she unveiled a serious proposal to tax the richest people in the country–as a response to the rising rhetorical nonsense coming […]

Read the full story