Working Life

   One of the things I’ve said, only half-jokingly, to a bunch of radio stations and in numerous posts (including just a couple of days ago) is that I am not a religious person but I get down on my hands and knees every day and pray, pray, pray that the Catfood Commission II fails […]

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  Let’s see. You’re an editorial board member of the vaunted New York Times. You get paid a lot. Is there at least an expectation that you get your facts right? I know–rhetorical question. It happens every day but sometimes there are just whoppers that need correcting–because they do make a difference. In today’s editorial […]

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   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, […]

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   This past Friday, I was standing on the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis at a Laborers rally to push for massive infrastructure investment as a way to create jobs, and rebuild the country. In an obvious way and a less obvious way, standing on the bridge spanning the Mississippi gives one a clear understanding […]

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   It’s one thing for progressive economists and activists to see the emptiness and complete foolishness of Tim Pawlenty’s "economic plan". It’s another thing for perhaps the globe’s leading financial newspaper to dismiss it as something that is "difficult to describe without seeming to parody it." But, The Financial Times Clive Crook makes a valiant […]

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Every day, I get a new email from some group about a new 55-page proposal to fix the economy, or I see some expert propose a sure-fired way to get us "back" to a go-go world of "positive growth". There’s value in a whole lot of some of those ideas. But, my can’t-lose strategy boils […]

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Got crabs? Cut corporate taxes. Can’t get your kid to eat spinach? Cut corporate taxes. Worried your skin it too dry? Cut corporate taxes. And, then, of course, want the economy to be more "competitive" and "grow"? Cut corporate taxes. None of the above will be helped by cutting corporate taxes–but the reasons given for […]

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   The obsession with the value of the dollar is kind of goofy. More than three years ago, not for the first time, I suggested that it would actually be a good thing if the value of the dollar declined significantly, particularly as it relates to the trade relationship with China. People in political circles […]

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Admittedly, I’ve never been into the bi-partisan meme. Maybe it’s because I’m a labor movement person and the mission of the Republican party, and its allies, is to destroy the labor movement. But, I still remain mystified: why exactly, given the Republican party’s record, is the new Administration working so hard to win it over? […]

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  President-elect Obama has publicly stated that he wants "unconventional" thinking among the people who give him advice on the economy. Fantastic. So, here are some suggestions.    I’m throwing out these suggestions—-and welcome others—-partly because of the debate zapping around progressive circles about how critical progressives should be about the incoming Administration. I find […]

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