Working Life

It’s always been a scandal: most people don’t know that the rich don’t pay their fair share into Social Security. The payroll tax that funds Social Security is capped at $90,000 per year—every bit of income above that level escapes the payroll tax. So, today, The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece (subscription required) […]

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The Financial Times reported yesterday on a World Bank report that warns that a steep, continued decline in the value of the dollar will hurt developing countries, which have built up large dollar reserves. According to the Bank’s 2005 Global Development Finance Repor, developing countries hold $1.6 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, 70 precent of […]

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It isn’t surprising. Indeed, as predicted with the end of world wide quotas on textiles, China is now annihilating any other country even remotely involved in textiles. The Commerce Department reported on Friday (as reported in today’s New York Times) that imports on textiles and apparel products from China rose more than 63 precent in […]

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The fingerprints of Wall Street have been all over the scam to privatize Social Security. And, rightly so, the labor movement has been targeting brokerage firms who have been whoring for the privatizaton schemes. Two of those firms—Edward D. Jones & Co., and Waddell & Reed—have felt the pressure and withdrawn from the pro-privatization coalition. […]

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In the U.S., there has been a bit of reporting about the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to be head of the World Bank. Certainly, it’s a bit baffling—okay, I’m being kind—that the guy who helped prosecute the Iraq war, which was hardly a big hit among the world community (never mind the fake “Coalition of […]

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If you want to know why Democrats are losers, the perfect example is the party’s inability—either through lack of imagination or stupidity—to change the debate from the manufactured “crisis” in Social Security to the real crisis in health care. It’s enough to make a normal person, which I am not, scream. You can see that […]

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Wal-Mart distracted me from taking note of the gargantuan trade deficit numbers that came out: last year, the U.S. had a $666 billion trade deficit, an all-time record. Most people have been shrugging off the trade deficit, or maybe they basically don’t care what with the housing bubble making a lot of people feel like […]

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Bill Greider has a must-read piece in the Feb. 28th issue of The Nation on the potential power of public pensions to reshape public policy. The potential use of public pension funds, which is essentially money invested on behalf of unionized public employees, has been talked about for more than twenty years. But, we’ve got […]

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The Center for American Progress has an easy-to-understand breakdown of the key false claims put forth by the Administration, countered by the facts. CLAIM: “By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt.” [President Bush, 2/2/05] FACT: In 2042, enough new money will be coming in to pay between 73-80 percent of […]

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Well, if you’re a trade deficit worrier, time to get out the tranquilizers. The government reports that the trade deficit reached $666.2 billion in 2004– a record!!! This shouldn’t surprise–China’s trade surplus with the U.S. (meaning, we bought more of their stuff than they bought of our stuff) was huge, coming in at $162 billion, […]

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