Working Life

I suspect no one reading this blog doubts the fact that the divide between rich and poor in the country is widening (if you do, well, you haven’t been paying attention). But, a couple of new pieces of evidence flew by my eyes this morning. First, David Cay Johnston of The New York Times (who […]

Read the full story

I’m sure most folks in America are feeling a bit mystified–on the one hand, they are being told the economy is doing just fine, with the Gross Domestic Product rising at a rate of 4.8 percent in the first quarter. Certainly, the Bush Administration and the talking heads in the mainstream media are trying to […]

Read the full story

Last month, I argued that the fastest way to deal with the trade deficit with China was to bring down the value of the dollar, rather than play political chicken with the Chinese government. At least the folks at the Economic Policy Institute agree with me: The optimal policy solution to this imbalance is a […]

Read the full story

The Administration is trying to blame rising health care costs for the stagnation of wages. Hmmmm…well, yes, in some case, companies are socked with higher heath care costs and, therefore, aren’t raising wages…okay, this point is very narrow because it avoids the debate, just for the moment, on the huge hauls that CEOs are making […]

Read the full story

I’ve been arguing for these many years–going back more than a decade, actually, to my book on the economy–that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is misused as a barometer for how the economy is doing. When the GDP is up, talking heads, the press and politicians try to convince us that everything is all rosy […]

Read the full story

We’ve been talking a lot about the demise of the pension system in our country. It’s grim. And it’s been pretty clear, from Delphi and United Airlines, that when companies go into bankruptcy and shed workers’ pensions, the CEOs don’t suffer at all. In fact, they are making out like bandits. The AFL-CIO gives us […]

Read the full story

Republicans have been brilliant at creating narratives about the vast number of people oppressed by the big-bad tax system. I’ll bet that even some readers here, somewhere deep inside their brains, have retained the idea that the federal estate tax ends up hurting small farmers and people who aren’t really THAT rich that they should […]

Read the full story

I know you missed the headline on the front-page of The New York Times and the other major newspapers the other day: “Corporate Profits Hit Record Highs But Workers Get Screwed.” Yes, not subtle, but you get the picture–a story like that never hit the MSM but it’s a fact. Corporate profits rose 21.3% in […]

Read the full story

Robert Reich is a chameleon. He’s spent his entire career remaking himself–and yet never admitting when he was wrong and when he has changed positions. The latest example? In today’s New York Times Book Review, he reviews a new book by Joseph Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton called “Fair Trade For All.” I haven’t read the […]

Read the full story

I’ve been skeptical about the way the government uses data to tell us what’s really happening out there in the economy. For years, I’ve argued that the Gross Domestic Product is a flawed tool if it is used to argue how people are doing and it certainly doesn’t tell us much about the *distribution* of […]

Read the full story