Working Life

I’ve been irritated by this before but was moved to write and send–probably pointlessly to the tower of silence on 8th Avenue–the following to the Times’ Public Editor:

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Two sides of the planet. Two different systems. Two different realities for workers—and, therein, lies the lesson: economies are about power, and values. Over in the U.S., if you are a waiter in the food industry, you are screwed, as Mark Bittman outlined in his column a few days ago, on the backs of a […]

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   If I was a "one percenter", I’d love the debate under way in the U.S. right now. What’s not to love? You whine and cry about the "Buffett Rule", how unfair it is and hurts the "job creators", and, then, laugh all the way to the bank as you barely can see where the […]

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    In some ways, the worst phenomena in political and public life is the way in which we–the people–give over power to the financial and corporate elite partly because we internalize marketing phrases and economic nonsense beaten into our brains over 30 years by the brain-dead traditional media and a capitulation by the political leaders […]

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    The people are there. Not surprisingly. If the politicians could get their hands out of the pockets of their contributors, we’d have some progress. All the way from the Financial Times: A poll released on Monday by Quinnipiac University found 61 per cent of registered New York City voters supported extending the state’s surcharge, […]

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   Oh, those poor "job creators"…they just can’t get any respect–except from Republicans, and too many Democrats, who run around undercutting jobs programs because of some phony idea that taxing the wealthiest Americans will hurt jobs. Oooopppsss…nope… Embedded in the report out from the Congressional Research Service–which annoyingly doesn’t post reports publicly–which tell us this: […]

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   I’ve never been a fan of "bi-partisanship". When someone is out to kill you, or your nation and community, making a deal for the sake of "bi-partisanship" or "compromise" makes no sense when the end result is injustice and a worsening of our lives. But, that’s where we are today because of a completely […]

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   It’s bad enough that the global financial crisis has put millions of people out of work and trashed the future of the ranks of workers everywhere. But, let’s take a moment to consider an undercurrent of the economic crisis, fanned by fear, stupidity and the relentless drive to cut government (oh, that comes under […]

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    When you swim with piranhas and think they are your friends, well, you’ll eventually get a rude lesson. Especially if you do just a little thing to hurt their interests. So, it is with the folks on Wall Street, and, in particular, the hedge fund world: they are pouring huge amounts of money into […]

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   A few days ago, I took part in a meeting organized by the AFL-CIO to launch a new publication called "Exiting From The Crisis"–a roadmap for a new global economy. The main speaker at the small meeting was Joseph Stiglitz. He outlined some great points and realities about the economic crisis with the bottom […]

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