Working Life

   I mean, this is pretty funny–except it’s pathetic, bizarre and, ultimately, gives all of us a great window on the "they haven’t learned anything" culture on Wall Street and the business world in general. Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan (and the Ten of Hearts in the 52 deck-of cards Audacity of Greed), is […]

Read the full story

   No one should be surprised that the rich are doing quite well. We’ve lived through at least a thirty-year robbery of the wealth of the nation. But, it’s worth digging into some of the numbers to get to this point: the divide between the rich and the rest of us has never been this […]

Read the full story

   This is how fragile–and foolish–the talk of recovery is. Yesterday, you may recall that I pointed out the record level of personal bankruptcies recorded in 2009–at the same time that some "analysts" were heralding a recovery based on some uptick in manufacturing (one would venture to guess that those same "analysts" were among those […]

Read the full story

   If anyone–like obstructionist Republicans–had any doubt that we have no time to waste on the stimulus, we are peering over the edge of the abyss: Furloughs, wage reductions, hiring freezes and shorter hours simply did not do enough. A year into this recession, companies across the board are resorting to mass job cuts. Home […]

Read the full story

There is a great economic emergency looming in our country. But, it seems to me that we—or at least our elected leaders—have only looked at one side of the crisis, that of the housing bubble-inspired financial credit crunch. By doing so, we’ve missed the bigger picture and the solutions needed. So, here is one person’s […]

Read the full story

   When you are wrong, you are wrong. I thought this ugly bailout for bankers was a done deal. Kudos to the people who stood up against this awful deal.    Everyone probably feels strongly about how their own individual Congresscritters voted. So, being from New York City, it’s an outrage that, with the exception […]

Read the full story

   I was tempted to write about the sad collapse of the Mets yesterday (two years in a row) but I figured there were more tragic things to focus on (serious Mets fans may disagree) like the newest version of the bailout deal that is going to pass–though it should not. I would be shocked […]

Read the full story

   Rightly so, there is a lot of focus on the $700 billion bailout for bankers (which as we know is now in disarray, causing stock futures to go lower in overnight markets overseas). But, what I’ve been saying here for some time, and I say when I talk to colleagues and friends, is that […]

Read the full story

   I’ve just been given a letter that John Sweeney is sending today to every Senator. Here it it is.    It makes all the right points, with this being the key nut graf:    It proposes a grant of unlimited authority to the Bush Administration to spend $700 billion of the public’s money to […]

Read the full story

   Since I posted yesterday’s appeal to labor to really dive into the financial crisis, I’ve gotten a number of calls or emails pointing to various statements made by labor leaders. As I said yesterday, I’m truly glad that John Sweeney, Andy Stern and others have made strong public statements.    BUT…statements are not enough. […]

Read the full story