Working Life

    Ten years ago, the plundering of the nation’s wealth got a boost of legislative steroids when George W. Bush signed his tax cuts into law. It was pure insanity, at least if you believe in a country of fairness. But, aside from the economic and social wreckage left by these immoral tax cuts, what […]

Read the full story

   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 […]

Read the full story

Jan Schakowsky is really one of my favorite elected leaders. I wish she had run for the U.S. Illinois Senate seat in 2010 but she continues to carry the torch in the House. Yesterday, she unveiled a serious proposal to tax the richest people in the country–as a response to the rising rhetorical nonsense coming […]

Read the full story

   Were you wondering whether the title refers to the cost to build 413 high-speed railway lines? Or perhaps 413 wind turbines to address global warming? Or maybe for $1.5 trillion you were thinking we could construct 413 new factories for businesses to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs? Nah. Here it is: we […]

Read the full story

   Let me be quite clear again about one fact that gets lost: we have plenty of money in the country. There is no debt or deficit "crisis" even if people across the political spectrum, including former labor leaders, are regurgitating complete nonsense about the "crisis". This is simple: it’s class warfare and the rich […]

Read the full story

    I am struck every day by the incredibly bizarre world we live in, where "up" is "down" and "down" is "up". I think many people are angry and confused because what they see in their daily lives–upheaval, struggle, fear–does not match much of the rhetoric coming from the people who have their hands on […]

Read the full story

   You’ve heard (and, in some cases, unfortunately, been persuaded) that "generous" pensions given to public employees has caused great deficits in pensions and state budgets. It’s nonsense. And here are the facts to prove it.    The Center for Economic and Policy Research has a very important study out. It must be given wide […]

Read the full story

When you cut through the chase about the economic debate of the future, it really boils down to this: What is the standard we should use in setting the  standard for a decent living? Apparently, The New York Times has decided: don’t count on decent pensions, don’t count on health care, and forget decent wages. […]

Read the full story

  Each day brings a stupefying new chapter in the class warfare underway in America. Today, it’s the unfathomable idea that regular people who had worked their entire lives serving the public should now be effectively cast out into the cold, their pensions ripped up. But, what we need to connect is this: there is […]

Read the full story

   Excuse me, knock, knock–are you one of these people? Apparently, one-third of these people live in California and New York. I know I’d get laughed out of my building: Wealth-X estimates that there are 700 Americans with a net worth of more than $750 million, 400 with $500-$750 million, 3,200 with $200-$500 million, 6,400 […]

Read the full story