Working Life

  Yes, that is the underlying message delivered today by one of the world’s leading financial publications. For many of us, this is no surprise: you had to be truly ignorant to pretend like the economic system was a success just based on the growing divide between rich and poor over the past decade, and […]

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   Henry Ford used to say that he wanted his workers to have enough money to buy his cars. Our current business leaders seem to have forgotten that simple economic idea. That is why, for their own self-interest, business, and their Republican allies in Congress, should embrace broad unionization.   The sound you just heard […]

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   This is news that is both somewhat expected and also worrisome, from The Wall Street Journal this morning: Outside advisers to the U.S. Treasury have started lining up the largest bankruptcy loan ever, talking with banks and other lenders about at least $40 billion in financing for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, in […]

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  When many people voted for "change", they embraced the idea that the parameters and language of our policy debate had to be altered. Nowhere is that more evident than on the topic of trade. Now, there is legitimate concern that the president may not live up to his rhetoric when it comes to so-called […]

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The Republicans, and Judd Gregg in particular, have handed the president a golden chance to make lemonade out of lemons. To do so, he has to enact some real change: put a progressive economist or political leader in charge of the renamed Department of Prosperity (formerly known as the Department of Commerce). Follow the argument […]

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   I don’t want to hold up George Soros as the great thinker of the modern era. But, since the guy has billions of dollars (partly made by betting that currencies will collapse so if you are getting some of his money think of it as a make-up payment for leaving lots of people in […]

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Strap yourself in here because to get to the satisfying end, you’ll have to channel your inner numbers wonk. But, here’s the story: we can save ONE MILLION JOBS by investing about $16 billion. Save jobs…not just create new ones to try to re-employ people. And it would be fast, immediate and efficient.   As […]

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Every day, there is another example of the conspiracy of silence that pervades the traditional media’s description of the current economic crisis. Sure, de-regulation, greed and pure stupidity has a lot to do with it. But, in truth, the underlying reason for the collapse has been a persistent war on the wages of American workers. […]

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Jay Gould, the robber baron of the 19th Century, famously said that, "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." As we live through one of the worst economic collapses in a century, Gould’s wish is coming true. And we must stop Gould’s modern-day robber barons from sowing seeds […]

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   Not a happy day for auto workers–and, frankly, for workers everywhere. The UAW, as most of you know by now, has agreed to new concessions to try to save the auto companies. From The Wall Street Journal: Two weeks after insisting his union had already done enough to help the car makers, UAW President […]

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