February 3, 2014

Robert Reich Says We Should Set A ‘Maximum Wage’ For Top Executives

The minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation, this is a fact that not even Republicans attempt to refute, at least not that I’ve seen. But do you know what has far outpaced inflation? Executive pay. According to a Facebook post by former labor secretary Robert Reich, when minimum wage was first enacted in 1935 it was “intended to represent society’s sense of minimally decent pay.” Reich says at that time “executives were paid about 20 to 30 times the average wage.” But we all know what has happened over the decades.

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February 3, 2014

Obamacare Anecdote Failure

In their Obamacare opposition, Republicans are now reduced to anecdotes based on misleading or false reporting, and in so doing, they are deceiving themselves. Because millions of Americans have now signed up for health care coverage under Obamacare, that means Republicans are left with their loose evidence and their bad intentions. And in many cases the evidence Republicans present is bad because it has been tainted by their own rhetoric, repeated ad nauseam on Fox News. It’s a self-fulfilling feedback loop. Tell people Obamacare is bad, and the people who listen to you will offer you the “evidence,” even though they never gave the process a good-faith effort.

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February 1, 2014

Yes, Liberals Are Judgmental Too

I would like to remind fellow liberals that we too are judgmental creatures. We are all human, so we cannot escape our biases. Yeah I know, sometimes we like to think we are the clear thinkers, and that we are above bias, but think about it, doesn’t that sound just a bit self-righteous? And isn’t that the kind of pious thinking we rail against when it comes to conservative thought? My hope is that most liberals realize this, and I think that might be one of the differences between liberals and conservatives, and yes, that sounds self-righteous too, with just a touch of condescension added in for good measure.

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January 31, 2014

Is Government Inherently Corrupt?

Conservatives believe government is inherently corrupt. They believe government cannot be trusted to do anything really important except for national security, oh yeah, and regulate women’s bodies. Oh, and also stifle access to the voting booth. And I guess on those two issues, conservatives actually are right, government is corrupt. Well, more specifically, certain people in government do corrupt things, like play master of the uterus.

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January 29, 2014

The Supply Side Lie

Post war until roughly the 1970s, increases in income in all quintiles more or less moved together. The bottom quintile increased with the top quintile. Since the 70s, the top two quintiles continued to grow, with the top quintile actually accelerating (although to be fair, it corrected/adjusted during the Great Recession, but only modestly). But since the 1970s, the bottom three quintiles have been pretty much flat.

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