March 23, 2016
Is Bernie Sanders A Socialist?
America, you’re a fickle thicket.
• • •
March 1, 2015
Rick Scott, And Amassing Personal Wealth In Health Care
Should someone, let’s say for example, Florida Governor Rick Scott, be able to amass great personal wealth working in the field of health care?
• • •
August 11, 2014
The New Economic Norm? Nah, It’s The New Cultural Norm
The economy is doing well for those who are already wealthy, but the average worker sees very little of it. Salary increases, when they happen, don’t keep up with inflation. President Obama refers to this as an economic problem. Others call it the new economic norm.
• • •
February 26, 2014
An Indefensible Economic System
Someone needs to explain to me why there are so many Americans making average or even substandard wages who continue to defend the capitalistic status quo. I think this is where Robert Reich is correct, that people are simply afraid. In a labor market where employers have all the power, people just feel lucky to have a job.
• • •
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.
• • •
January 24, 2014
Economic Inequality Is A Clear And Present Danger To American Democracy
The phrase “clear and present danger” is the standard by which freedom of speech can be abridged. As the saying goes, nobody has the right to shout “fire” in a theater. The United States Supreme Court began citing this standard in 20th century rulings, reaffirming that freedom of speech stops at the point where it puts pubic safety in peril. The idea is controversial, but it should be understood that constitutional rights are not absolute. Whether you agree with this standard as it applies to freedom of speech, is of little importance here. It only matters that you understand what it means, because economic inequality is a clear and present danger to American democracy.
• • •
January 13, 2014
Talking Absolutes: The Language Of Free Market Conservatives
Free market conservatives say government cannot address the problem of poverty. They say government can’t create jobs. They assume all people who are not making a living wage must not be working, or working hard enough, and so that means they are undeserving of any government assistance. And they say government cannot give to someone unless it has taken from someone else.
• • •
January 5, 2014
The Free Market Has Spoken, And It Had Nothing To Say About Economic Inequality
One of the tenets of free market ideology is consumer choice. The idea goes like this. Empower citizens to make their own decisions and they will have greater freedom, greater prosperity, and businesses will live or die at the will of the consumer. Therefore, corporations and executives are in effect beholden to the consumer. Sounds good right? Who could be against that?
• • •
January 2, 2014
The Stock Market Soared In 2013, So Where Are The Jobs?
Free-market capitalists, which apparently is just about any Republican these days, tell us government is too burdensome to businesses and we need to cut taxes. Their standard message for how to get the economy moving is to cut taxes and get government out of the way. There’s just one problem, the economy, at least as measured by the major stock indexes, finished 2013 with tremendous gains, and that means the personal economy of so-called “job creators” is doing quite well. How’s your personal economy coming along?
• • •
November 19, 2013
America Needs To Break The ‘Walmart Mentality’
The “Walmart Mentality” could otherwise be referred to as “Supercapitalism,” also the name of a book by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. It’s the idea that unrestrained capitalism leads to corruption, not only of the market economy, but also democracy. The “Walmart Mentality” is that a few people get filthy rich by squeezing the system as much as they can without breaking it. But the problem, as is always the problem with greed, is that there is never enough, so eventually something is going to break. But the few people benefiting from this scenario are usually old, and they have build up such massive wealth, they can insulate themselves from the fallout for the rest of their lives.
• • •