Archive
Business Leaders Agree: Inequality Hurts The Bottom Line
For decades, big business leaders have warned that redistributing wealth is bad for business. Taxing the rich to pay for infrastructure and education, they say, will kill the goose that lays the golden egg. But what if it’s the opposite? What if decades of stagnant...
Clean Energy is Calling. Will Your Phone Company Answer?
There currently is a cavernous lack of leadership in our federal government on tackling climate change. Fortunately, cities, states, universities, and some businesses have stepped up to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and grow our renewable energy. But there’s...
We Need to Talk About ‘Free Trade’
America, can we talk? We need to talk about "free trade." We've needed to have this conversation for a while, actually. Like, since the 1980s. For the past several decades, the U.S. political establishment has advocated free trade as part of a broader economic...
Forget the Dow Jones. How’s Doug Jones?
Language matters. For example, the words that corporate and government officials use to report on the health of America’s economy can either make clear to us commoners what’s going on — or hide and even lie about the reality we face. Consider the most common...
Jeff Sessions Vs. Civil Rights
In OtherWords: March 7, 2018
Would armed guards in schools prevent mass shootings? This week in OtherWords, my colleague Karen Dolan surveys the evidence and concludes: unfortunately, no. In fact, she points out, there are thousands upon thousands of armed guards employed by public schools...
Getting Real About School Safety
Can we get real about school safety? Since the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, there have been at least 239 school shootings in the United States. 438 people were shot and injured in these shootings, and 138 people were killed. On Valentine’s...
Just How Unequal Are America’s Major Corporations?
That America’s income distribution has grown dramatically more unequal in the past 40 years is beyond debate. The share of the top 1 percent has doubled since 1980, to over 20 percent of all income. Could it get any worse? A look at America’s large, privately held...
The Stunning New Cruelty of Immigration Enforcement
We've reached a cruel new phase in the U.S. government's war on immigrants without papers. And it should disturb you no matter what your views on immigration. When undocumented immigrant families are detained, they are being increasingly split up. Not only are whole...
Corporations Are Spending Their Tax Cut — on Themselves
Remember last year when Donald Trump and his congressional Trumpeteers bragged that their "yuge" tax cut for corporations would spark a "yuge" corporate spending spree to create new jobs and higher wages? Well, just as they promised, we’re now seeing corporate...
