Archive
Shut Up and Work
For the first time in 17 years, Congress failed to provide the funding to keep the entire government running. So now you have two classes of government service and two classes of employees: "essential" and "non-essential." If you run a national park, you aren't...
This Political Game Jeopardizes the Economy
Shortly before the first government shutdown in 17 years, President Barack Obama addressed the Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conference in Washington. He said the same thing he's been telling the nation ever since, "We will not negotiate whether or not...
Cleaning Up Campaign Finance to Save the Environment
America's best idea is in trouble, and I don't mean our national parks. Yes, our parks are closed, which is a crushing disappointment for millions of would-be visitors and an economic gut-punch for neighboring communities — to the tune of $76 million dollars a day....
Attack of the Zombie Lawmakers
Barack Obama’s shutting down of the government is the most self-destructive thing to happen since Poland attacked Nazi Germany in 1939. Oh wait! It was Germany that attacked Poland, wasn’t it? Yes, but Adolf Hitler, the chancellor of Germany, said that Poland was the...
Subsidizing Economic Inequality
The debate over America's federal budget is getting stale — and getting us nowhere, as the latest government shutdown depressingly reminds us. Political obsession over budget deficits has now morphed into legislative extortion. Today, more than ever, we need to...
More Food Doesn’t Guarantee Less Hunger
Every October, world leaders and corporate executives gather in Iowa to present the World Food Prize. Intended to celebrate those who make the largest contributions to increasing the world's food supply, the recipients are announced each year by the U.S. Secretary of...
McDonald’s Takes Its Time Cooking Up a New Menu
The appeal of fast food chains isn't their food: mostly fat, salty, sugary, empty-calorie mush. It's their speed. Order, pay, and — bam — your warmed-over burgerpizzachickentaco delight is instantly handed to you. Yet, for a mega-chain based on speed, McDonald's has...
The New Operating System
Now that Wall Street Rules mankind, We need banks Of a different kind. It used to be the manufacturers who ran the country — steel, autos, appliances, and the like. The president of General Motors, Charles Wilson, is remembered best for having a comment he made...
The Slow Road to Better Fast Food
The Fed’s Wizardry Isn’t Doing Much for the Rest of Us
The Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle called economics "the dismal science." He was only half right. Dismal, yes, but a science, no. Economics is more like a religion, in which reality is shaped by belief or blind faith. And, in the case of free-market zealots, it can...
