Archive
IPS Salutes a Golf Win
A longstanding gender barrier recently cracked in the heart of the Old South. Augusta National Golf Club accepted two women — former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and businesswoman Darla Moore — as its first female members. This change comes years after Augusta’s policy of refusing to admit women as members became part of the national debate, thanks to the work of IPS associate fellow Martha Burk and the National Council of Women’s Organizations. Burk is also a frequent contributor to our OtherWords editorial service.
Cronyism Poisons our Government
Crony capitalists gather at the public trough, seeking tax dollars and guaranteed profits for privatizing government. Now they’re going after prison dollars.
Labor Day Special: Week of August 27-September 2, 2012
Deborah Burger calls for better nurse-staffing ratios at the nation’s hospitals, Amy Dean makes the case for accountability when companies getting tax breaks for being “job creators” don’t create jobs, and Virginia Sole-Smith casts light on how Mary Kay exploits its own sales force.
The Lipstick Profiteers
In July, 30,000 Mary Kay ladies flooded the Dallas Convention Center for the company’s annual “seminar” — a conference that is equal parts beauty pageant and mega-church revival. They wore cute suits and evening gowns, won piles of glitzy prizes, attended leadership workshops, and gave standing ovations to any video footage of their company’s late iconic founder, Mary Kay Ash.
How to Safely Scale Down the Fiscal Cliff
Pundits pounced earlier this year when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned that the country will face a “massive fiscal cliff” at the beginning of 2013. It seemed we had to extend the Bush tax cuts — or else.
Rooting out Fake Job Creators
Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney, recently declared on Face the Nation that that President Barack Obama “is hostile to job creators,” reciting a standard Republican canard.
Healing our Health Care System
The vast scale of America’s health care system is daunting. Maternity wards, emergency rooms, and other facilities operate around the clock at most of the nation’s 4,000 hospitals. Registered nurses form the backbone of this system, providing triage and treatment.
A Bold New Call for a ‘Maximum Wage’
How about taking a moment this Labor Day to reflect about those Americans who earn the least for their labor?
Percolate-Up Economics
Washington keeps handing massive bailouts to Wall Street giants and multibillion-dollar annual subsidies to Big Oil. Those giveaways certainly boost the 1-percenters’ bottom lines, but they do nothing to perk up America’s grassroots economy. And that’s not only where the rest of us live and work, it’s the only place that can generate real national prosperity.