Where’s Joe the Plumber When You Need Him?

Where’s Joe the Plumber When You Need Him?

Four years ago, a chance encounter between Barack Obama and Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher injected inequality right into the heart of the 2008 presidential race. Obama explained to the then-unknown Wurzelbacher that “when you spread the...
Middle Class Fantasy

Middle Class Fantasy

Yes, my job Is in the ditch; But not the incomes Of the rich. America is big on fantasies. We savor staged reality shows and overhyped football games. We fawn over celebrities and video games. But perhaps our biggest fantasy is the persistent belief that nearly all of...
The Poison Pill of Tax Cuts

The Poison Pill of Tax Cuts

A quiz: Which candidates and presidents said the following? (Answers below.) “To repair the nation’s tax code, marginal rates must be brought down to stimulate entrepreneurship, job creation, and investment.” “We must follow through on the...
Empty Anti-Wall Street Rhetoric

Empty Anti-Wall Street Rhetoric

All those political campaign ads flooding our airwaves are hitting on dozens of different targets. One particularly: Wall Street. Between mid-April and mid-September, Ad Age reports, $1 out of every $10 spent on campaign ads has blasted Wall Street bankers. And these...
European Victory on Taxing Speculation

European Victory on Taxing Speculation

Cross-Posted with the Huffington Post European campaigners for a financial transaction tax have done some awfully goofy things over the past three years. At one French demonstration, they stripped down to their skivvies to emphasize the small size of the tax (0.1% on...
Apparently, Suite Crime Does Pay

Apparently, Suite Crime Does Pay

What should we, as a society, do with all those reckless financial industry execs who helped trigger the Great Recession and the tidal wave of foreclosures? Should we put these power suits behind bars? Or should we forgive and forget, and lavish down upon them...