The Lipstick Profiteers

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...
How to Safely Scale Down the Fiscal Cliff

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. Lost in these arguments is what...
Rooting out Fake Job Creators

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. Especially since movements such as Occupy Wall Street began shining a...
A Bold New Call for a ‘Maximum Wage’

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? These Americans — workers paid the federal minimum wage — are now making $7.25 an hour. On paper, they’re making the same wage they made in...
Percolate-Up Economics

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...
The Race to the Bottom

The Race to the Bottom

Labor had Its happy day; Now that time Has flown away. Is the love of money the root of all evil? OK, so Jesus may have played down bigotry and megalomania when he said that, but overall his observation holds true 2,000 years later. Labor relations are a contemporary...