Economy and Business
Don’t Mess With the Disability Community
The GOP twice failed to pass health care legislation this year. The bills fell short for many reasons, but I see an important one: By including drastic cuts to Medicaid benefits in their bills, Republican leaders picked a fight with the disability community. Hell hath...
We Get Sick, They Get Rich
Our current health care system in the United States works just fine — for the corporate executives who run it. Take, for instance, Michael Mussallem, the CEO at Edwards Lifesciences — a California-based company that makes heart valves and assorted other medical...
Our Health Care System Is a Corporate Care System
Rather than a health care system, our country's leaders have kept us shackled to a "corporate care" system. This allows insurance giants, drug company gougers, hospital chains, and other profiteers to ration our care based on whether a family can pay whatever...
Trump’s Tax Plan: A Billion or Three for Guys Like Him
What’s the largest personal stake a U.S. president has ever had in legislation he signed into law? Whatever it was, it'll be dwarfed by what Donald Trump’s signature will be worth — to himself — if Congress passes his proposed tax plan and puts it on his desk. If that...
Can Anti-Racist Businesses Put Their Money Where Their Mouth Is?
Donald Trump's failure to condemn white supremacists after the violent neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville several weeks back had an unexpected casualty: the president's business advisory councils. My partner works for a Fortune 500 company whose CEO sat on one those...
Bernie and Goliath
Racial Inequality Is Hollowing Out America’s Middle Class
America's middle class is under assault. Since 1983, national median wealth has declined by 20 percent, falling from $73,000 to $64,000 in 2013. And U.S. homeownership has been in a steady decline since 2005. While we often hear about the struggles of the white...
Sometimes the Poor Make It Big. Usually They Stay Poor.
We all want to live in a country where all it takes is hard work and some talent for anyone to succeed. We tell ourselves that we do. We even see examples of people who "came from nothing" and ended up rich and famous. And it's true that it sometimes happens....
Tax Cuts for the Rich Help the Rich, Not You
Soon you're going to hear about taxes. You’ll see images of families flashing across your TV screen while a soothing narrator assures you that the tax plan being debated in Washington really is good for you. The newspapers you read, the social media apps you scroll...
The Next Subprime Loan Crisis
The self-described "Geniuses of Wall Street" are being stupid. Again. In 2007, their stupid schemes and frauds crashed our economy, destroying middle-class jobs, wealth, and opportunities. Far from being punished, however, the scofflaws were bailed out by their...
