Economy and Business
Operation Secret Loopholes
The federal budget expresses our nation's values and priorities in numbers. It's a blueprint for how our elected officials plan to make money and how they plan to spend it. What happens in Washington, D.C. has a profound local impact. About 80 percent of all federal...
A Higher Minimum Down Under
Fast-food workers are holding strikes and demonstrations in dozens of U.S. cities. The "Fight for 15" campaign demands a $15 living wage and the right to form a union without interference from employers. Critics say a living wage would drive fast-food restaurants and...
The Stiffing State
My cousin Mona called me the other day about her husband Harry, who had came home from work and said: "We're spending too much money, Mona. It's got to stop. We're going broke." "Really? I thought we were doing OK, sort of." "OK? Look at the stack of bills on my desk....
Going Full Circle Back to the Heyday of Inequality
The future just keeps getting brighter for Americans with unique specialties. Randy Stearns has one such specialty: "home-tech integration." Stearns helps people install and maintain high-tech gadgets. But we're not talking "Geek Squad" agents and hooking up home...
Tax Houdini
A Trumped-Up War on Welfare
You're the top 1 percent. You pocket one out of every five dollars of the nation's income — more than double your slice of that pie in 1976. You want even more, but the masses are catching on. What do you do? You get your minions to attack the bottom 1 percent to...
Danger Ahead: Our Disappearing Pensions
How's your 401(k) doing? Working Americans ask themselves this question — and angst about the answer — a great deal these days. And why not? For most Americans, retirement reality has turned chillingly stark: Either you have a robust set of investments in your 401(k)...
Another View of the Capitol
Four and a half miles due East of the U.S. Capitol is a neighborhood called Capitol View. It sits on a hill that offers that iconic view of the Capitol and the Washington Monument that symbolizes official Washington. But the view feels less than majestic for the...
The Political Calculations behind Growing Inequality
Fifty years ago, average Americans lived in a society where less than $10 of every $100 in personal income went to the nation's richest 1 percent. Our top 1 percent are now grabbing just under 20 percent of America's income, double the 1963 level. How did this happen?...
Our Bullish Sock Market
America's economic recovery can be measured not only in the performance of stocks — but also of socks. Most economists, pundits, and politicos see this year's boom in the stock market and say: "See, the recovery is going splendidly!" What if they went to such stores...
