Economy and Business
A Tax Cut for Tax Cheats
If the most frequently dialed federal agency in America can't even answer two-thirds of the millions of phone calls it gets, should the government cut its budget? Congress thinks so. That agency is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). And lawmakers have hacked at its...
A Bailed-Out Banker Lectures about Fairness
Jamie Dimon is annoyed. He’s fed up with the populist attitude that’s sweeping the country. He’s not going to take it anymore. That’s why he recently bleated to reporters that "banks are under assault." Well, not every bank. He was talking about JPMorgan Chase —...
Say It Ain’t So
What should sports fans do when our heroes turn out to be frauds? Maybe you grew up watching Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire breaking home run records, as I did, only to find out that they (and just about everyone else in professional baseball) had been using...
Fudging the Future
I recently mentioned in a column on renewable energy that solar power could generate half of the world’s electricity by 2050. I cited the International Energy Agency as my source. Actually, the IEA is predicting that rooftop, utility-scale, and industrial solar will...
Pull Yourself Up by Your Bread Bags
In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama presented a bold economic vision for America. Do we want a country where only "a few of us do spectacularly well," he asked, or where everyone has a chance to succeed? Obama conveyed this vision by telling the...
Not Lovin’ It
McDonald's is scrambling, and I'm not talking about eggs. Your know your business has what image consultants call "quality perception issues" when your public relations team is fielding such questions as: "Does McDonald's beef contain worms?" Thornier yet for the...
Hair-Raising Hypocrisy
As messed up as it sounds, in the unending struggle for justice, there is such thing as a "positive negative." This occurs when you win a struggle that you never should have had to deal with in the first place. A prime example is presented by the long saga of Isis...
The Next Big Progressive Battle
On New Year’s Day, 20 states raised their minimum wages. That leaves a lot of states that aren’t increasing the minimum wage — along with the federal government. Even some of those employees who are getting increases don’t have much to celebrate. Workers in Florida...
Inequality Is Costing Us Big-Time
Have you ever wondered what inequality costs the average American family? That is, what price do we pay — in actual dollars and cents — for tolerating an economy fixated on pumping our treasure to the top? That question has no simple answer. How much, for instance,...
When Bootstraps Won’t Work
