Economy and Business
Middle Class Fantasy
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 us are middle class. More than 80 percent of us think we’re perched on one of its rungs.
The Poison Pill of Tax Cuts
The presidential candidates are debating George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which were supposed to expire in 2010. Obama wants restore tax rates on the wealthiest families to earlier levels. Romney’s campaign is standing up for the top 2 percent with incomes over $250,000, and then sweetening their pot by abolishing the Alternative Minimum Tax and estate taxes too. His plan would give people earning over a million dollars an average tax break of $160,000 a year.
Empty Anti-Wall Street Rhetoric
European Victory on Taxing Speculation
European campaigners for a financial transaction tax have done some awfully goofy things over the past three years.
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 hundreds of millions of dollars in new rewards?
Promoting Unemployment
Mitt Romney says President Barack Obama should be fired because he failed to fix the economy. This reminds me of the classic practitioner of “chutzpah” — the man convicted of murdering his mother and father who throws himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan.
A Congressional Report Card for the 99 Percent
Lots of Americans today are watching how members of Congress go about their business. Environmentalists and electrical workers alike keep track of key congressional votes. So do retailers and farmers. Even poker players are following how members of Congress rate on the issues that hit home.
Romney Passes the Torch to Taxpayers
One of the mysteries of life in these curious times is that millions of Americans are enjoying the benefits of government — but are either unaware of it or in denial.
The Politics of Inequality
A Vanishing Act for Good Jobs
Ashley Brown wants to be a bank teller. When I met her this past spring, the 26-year old single mother was cold-calling banks and credit unions, looking for one that might hire her. So far, she’d had one interview and a lot of unfriendly brush-offs. No offers.
