Economy and Business
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 leadership workshops, and gave standing ovations to any video footage of their company’s late iconic founder, Mary Kay Ash.
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.
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.
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?
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 that’s not only where the rest of us live and work, it’s the only place that can generate real national prosperity.
The Race to the Bottom
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.
Hellish Working Conditions
Fix the Minimum Wage
In most states, working full-time in a minimum-wage job pays $7.25 per hour. That’s just $15,000 a year for full-time work. It’s not enough to live on. In fact, a breadwinner for a family of four earning the minimum wage would be a full $7,000 below the federal poverty line.
We’re All Subsidizing Free Lunches for America’s CEOs
A generation ago, on National Secretary’s Day, America’s top corporate executives used to take their prized office assistants out to lunch. Times change, and National Secretary’s Day has become Administrative Professionals’ Day. But something else has changed. These days, CEOs are getting the free lunches. Secretaries and all the rest of us are picking up the tab. And not at Burger King either.
Belt-Tightening Time
