Economy and Business
Worse than Watergate
The U.S. Supreme Court is mulling a case that could end up giving America's wealthy a perpetual green light to contribute as much as they want directly to politicians and political parties. Credit Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman who owns an electrical...
This Political Game Jeopardizes the Economy
Shortly before the first government shutdown in 17 years, President Barack Obama addressed the Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conference in Washington. He said the same thing he's been telling the nation ever since, "We will not negotiate whether or not...
Subsidizing Economic Inequality
The debate over America's federal budget is getting stale — and getting us nowhere, as the latest government shutdown depressingly reminds us. Political obsession over budget deficits has now morphed into legislative extortion. Today, more than ever, we need to...
The New Operating System
Now that Wall Street Rules mankind, We need banks Of a different kind. It used to be the manufacturers who ran the country — steel, autos, appliances, and the like. The president of General Motors, Charles Wilson, is remembered best for having a comment he made...
The Fed’s Wizardry Isn’t Doing Much for the Rest of Us
The Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle called economics "the dismal science." He was only half right. Dismal, yes, but a science, no. Economics is more like a religion, in which reality is shaped by belief or blind faith. And, in the case of free-market zealots, it can...
When Citizens Shocked Plutocrats
A hundred years ago, on October 3, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the first modern federal tax on income. John Buenker has been writing about the events that led to that signing for a good bit of the last 50 years. His 1985 book, The Income Tax and the...
The Fine Art of Milking Government
Our tax money As it stands, Oft ends up In private hands. These economically challenging times haven't ended the golden deals every level of government offers business. State and federal statutes remain loaded with these giveaways. They include grants, subsidized...
Socking it to the Shareholders
Someone should make a movie about JPMorgan and title it: "Bankers Gone Wild." Not long ago, America's biggest Wall Street Empire was hailed as a paragon of financial integrity. Not now. JPMorgan has been assessed record fines of nearly a billion bucks for management...
Our Road to Elysium
The Hollywood blockbuster film, Elysium, depicts a polarized Los Angeles in the year 2154. The vast majority of inhabitants live in overpopulated and polluted slums, toiling in grinding poverty. Meanwhile, a wealthy elite live on Elysium, a space station modeled after...
A Golden Rule that Might Chip Away at Inequality
Watching grown men fulminate in public can be unnerving. Michael Piwowar and Daniel Gallagher — two distinctly CEO-friendly members of the federal Securities and Exchange Commission — recently did plenty of fulminating. Piwowar and Gallagher had little choice. They...
