Economy and Business
Flying Over an Act of Monumental Stupidity
I knew that Congress would come to its senses eventually, that it would realize that the ham-handed budget cuts ordered by the so-called "sequester" weren't going to work, that some government functions were too important to be cut. And I was right, kind of. Last week...
Austerity Will Leave Us Crying ’96 Tears’
Aging baby boomers may remember a 1960s rock band that sported an all-time great name. That band — Question Mark and the Mysterians — may now have a worthy rival on the name front. Make way for Reinhart-Rogoff and the Austerians. Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and...
Useless Baggage
They've hit a new low. Citing significant concerns about long lines at airports and flight delays caused by the furlough of air-traffic controllers, Congress let the Federal Aviation Administration override strict sequestration rules and redirect funds within its...
Tracking CEO Pay
Under current U.S. law, all our publicly traded corporations must annually disclose exactly what they pay their top executives. So why do all those CEO pay scorecards we see every spring show such different results? USA Today found an 8 percent hike in 2012 CEO pay...
Making Poverty a Crime
Ebenezer Scrooge, the Dickens character, perfectly personified the nasty rich. For example, when asked to make a charitable donation for people trapped in poverty, Scrooge curled his lip in contempt and snarled: "Are there no prisons?" Blessedly, our American society...
Under-Regulating the Regulators
A powerful and well-connected global consulting firm recently announced it had landed another big fish. Mary Schapiro, the former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission, will become one of its managing directors. When asked about her move from the SEC to...
Cutting Your Benefits Isn’t the ‘Middle’ Way
The federal budget is, according to many experts, a "political document." It's how our political leaders convey their priorities to the people they serve. So what's the political lesson of Barack Obama's recent budget plan? He apparently thinks older people could get...
The Art of Inequality
Thomas Campbell directs the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. He's smiling a great deal these days. Why? Campbell has just received something museum directors only dream about: a donation of paintings, drawings, and sculptures worth over $1 billion. The donor:...
Where the Money Is
As foreclosures Trim our ranks, The biggest scoundrels Are still the banks. The nation's big banks are making big profits again. Whew! I was a little worried there for a minute. During America's recent financial meltdown we actually lost a few biggies, and plenty more...
Sacrificing Social Security
