Economy and Business
Budgeting for the Great American Train Wreck
It’s Aug. 1, 2011. Does President Barack Obama know where House votes for that last-minute budget deal are?
Blame the No-Way Party for the Debt Ceiling Collision
There are those who will tell you that the debt ceiling crisis is a bipartisan production and both sides are to blame. Don’t believe them.
A Right-Wing Jobs Program for America
Attention jobless Americans! If you’re among the millions of long-term unemployed people searching in vain for a job, here’s a hot tip: they’re hiring in Wisconsin.
Shredding the Safety Net
There’s widespread poverty in America today, though it’s sometimes hard to see how bad it is. Real estate development techniques and zoning rules, plus a healthy dollop of discrimination, force most poor people to live and work in neighborhoods many of us don’t often visit.
America Doesn’t Need a Tax-Dodging Industry
Like a pack of men in suits mud wrestling, Washington’s budget battle would be entertaining to watch if we the people weren’t about to get hurt.
Getting Main Street to Call the Shots
Thanks to massive bailout funding from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury, Wall Street survived the financial crash it created. This year, its titans are enjoying record share prices, corporate profits, and executive bonuses. The financial assets of America’s billionaires and the idle cash reserves of the most profitable corporations are at historic highs. Their biggest challenge is figuring out where to park all their cash.
Supreme Corp.
Sleazy Corporate Holiday
My father, long dead, spent his working years in tool and die shops in Detroit, an experience from which he crafted a political, economic, and social philosophy of life. “They’re all in it together,” he would say. That was the very core of the philosophy.
A Strategy for Coping with Unemployment
The jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent in June, which means yet more Americans are waking up to the disorienting experience of having no job to report to. How are they coping?
Three Slashing Pigs
