Economy and Business
Free at Last
Robbing Grandma to Reward Wall Street
When I grew up in Texas, the dance we all learned was the Texas two-step. But times have changed. The next big dance these days could be called the Social Security double shuffle. A good number of senators are waltzing to the music of the “let’s cut Social Security” crowd by trying to sell a solution to the deficit designed to hack apart the government-guaranteed retirement plan we’ve had since the 1930s.
Stop the Merger Merry-Go-Round, We Need to Get Off
What may be the dumbest corporate merger of all time—the $165 billion deal that saw AOL gobble up Time Warner a decade ago—ended just before the holidays, when AOL formally spun off into a totally separate company.
Haiti: Earthquakes and Neo-Colonialism
Our hearts go out to the Haitians. Earthquakes and hurricanes. Disaster after disaster. There’s no letup. We’ll send cash, food, meds, trucks, pumps, clothes, shovels, tarps, bulldozers, cement, computers, docs, water, clergy, plumbing, prayers, and everything else we can think of.
Shouldn’t ‘Local’ Businesses Be Local?
Giant corporations are trying to co-opt the meaning of one of our important words: “local.” It’s important because small businesses across the country have created a very positive, grassroots economic movement, based on being local producers, providers, and marketers. Over 130 cities have “local business alliances,” with 30,000 businesses enlisted.
The State of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream in 2010
Over 40 years after Dr. Over 40 years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, his words still speak to the social conditions that so many Americans face. Our unemployment rate is hovering at 10 percent, and the wealthiest 10 percent of us control over 70 percent of the nation’s wealth. Economic inequality remains a barrier to greater racial equality. The national commemoration of King’s birthday, therefore, is more for reflection than celebration.
Fat Cat
My Cat is No Fat Cat
It’s a good thing my long-haired calico Hyacinth can’t read the newspaper. Otherwise I’m sure she’d be deeply offended by all the recent headlines about “fat cats.”
Dubai
Bye-bye, Dubai
It’s bad enough when a person drowns in debt. Shock waves multiply when a corporation teeters on the verge of failure. The economy becomes even more agitated when a country declares bankruptcy, as Iceland did in 2008 and Hungary and Latvia almost did in 2009.
