Economy and Business
How Air Conditioning Unites — And Divides
Before air conditioning, even presidents had to suffer. In the summer months, Abraham Lincoln used to ride a horse every evening from the White House to a cottage at a higher elevation four miles away. There he'd join his family in an attempt to escape the muggiest...
Don’t Lie to Poor Kids About Why They’re Poor
Work hard and you’ll get ahead — that’s the mantra driven into young people across the country. But what happens when children born into poverty run face first into the crushing reality that the society they live in really isn’t that fair at all? As new research...
Trumping Up Our Trains
Every time the train derails, my mother begs me to stay put. But how can I? Along the densely populated eastern seaboard, your life is structured around transport. Not everyone can live in New York City or Washington D.C., so millions of people who work there commute...
You Can Vote Every Day — With Your Dollars
All shopping is not created equal — we all have our preferred soaps and phone brands. I’d rather walk a bit further to my favorite grocery store than the closer one at the end of the block. Sometimes these choices are based on convenience, familiarity, quality, or...
Don’t Let Corporations Pick What Websites You Visit
Think about the websites you visit. The movies you stream. The music you listen to online. The animal videos that are just too cute not to share. Now think about the freedom to use the internet however and whenever you choose being taken away from you. That's exactly...
How Tax-Dodging Billionaires Use Farmers as Props
After this summer, President Trump and the Republican Congress have one big item on their agenda: taxes. Specifically, cutting them for the rich. One tax they've got in their crosshairs is the estate tax — which they malign as "the death tax." But it's nothing of the...
Don’t Trust Business with Education
Betsy DeVos and her husband Dick are lucky: They inherited a big chunk of the multi-billion-dollar fortune that Dick's dad Richard amassed through his shady Amway corporation. But what they've done with their Amway money is certainly not the American Way. The DeVos...
Fed Up with Washington, DC? Look to Washington State.
Forward thinking in Washington these days is limited to federal law-makers scheming new and innovative ways to bolster the fortunes of the ultra-wealthy at the expense of just about everyone else. That is, in Washington, DC. On the other side of the country in...
1984 at the Grocery Store
Wall Street analysts tell us that Amazon's $14 billion buyout of Whole Foods isn't only a win-win for both of them, but also for consumers, for Amazon intends to lower the organic grocer's prices. Really? Yes, they say, because Amazon will use its amazing...
There’s No Good Reason for Your Boss to Make 347 Times What You Do
CEO pay at America's 500 largest companies averaged $13.1 million in 2016. That's 347 times what the average employee makes. So CEOs make a lot of money. But, some say, so do athletes and movie stars. Why pick on corporate bosses, then? First, because the market sets...
