| Jun 5, 2013 | Economy / BusinessIt was late, I was grumpy, and the woman in front of me was buying cigarettes. I noticed the items in her cart: brand-name snacks, colas, and frozen foods. I looked at how she dressed, considered the carton of cigarettes she requested, and made a wager to myself that...
| | Economy / BusinessWith the stock market breaking ever-higher records, Americans should be celebrating our economic resurgence, right? After all, why else are we supposed to care when the Dow ticks up or down? Although half of us own no stocks at all and the richest 10 percent of us own...
| | Economy / BusinessThe minimum wage is $7.25. If it had kept up with inflation since 1968, minimum-wage workers would be earning $10.69 an hour today. During his State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama put a face on the growing chasm between the “haves” and...
| | Rights / DemocracyIt looks as though we jackals of the “lamestream media” won’t have Michele Bachmann to kick around anymore. With just a hint of Nixonian rancor in her voice, she announced — via a lengthy YouTube rant in the middle of the night a short while ago —...
| | Economy / BusinessAll of a sudden, almost everybody — in Congress at least — seems to want to talk about the IRS. Fine. We need a good debate about taxes. But let’s have a debate that zooms in on the core issues. Like who’s paying taxes in America today and who...