Category Archives: Social policy

Robert Reich: In the New Economy, Workers Take on All the Risk

More Americans than ever don’t know what they’ll be earning next week. That’s why we need income insurance.

As QE Wanes, Real Costs of “Employment” Subsidies Surface

As the QE prop is removed, it will become more difficult to ignore the fact that “employment” subsidies were often simply “employer” subsidies.

VICE News: “Why Pay Your Taxes?”

This Vice News segment makes the normally dry and daunting subject of taxes (really tax policy) accessible and entertaining. Plus it features Lee Sheppard.

This entry was posted in Income disparity, Social policy, Taxes on August 21, 2015 by Yves Smith.

Why Bernie Sanders Should Add a Job Guarantee to His Policy Agenda

Bernie has unapologetically rejected sclerotic visions of what is ‘politically possible’. And now he should add the Job Guarantee to his list of issues.

The GM Labeling Law to End All Labeling Laws

Campaigners for the Orwellianly-named “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015” falsely demonize those who want GM labeling as anti-science.

Is the Local Economy the Solution to a Post-Capitalist World?

Relocalization has the potential to increase political accountability and revitalize communities. But how do you make it happen?

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Economic fundamentals, Guest Post, Market inefficiencies, Politics, Social policy on August 14, 2015 by Yves Smith.

Glen Ford and Bruce Dixon on #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Misleadership Class

Glen Ford and Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report discuss how BlackLivesMatter seems to be abandoning its campaign against police brutality to become a tool of the black misleadership class.

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Politics, Social policy, Social values on August 13, 2015 by Yves Smith.

Tom Engelhardt: Where Did the Antiwar Movement Go? War, Vietnam and Today

How shocking images of the Vietnam war helped stoke the antiwar movement of the 1960s, and how we’ve since become inured to them and the horrors of war generally.

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Guest Post, Media watch, Politics, Social policy, Social values on August 12, 2015 by Yves Smith.

No, Inflation Doesn’t Erode the Burden of Debts

Inflation doesn’t reduce the burden of debt, rather it may (or may not) accompany a rise in nominal worker income.

David Sirota: Hillary Clinton Is Running Away from Her “Free Trade” Record

Yet again, HIllary Clinton tries to distance herself from her “sell out the middle class” policies, this time on “free trade”.

Days of Revolt: The Black Prophetic Tradition

Cornel West: “How do you straighten your back up? How do you tell the truth? How do you bear witness? How do you organize? How do you mobilize? How do you generate forms of resistance and resiliency in the face of some very, very ugly forms of terror and trauma and stigma?”

This entry was posted in Income disparity, Legal, Politics, Social policy, Social values on August 6, 2015 by Yves Smith.

Dealing With Mass Killings in America: Funding Our Children, Not Our Wars

As mass killings become more common in the US, law enforcement agents fixate on and unduly publicize cases with jihadist links. As this post describes, that serves as an excuse for even more intensive surveillance.

Yet as Mark Ames described in one of the first works on these rampages, in his book “Going Postal,” there were no obvious similarities among the perps. They weren’t all, or even often, isolated losers. They did not typically come from broken homes. They were generally of above average intelligence. Aside from being disproportionately male, the other common thread was that they had been bullied.

If Ames’ observations still hold true, the lack of distinctive demographic or behavioral predictors of those who go on rampages means that heightened surveillance is at best another form of security theater, and at worst an excuse for Stasi-like dossier-gethering.

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Dubious statistics, Guest Post, Legal, Social policy, Social values, Surveillance state on August 3, 2015 by Yves Smith.