The destruction of the middle class Archives - Page 144 of 210

Weaker Unions Correlated with More Inequality, Higher Pay for Top Earners

The decline in union power plays an important role in explaining the rise in inequality in advanced economies.

Attacks on Sanders, Progressives Falsely Depict Obama As Lefty Failure as Opposed to Neoliberal Success

A sign that the progressive cause is moving out of the wilderness and starting to rattle The Powers That Be is that the messaging apparatus is starting to attempt to demonize Sanders as a hopeless cause. And the arguments made against him and the progressive cause generally are made via bizarre analogies to the neoliberal Obama.

Reformers Stymie Obama a Second Time on Wall Street Cronies: Progressive Pick Lisa Fairfax Nominated for SEC

The Wall Street wing of the Democratic party has taken a visible defeat with the nomination of Lisa Fairfax to the SEC.

5 of the Biggest Acts of Corporate Hypocrisy in America

Socialism for the rich is inherently hypocritical….but which forms of corporate truth-distortion are the most brazen?

Mark Ames: Why Finance is Too Important to Leave to Larry Summers

Mark Ames explains why the left became stupid about finance and why that was a very costly mistake.

Michael Hudson: The Paradox of Financialized Industrialization

The great question today is whether post-feudal rentier capitalism will stifle industrial capitalism instead of serving it. The aim of finance is not merely to exploit labor, but to conquer and appropriate industry, real estate and government. The result is a financial oligarchy, neither industrial capitalism nor a tendency to evolve into socialism.

How Much Money Does the 1% Have Hidden in Tax Havens?

UC Berkeley professor Gabriel Zucman is doing pathbreaking work on tax havens. HIs estimates of how much the rich hide in them are eye-popping.

Michael Perelman: The Essential Handbook for Engineering an Unequal Society

While the thrust of Perelman’s post is no doubt familiar to readers, take note of how simple and few in number are the essential principles for creating a highly unequal society, and how easy it is to describe them them in antiseptic language.

Sanders Debate “Results” as Case Study of the Modern Versailles Hall of Mirrors

Bernie Sanders by all objective measures “won” the first Democratic party debate. Yet pundits almost universally said the reverse. What does that tell us about the state of American politics?

Mark Blyth: “Austerity Cures Nothing”

This is a bracing, no-nonsene talk from economist Mark Blyth of Brown University, who is the author of Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century and Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea.

Clinton Outdoes Tsipras in Kolotoumbas with Her Reversals on TPP, Bank Regulations

The big problem with Hillary is it is hard to believe she stands for anything other than her desire to exercise power. Her latest bout of opportunism only reinforces that notion.