Rhode Island Senate Considering “Maximum Wage” Legislation
Why Rhode Island’s maximum wage proposal is a potential big step toward reducing income inequality.
Read more...Category Archives: The destruction of the middle class
Is the Strong Dollar the Real Cause of the Collapse of US Manufacturing and Secular Stagnation?
Yves here. I managed to miss this VoxEU post from last month, and it is still timely. It argues that economists have generally been using the wrong measure of relative dollar strength to assess how the level of the currency played into the loss of manufacturing jobs and insufficient internal demand, now better known as “secular stagnation”.
Read more...Michael Hudson: Stockholm Syndrome in the Baltics – Latvia’s Neoliberal War against Labor and Industry
How Latvia, a test case for neoliberal colonialism, has proven to be a test case of how finance-serving policies crush labor and enterprise.
Read more...Americans Raid 401(k)s, Replacing Home Equity Withdrawals as Way to Make Ends Meet
It’s been creepy to see economists and the financial media cheering the re-levering by American households as a sign that they economy is on the mend and consumers are regaining their will to shop. The number of Americans who are tapping into their 401 (k) accounts is proof that the financial health of ordinary Americans is far from robust.
Read more...Blackstone Unit Sued Over Slum-Like Condition of Single Family Home Rental
How Blackstone’ single family home rental business, Invitation Homes, is proving to be more slumlord than landlord.
Read more...How Milton Friedman Fomented the Barmy “Corporations Exist to Maximize Shareholder Value” Myth
One of my pet peeves is the degree to which the notion that corporations exist only to serve the interests of shareholders is accepted as dogma and recited uncritically by the business press
Read more...Yanis Varoufakis: Europe’s Slide into Deflation, and What to do About It
By Yanis Varoufakis, a professor of economics at the University of Athens. Cross posted from his website. From an interview for Jornal de Negócios by Jorge N. Rodrigues Europe is in the clasp of the deflationary forces that resulted directly from its inane handling of the Eurozone crisis. In this interview, I discuss deflation and […]
Read more...An Empire in Decline, City by City, Town by Town
By Peter Van Buren, who blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during Iraqi reconstruction in his first book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. He writes at his blog, We Meant Well and has a new book Ghosts of Tom […]
Read more...J.D. Alt: GROAF & CONTRAKSHUN
Why “groaf” is the new “growth” and Naked Capitalism readers are duly skeptical of it, along with its young cousin, “jawbs”.
Read more...Did Canada’s Middle Class Just Get More Affluent Than the US’s, or Did that Happen Long Ago?
The media understates how much the prosperity of the US middle class has fallen on a relative basis.
Read more...The Stealthy, Ugly Growth of Corporatized Medicine
If you think medical care in the US is already suffering from crapification, the Brave New World of corporatized medicine will take it to a new level.
Read more...Piketty’s Wealth Gap Wake Up
Michael Hudson discusses how Thomas Piketty’s new book Capital in the 21st Century greatly understates the degree of wealth concentration with Karl Fitzgerald of Renegade Economists.
Read more...More Effective Remedies for Inequality
Yves here. The subject of inequality in income and wealth has, in the last year or so, become an oft-mentioned topic in economic and political commentary. It’s now even acceptable to use the word “oligarchy” to describe the US. Yet too often lost in the debate is that this type of inequality is the result of what right society allows various members to have. For instance, in the last 30 years, intellectual property laws have gotten stronger while the rights of workers to organize have been cut back.
We had a more equitable society when unions were stronger, taxes were more progressive, and anti-trust laws were enforced. This post by Geoff Davis serves as a reminder that there are remedies other than progressive taxation (which he regards as an after-the-fact remedy) to achieve that end.
Read more...Philip Pilkington: Unemployment and Wages in the US – A Tale of Institutional Change
A fresh look at historical data shows how the relationship between unemployment and wage growth changed radically starting in 1981.
Read more...Abigail Field: Our Corrupt Tax Code
ur nation’s tax code reflects our corrupt politics. The code contains many provisions that benefit our wealthiest, most powerful companies and people while hurting the rest of us.
Read more...