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...Category Archives: The destruction of the middle class
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...Yanis Varoufakis on the “Success” of Greece’s Bond Sale
Yves here. The RT show Boom/Bust has an informative conversation with Yanis Varoufakis on the conundrum of the recent successful Greece bond offering.
Read more...Joe Firestone: Using Generational Warfare to Divert Attention from Oligarchy and Corporatism
Some of the favored children of the economic elite who have a public presence, work hard in their writing and speaking to divert attention from inequality and oligarchy issues by raising the issue of competition between seniors and millennials for “scarce” Federal funds.
Read more...General Mills Retreats an Inch on Its Mandatory Arbitration Overreach
Law Professor Adam Levitin argued that we peons should make counterclaims against General Mills’ overreaching arbitration policy.
Read more...Don Quijones: “Uncreative” Destruction – The Troika’s Hostile Takeover of Europe
How the Troika is overriding national constitutions and popular will to strip-mine Europe’s periphery countries on behalf of banks.
Read more...Planned Obsolescence Disguised as Innovation, Oligopoly Disguised as a Free Market, and the Enrichment of Oligarchs
We are delighted to feature this post from Roy Poses, who with his colleagues at Health Care Renewal, have been providing consistently high quality analysis of the often dubious practices and economics of the health care system.
Read more...Paul Ryan’s “New” Austerity Budget
Paul Ryan’s austerity budget is demonstrably failed economic policy in a new bottle.
Read more...University of Southern Maine, Facing Organized Opposition from Students and Faculty, Rescinds Proposed Cuts
By Lambert Strether of Corrente. Good news, which I hope travels fast to other universities. Maine Sunday Telegram: University of Southern Maine President Theodora Kalikow on Friday rescinded the 12 faculty layoffs that had prompted weeks of protests, saying she’s open to alternative plans for finding up to $14 million in cuts. (I know! I […]
Read more...Matt Stoller: How Uber Creates an Algorithmic Monopoly to Extract Rents
We are not setting the price. The market is setting the price. We have algorithms to determine what that market is.<
Read more...Wolf Richter: America’s Structural Unemployment Crisis in Two Charts
The enormous number of people who work only part-time for economic reasons is one the tragedies of the unemployment crisis in this country. And that started before the financial crisis.
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