A Christmas Carol is often mistakenly charged with creating our contemporary, festive, largely secular Christmas. And while that may have been one of Dickens’ motives, a bigger one is more obvious: that of better treatment of children and the working poor.
Read more...Reader dSquib flagged a “bizarre” article by Mike Konczal in the New Republic titled, “Corporatism” is the Latest Hysterical Right-Wing Accusation: The secret history of a smear.” dSquib seemed quite perplexed that anyone would deem calling Obama a corporatist, which as we’ll demonstrate is patently true, a smear.
Read more...An interview with Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, on the Renegade Economists radio/podcast
Read more...A mere day after strikes at Amazon warehouses in Germany, which caught the attention of the media in the US, Slate ran as its lead piece in Moneybox an article that bears all the hallmarks of being a PR plant: Amazon Warehouses Are the New Factories.
I suspect the author, Emma Roller, wouldn’t recognize a factory if it fell on her.
Read more...Amazon is rapidly becoming the poster child for what is wrong with the so-called new economy.
Read more...Yves here. This Real News Network segment provides an overview of the budget deal, cutting through the hype to lay bare its impact on ordinary Americans. It’s not a pretty picture.
Read more...I’ve been fascinated lately with the meaning of the terms “liberal” and “progressive.” It’s clear that what we now call “liberalism” is really a variant, a side branch of the real thing, and should be more properly named “FDR liberalism” or “social liberalism.”
Read more...Get a cup of coffee while you settle down to watch this video of Nancy Fraser discussing the crisis as a joint problem of ecological, financial, and social systems.
Read more...Moyers describes how the social contract in America is being dismantled in order to further enrich what he calls a “mercenary class”.
Read more...To the extent that middle class and more affluent people think about poverty in America, they likely have blurry, partial images due to distance and lack of direct experience. Their remedies might include better education and training, higher minimum wages, more affordable housing.
New Scientist thinks otherwise. Its headline for a blistering editorial: Want to fix US inequality? Begin with worming tablets.
Read more...Last week, I was reading parts of a report issued by Japanese investment bank Nomura, which started out saying that the “Global Financial Crisis” is over. If I lay out a statement like that side by side with a lot of other things I see, I can only conclude that Nomura doesn’t reside in the same universe I do.
Read more...Wow, the gloves are finally coming off.
Read more...orporate executives love to peddle the notion that they need to have their low tax payments reduced even further, even as the share of GDP represented by company profits is at unprecedentedly high levels.
Read more...“Success is relative” wrote T. S. Eliot in his play The Family Reunion, “It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.” This is an apposite description of the current “success” in the EU. A financial and political disaster has been transformed into a permanent calamity.
Read more...During this festive time of the year, the whole world is intensely focused on American consumers, watching their every move under a digital microscope to parse if the universe is going to live or die. Retailers and the media joined forces to create hoopla and excitement and frenzy and the perception of once-in-a-lifetime deals. Stores opened on Thanksgiving, stayed open late at night, and opened early in the morning. And consumers dove right into this extravaganza.
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