Eight Reasons Why Inequality Ruins the Economy
Econimists have noticed, awfully late in the game, that high levels of inequality are correlated with lower growth. There are reasons to think this relationship is causal.
Read more...Category Archives: The destruction of the middle class
Consumers Are Changing But Perhaps Not How You Think
Deloitte report reveals that millennial consumers will not change the world, and that their consumption patterns reflect the pressures that burden the middle class.
Read more...Why Democratic Presidential Candidates May Have to Choose Between Teacher Pay Raises and Charter Schools
Florida becomes a charter school battleground as communities fight a state law that diverts some of the proceeds from bond offererings, even ones approved for public school teacher salaries, to charter schools.
Read more...Consumer Contracts Restatement Delayed: Consumers Win…For Now
Following pushback from Elizabeth Warren, state attorneys general, and both consumer advocates and business groups, consumer contracts restatement delayed – for now.
Read more...Is Conservatism Running on Brand Fumes?
Why the foundations of conservatism are crumbling.
Read more...UBI Without Quality Public Services Is a Neoliberal’s Paradise
Why should governments give cash-handouts before providing free, quality public services to all?
Read more...Beware Billionaires Bearing Gifts
Billionaires’ gifts are too often intended to remake society along their preferred lines.
Read more...Trump’s Sneak Attack on Social Security
Trump budget proposal incorporates an attack on Social Security, advocating a switch to the chained Consumer Price Index (CPI) to index the federal definition of poverty, a step that would result in lower benefits.
Read more...Public-Private Partnerships Fad Fails
After the failure and abuses of privatization became apparent, public-private partnerships have since been promoted to mobilize private finance for the public purpose. PPPs have socialized costs and losses while ensuring private financial gains.
Read more...Bill Black: Ocasio-Cortez & Sanders Introduce Bill to Cap Credit Card Interest Rates at 15%
Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders introduce legislation: they call it Loan Shark Prevention, which would allow post offices to act as banks and cap interest rates at 15%, but credit card companies claim it would hurt the poor.
Read more...The Lost Ones: The Opportunities and Outcomes of White, Non-College-Educated Americans Born In The 1960s
This column shows that white, less-educated Americans born in the 1960s are worse off than the generation born 20 years previously, based on wage changes, increased medical costs, and shorter life expectancy. This disparity could be worth as much as $132,000.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Subprime Bites – Auto-Loan Delinquencies Spike to Q3 2009 Level, Despite Strongest Labor Market in Years
A high level of auto-loan delinquencies challlenges the cheery spin the Fed and the financial press is putting on the state of the ecoomy.
Read more...”Who Says Violence Doesn’t Solve Anything?” A Review of Radicalized: Four Tales of Our Present Moment by Cory Doctorow
Radicalized presents uncomfortable truths about the neoliberal vise.
Read more...Four Industries Big Tech Has Ruined
Rather than confine themselves to operating systems and PC software like they did in the 1980s and 1990s, the tech industry has figured out that the real money lies in being a middleman.
Read more...The Roots of Health Inequality and the Value of Intra-Family Expertise
Having doctors in the family is good for your healh. Who’d have thunk it?
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