Archive
What Will The Sequester Do To Your State?
For folks in Washington, sequestration is kind of like gambling with someone else's money. (Congressional salaries are exempt, after all.) Republicans are betting that either (a) the sequester will be so painless that one will even notice it, or (b) that the sequester...
Is This Where The (Middle-Class) Money Went?
Tuesday's post, 40% Of Americans Now Make Less Than 1968 Minimum Wage, was updated with this chart: The chart shows that wages used to go up as productivity went up, but in the 1970s they decoupled. Productivity kept going up but wages stagnated. Now, here's another...
Progressive Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE: Washington’s Stupid, Destructive Game OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "...as this stupid game goes on – how much do we cut, and where? – Washington’s past flings with austerity madness are already carving chunks out of our economy. The GDP, which grew...
Progressive Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE: Washington’s Stupid, Destructive Game OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "...as this stupid game goes on – how much do we cut, and where? – Washington’s past flings with austerity madness are already carving chunks out of our economy. The GDP, which grew...
Washington's Stupid, Destructive Game
It’s Monday morning in America. That means we’re about to endure another week of pointless debate over the precise methods by which our federal government will impose more needless misery on the hapless population, instead of addressing its eminently fixable economic...
From Inequality, We Can't Take a Vacation
What more vivid symbol of the indignity our corporate-driven inequality imposes than the Carnival Triumph. Thousands of people adrift, going nowhere in a nightmare of sewage and stench, while a billionaire chief exec sits faraway in a courtside seat and cheers.
Austerity -- "But?" Or Maybe, "Of Course!"
I noticed something interesting in this USA Today report, Moody's cuts U.K.'s AAA credit rating, Credit ratings agency Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Britain's government bond rating one notch from the top AAA to AA1, citing weaknesses in the economy's...
On Social Security, Pollsters Need To Ask The Right Questions
Two polls released in the past 24 hours send decidedly different messages on Social Security. The lesson: Be careful what you ask. One poll released Thursday by Bloomberg seems to show that a significant majority of the public would be willing to see Social Security...
Privatization And Postal Service Podcast
If you listen to any one audio segment talking about what is going on with the Postal Service this week I recommend this interview I did with The Matthew Filipowicz Show, (which you can also hear on We Act Radio in the DC area.) Click here to listen to the interview....
Slowing Air Traffic Is Serious Sequester Hardball From The White House
The Clinton administration didn't play as much hardball as it could have during the 1995 and 1996 federal shutdowns because it decided that the air traffic control system was a critical government activity.
Doing the opposite -- and it definitely was a discretionary presidential decision rather than a legislated mandate -- likely would have ended the shutdowns much faster because of the outcry when planes were grounded and everything from Fed Ex to business trips to honeymoons were affected. The economic damage and anger would have been immediate and intense.
The Obama White House appears to be going in a very different direction with the sequester
