Julie Driscoll: In the “real people” world (not the “corporations are people” world, but the people people world), running up debt prior to filing for bankruptcy would likely be considered fraud.
Succumb to Cynicism, Let Regressives Win It All
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Robert Reich: The Koch brothers, Karl Rove, the rabid Republican right, CEOs and Wall Street titans who want to entrench their privileges and tax advantages — all of them would like nothing better than for every progressive in America to throw in the towel.
Inequalities, Taxes, and More Inequalities
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Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: This willingness to give up hard won gains in turn has resulted in the continuing decline of union membership, which now stands at 8 percent.
Time to Retire the 99 Percent
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Walter Brasch: It’s time to retire the 99 percent. Not the people, but the slogan that identifies the Occupy Movement.
American Schools: When “The Best and The Brightest” Don’t Have the Answers
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Mark Naison: President and his chief education adviser, Arne Duncan, believed that a key problem in America’s schools was the low quality of the people working in them, they felt no need to include principals and teachers.
Jobs: A Grand Bargain
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Brent Budowsky: Great presidents know the difference between empty public gimmicks and game-changing public policy. They demand creative ideas, not mediocrity or defeatism, from those who advise them.
Effects of Agent Orange
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James Rhodes: As President John Kennedy said in the 1960s, regarding the inhumane treatment of the people of Berlin, “We are all Berliners.” Today, the world should say, “We are all Vietnamese.”
Deception Alert: “Liberal” Huffingtonpost Distorts the Education Debate
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Adam Eran: Waiting for a race of cyborg/celebrity super-teachers distracts from the egregious income inequality and the childhood poverty that worsens educational outcomes in the U.S.
The Cure for Plutocracy: Strike!
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David Swanson: How do you get politicians living off legalized bribery to criminalize bribery? How do you persuade the corporate media to report on the interests of flesh-and-blood, non-corporate people?
The State of the Union and the Federal Budget: Investing in America’s Future
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Robert Reich: Over the long term, the only way to improve the living standards of most Americans is to invest in our people – especially their educations, skills, and the communications and transportation systems linking them together and with the rest of the world (infrastructure).
The Defining Issue: Who Should Get the Tax Cut — The Rich or Everyone Else?
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Robert Reich: Republicans are hell bent on demanding an extension of the Bush tax cut for their patrons at the top, or else they’ll pull the plug on tax cuts for the middle class. This is a gift for the Democrats.
Why Obama Should Put BP Under Temporary Receivership
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Robert Reich: It’s time for the federal government to put BP under temporary receivership, which gives the government authority to take over BP’s operations in the Gulf of Mexico until the gusher is stopped. This is the only way the public know what’s going on, be confident enough resources are being put to stopping the gusher, ensure BP’s strategy is correct, know the government has enough clout to force BP to use a different one if necessary, and be sure the President is ultimately in charge.
Financial Reform Too Small to Succeed
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Joseph Palermo: The financial reform legislation currently winding its way through the Congress is a step in the right direction but it retains too much of the status quo that brought down the economy in the first place. The key problem, as many economists have been telling us, is that the top financial institutions remain “too big to fail.” Congress can enact all the regulations it wishes but even the best written rules won’t be enough to prevent another financial meltdown.
Proposition 16: Bad for Californians
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Tracy Emblem: California allows cities and counties to purchase electricity or develop it locally through an energy provider of their choice. Currently, 68 percent of California’s electricity is generated by investor-owned utilities. Proposition 16, on the June 8 primary ballot, would alter local government’s ability to develop electricity service and is bad for California’s residents and businesses.
Fraud on the Street
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Robert Reich: It’s now clear Lehman Brothers’ balance sheet was bogus before the bank collapsed in 2008, catapulting the Street and the world into the worst financial crisis since 1929. The Lehman bankruptcy examiner’s recent report details what just about everyone on the Street has known since the firm imploded – that Lehman defrauded its investors. Even Hank Paulson, in his recent memoir, referred to Lehman’s balance sheet as bogus.
Charity CEOs Get Rich by Taking From the Poor
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Emily Spence: Years ago, the founder of central Massachusetts’ food bank told me of the obscenely high salaries that the directors of a major, well-known Massachusetts charity providing funds for hungry Americans received every year, an amount that was purposefully not readily made public. The reason is that all of the volunteers for this charity, that raises millions of dollars each year, would be greatly dismayed that around a fourth of them were, actually, working to enrich upper management.
CEOs Golden Parachutes
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According to a recent report, 1,484 CEOs left or were fired from their jobs in 2008. But many of these CEOs left with hefty severance packages. These severance packages or “Golden Parachutes” softened the fall for many of the executives responsible for the financial crisis. General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner stepped down under pressure from [...]
Beyond the Fields: Yes We Can!
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In spite of the victory we had on November 4th, the fight for social and economic justice in the United States is far from over. Barack Obama has emphasized the need for all of us to pitch in and make this country better. His administration has opened the lines of communication to everyday Americans by [...]
The Debate to Come over Wall Street, Autos, and Everything Else: Cyclical or Structural?
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by Robert Reich – First prediction for 2009: A widening gap between the public’s view of the bailouts of Wall Street and Detroit, and the views of the direct beneficiaries. The public believes the bailouts will permanently change these industries, but industry insiders don’t really want to change.
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