Seth Hoy: As Arizona-style enforcement legislation continues to work its way through state legislatures, local business and industry groups are beginning to realize just how much these laws will affect the way they do business.
The Jobs Report, and America’s Two Economies
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Robert Reich: With corporate profits are through the roof, the Dow is flirting with 12,000, Wall Street paychecks are fat again, and big corporations are sitting on more than $1 trillion in cash, you’d expect jobs be coming back. But you’d be wrong.
How Cheap Food Is Destabilizing Global Economy
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Nick Cullather: The global economy includes the global countryside, and the return of prosperity will have to begin there.
Breaking China—Legally
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Walter Brasch: Although China is the world’s second largest economic power behind the U.S. and this country’s largest creditor, there is no need to fear either its economy or its military power. It has already sown the seeds of its own destruction.
The American Dream
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Tom Degan: This, I believe, is one of the most important and educational films ever made. It explains in terms easy to understand (and with brilliant satirical insight) what has happened to this once-great nation, and why we all need to stand up and take it back.
Should Kwanzaa Stay in Black Neighborhoods?
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Rev. Irene Monroe: This Kwanzaa holiday, I’ll head out to the neighborhood store to purchase my red, black and green candles for the kinara, because I know that the strength of the U.S. economy is found in its multicultural small community owned businesses that reflect our nation’s diversity. And in so doing, I would also be honoring the fourth principle of Kwanzaa which is cooperative economics.
The U.S. Economy in 2011
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Robert Reich: The two American economies — the Big Money economy and the Average Working Family economy — will continue to diverge. Corporate profits will continue to rise, as will the stock market. But typical wages will go nowhere, joblessness will remain high, the ranks of the long-term unemployed will continue to rise, the housing recovery will remain stalled, and consumer confidence will sag.
Reaganomics Redux
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Robert Reich: The only practical effect of adding $858 billion to the deficit will be to put more pressure on Democrats to reduce non-defense spending of all sorts, including Social Security and Medicare, as well as education and infrastructure.
Why America’s Two Economies Continue to Drift Apart
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Robert Reich: Nothing is trickling down to the Average Worker economy. Job growth is still anemic. Unemployment won’t get down to pre-recession levels for 20 years. And almost half of October’s new jobs were in temporary help.
From the Top of the Acropolis: How Greece’s Economy Imploded
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Steven Hill: When the true size of Greece’s deficit was revealed to the world, the bonds markets went berserk. The interest rates on Greece’s sovereign debt spiked to unheard of proportions, threatening the solvency of the government, and the rest is history.
Boosting the Economy—One Big Screen TV at a Time
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Walter Brasch: Overall, America is slowly on the path to recovery. But, to those who lost their jobs and then their homes, it just doesn’t seem that way.
The Internet Changes Nothing
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Marshall Poe: In the end, the message is the message, and the message transmitted over virtually all modern media, the Internet included, is this: buy something. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just the way things are in our world. It’s time to face it—the Internet changes nothing.
The Big Economic Story; Why Obama Isn’t Telling It
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Robert Reich: In reality, the lousy economy is due to insufficient demand – the result of the nation’s almost unprecedented concentration of income at the top.
Sarah Palin’s Presidential Strategy, and the Economy She Depends on
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Robert Reich: The Republican establishment doesn’t get it. Celebrity is part of The Palin Strategy – as is avoiding the insider game. She doesn’t want to do what Huckabee, Pawlenty, Gingrich, or Romney have to do. She has an outside game.
Unless Congress Acts, A Bleak Holiday Season for Millions
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Carl Bloice: If Congress does not vote over the next week and a half to re-authorize federal unemployment benefits through next year, before they expire November 30, nearly 2 million women and men and their families will face a dismal holiday season.
Why the Lame Duck Congress Must Extend Jobless Benefits For Hard-Hit Families But Not Tax Cuts For the Rich
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Robert Reich: Don’t extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy. Give unemployment benefits to people who need them.
The Failure of the G-20 Summit
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Robert Reich: It’s always nice to talk about international cooperation, and to create global photo ops. But the truth is much more needs to be done to ease tensions that are moving the global economy closer to the brink of outright protectionism
The Republican Recipe for An Anemic Economy Through Election Day 2012
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Robert Reich: The real message from voters was “Fix this stinking economy.” But Republicans have no intention of doing so. With Republicans in control of the House, forget spending increases or tax cuts to stimulate the economy.
U.S. Border Czar Calls on Congress to Get Serious about Immigration Reform
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Seth Hoy: While some candidates continue to make political fodder out of immigration and border security on the campaign trail, administration officials are pushing Congress to get real about overhauling our broken immigration system.
The Fed’s New Bubble (Masquerading as a Jobs Program)
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Robert Reich: The latest jobs bill coming out of Washington isn’t really a bill at all. It’s the Fed’s attempt to keep long-term interest rates low by pumping even more money into the economy (“quantiative easing” in Fed-speak).
Voting. . .It’s Important
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Eric Bauman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party sent this video to remind us all that Election Day is around the corner and California has a clear choice to make. Says Bauman, “While Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina and their Republican cronies hope to protect right-wing conservative special interests and their “friends” on Wall Street, Democrats are [...]
The President’s Backyard Discussion of the Economy (as It Could Be)
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Robert Reich: As Obama continued his economic tour with backyard discussions on the challenges currently facing the middle class, according to the White House. Here’s an imagined version of that discussion
Why No Amount of Fiscal or Monetary Stimulus Will Be Enough
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Robert Reich: The Fed’s decision Tuesday to keep short-term interest rates near zero is no surprise. What’s odd is its apparent decision not to boost the economy by buying hundreds of billions of bonds — despite its acknowledgment that ”the pace of recovery in output and employment has slowed in recent months,” and that prices are rising too slowly for comfort (i.e., we might be facing deflation).
Why There’s An Enthusiasm Gap: An Illustration
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Robert Reich: Super-rich financiers on Wall Street and top corporate executives have grown richer, though most Americans are getting poorer.
Frog Economy?—A Reaction to Professor Reich’s Tortoise Economy
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Bob Letcher: The workforce has become as dilapidated as the proverbial rust-belt factory. It took a long time for us all to get us all into this mess, and it’s going to take at least as long for us all to work ourselves back out of it
The Real Lesson of Labor Day
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Robert Reich: Face it: The national economy isn’t escaping the gravitational pull of the Great Recession. None of the standard booster rockets are working.
States Pushing Anti-Immigration Legislation Forced to Run Costly Damage Control
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Seth Hoy: As politicians continue to take a “get tough on immigration” stance in the run up to midterm elections, voters may decide that their pocketbooks trump their politics when it comes to immigration.
The Stock Market Rally Versus the World’s Economic Fundamentals
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Robert Reich: The real economy is jobs and paychecks, what people buy and what they sell. And the real economy — even viewed from a worldwide perspective — is as precarious as ever, perhaps more so.
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