Randy Shaw: Joe Biden gave the type of debate performance that, if given by Barack Obama last week, would have ended the race. Obama supporters can only hope that the President was carefully taking notes.
The Biggest Impact of Lugar Primary Defeat
By
Randy Shaw: Centrist solutions are what kept slavery going for decades, and what allowed Senators who backed Jim Crow laws to be treated as respected figures in the national press.
Thoughts on Tax Day 2012
By
Robert Reich: I worry about the well-financed big lies that the very rich are the nation’s “job creators,” that the benefits from tax cuts on the rich “trickle down” to everyone else.
Mitt’s Low-Tax Killing
By
Robert Reich: Now that Mitt Romney is the presumed Republican candidate, it’s fair to ask how he made so much money ($21 million in 2010 alone) and paid such a low tax rate (only 14.9 percent).
Financial Crisis Prosecutions Too Hard?
By
Marian Wang: According to a now-departed Justice Department official who used to be in charge of investigating such matters, the Justice Department has decided that holding top Wall Street executives criminally accountable is too difficult a task.
Willful Deafness to Occupy Wall Street
By
Tina Dupuy: Politicians won’t take personal responsibility for the crisis – and so Occupy Wall Street has no choice but to be nonpartisan. Or just bipartisan in their frustration.
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, GOP Fiscal Terrorists
By
Jerry Drucker: The strongest answer to date in stopping the GOP onslaught is to replicate the wonderful and wise voters of Wisconsin.
The Coming Shutdowns and Showdowns: What’s Really at Stake
By
Robert Reich: Public budgets are in trouble because revenues plummeted over the last two years of the Great Recession. They’re also in trouble because of tax giveaways to the rich.
Why Inequality Matters
By
Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: The only alternative available to working people that offers real prospects for success are mass mobilizations in the streets and strikes – the kind of militant struggles that scored so many gains in the 1930s.
Civic-Minded Plutocrats
By
Joseph Palermo: Wouldn’t it be something if the Bin Ladens of the world funneled untraceable cash into Republican candidates’ coffers because they know they can count on the GOP to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two of their greatest recruiting vehicles?
The Perfect Storm
By
Robert Reich: The perfect storm: An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top; a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy; and a public becoming increasingly angry and cynical about a government that’s raising its taxes, reducing its services, and unable to get it back to work.
Super Rich Get Richer, Everyone Else Gets Poorer, Democrats Punt
By
Robert Reich: Only twice before in American history has so much been held by so few, and the gap between them and the great majority been a chasm — the late 1920s, and the era of the robber barons in the 1880s.
Of Course Poverty Is On the Rise In Charles Dickens’ America
By
David Love: That anyone can actually utter the words “the recession is over” at a time of mass unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness and general despair tells you all you need to know about America. The nation actually exists as two nations: the few that have, and the many who don’t.
Closing Tax Loopholes For Billionaires
By
Robert Reich: It’s not as if these investment fund managers are worth a $20 billion subsidy. Nonetheless they argue that if they have to pay at the normal rate they’ll be discouraged from investing in innovative companies and startups. But if such investments are worthwhile they shouldn’t need to be subsidized. Besides, in the years leading up to the crash of 2008, hedge-fund and private equity fund managers weren’t exactly models of public service. Many speculated in ways that destabilized the whole financial system.
Peter Baker and David Herszenhorn: Wall Street Reform Reporting Lacking
By
Joseph Palermo: The massive trading and swapping of Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) and other abstractions cooked up by the fertile minds of sociopathic Wall Street “traders” not only did nothing to lubricate the real economy through financial intermediation, but they helped bring down the entire system and cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
Stock Ownership: Theory vs. Reality
By
Ron Wolff: I can’t help wondering how much more I (and millions of other Americans) could be earning from our stock portfolios if the billions of dollars paid in executive compensation (based on rationale that is marginal at best) were distributed to the shareholders.
Color of Law: New York, City of the Poor
By
As the song goes, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere, it’s up to you, New York, New York.” The problem is that if you are counting on making it in New York City, you could be setting yourself up for disappointment. A recent report by The Center for an Urban Future [...]
Excuse Me, But I Am A Real American
By
by Charley James – For the past several weeks, John McCain, Sarah Palin and their surrogates have been busily dividing America into two categories: Real and, I guess, pretend Americans. To Republicans, Election 2008 is junior high school all over again, complete with cliques and slam books. Us and them. The cool kids and the [...]
PCL offers monthly Open House Events on the 2nd Saturday at 2pm and 3rd Thursday at 6pm. Click here to learn more.
Recent Comments