Category Archives: The destruction of the middle class

More Evidence That Charter Schools Are a Taxpayer Ripoff That Delivers Poor Results

A damning new report from California shows that charter schools are a grift that profits investors at the expense of taxpayers and children.

It’s Not the Gig Economy, Stupid

Why the decline in labor unions has had a bigger impact on the fallen state of wage workers than the much ballyhooed gig economy.

IMF Blames Fall of Middle Class on Globalization and Technology

An IMF report comes up with some orthodoxy-reinfocing conclusions by failing to address some key issues.

Goodbye Fiduciary Rule? Department of Labor Delays Implementation Until June

Implementation is now delayed until June, yet the steps many firms have taken to comply suggest the fiduciary rule will survive in some form.

Wolf Richter: Great Debt Unwind: Consumer Bankruptcies Jump, First Since 2010; Commercial Bankruptcies Spike

Both consumer and commercial bankruptcies spiked in March– and the oil bust’s not to blame.

Globalization and the End of the Labor Aristocracy, Part 1

How labor benefitted from imperialism, and how its advantages were eroded as multinationals became important as international enforcers.

The Global Corporate Saving Glut

The corporate savings glut has been long in the making. It’s a sign of capitalists abandoning their role of investing to pursue growth.

Big Companies Shake Fingers at Employees for Raiding 401(k)s

401(k) “leakage” is yet another sign of the wobbly state of many Americans’ finances.

Wolf Richter: This Economy is Ruined for Many Americans

The lower tier of the two-tier economy is not faring at all well.

Ilargi: Our Economies Run On Housing Bubbles

A look at the long-term role of home price bubbles in multiple countries.

Inequality in the US: A Tale of Two Countries

A look at US inequality, before and after tax and transfers.

Inequality Update: Who Gains When Income Grows?

In a perverse reversal of historical norms, more growth produces more inequality as a result of economic policy and changes in legal rights.

MIchael Hudson: The Democracy Collaborative

Michael Hudson gives new riffs on his regular themes: classical economics and its perversion by Hayek, rentier capitalism, debt jubilees.