Category Archives: The destruction of the middle class

Another Disease of Despair: Rise in Hepatitis C Among Opioid Users

A rise in hepatitis C, another public health crisis in the making, shows the high cost of neglecting job creation and social safety nets.

Tim O’Reilly: It’s Time to Rewrite the Rules of Our Economy

The economy game is enormously fun for far too few players and an increasingly miserable experience for many others.

Trump Administration Picks Bizarre Fight With IMF Over Report Backing Taxing the Rich

The IMF makes a careful case for more redistribution.

“Worse Than Big Tobacco”: How Big Pharma Fuels the Opioid Epidemic

How an out-of-control opioid industry is threatening public health on a mammoth scale.

Wolf Richter: The Big Amazon Subsidy is Doomed

Amazon is losing more and more ground to states out to collect sales taxes.

CFPB Issues Payday Lending Rule: Will it Hold, as the Empire Will Strike Back

How big a victory is the CFPB’s new payday lending rule for consumers of financial services? And will it hold– as the industry fights back.

Uber Board Members Kiss and Make Up (for Now), but Long-Term Problems Remain

Uber may have bought itself more time with a conditional pact among its big shareholders, but it hasn’t solved its fundamental problems.

Hy Minsky, Low Finance: Modern Money, Civil Rights, and Consumer Debt

MMT’s ultimate contribution to consumer finance is showing a world beyond the “Let Them Eat Debt or Let Them Eat Cash” approaches.

Jared Bernstein Shows the Costs of Not Understanding Sovereign Currencies

Jared Bernstein, like his fellow fauxgressives, endorses deficit hysteria instead of policies based on how our money system works.

Occupy the SEC Calls Out Regulator’s Absurd Push to Neuter Volcker Rule

Occupy SEC calls out OCC nonsense on need to reform– gut– the Volcker Rule’s proprietary trading limits for TBTF banks. Will anyone listen?

Gaius Publius: Obama Follows Clinton, Boards the Millionaire Speech Train to Wall Street

Like Bill Clinton before him, ex-President Barack Obama has boarded the Wall Street-financed train to millionaire riches.

Too Big To Fail Banks: “The Robotics Are Coming!” Really?

More and more bank CEOs tout robotics as the answer for the industry’s precarious cost position. But will it promise more than it delivers?

California Has a System That Punishes the Poor Through Traffic Violations—Civil Rights Groups Are Starting to Change That

Law enforcement for profit in California

Corporate Contractors: The High End of the Precariat (Updated)

The stressful life of downwardly mobile corporate contractors.