Quelle Surprise! Crappy Labor Market Leads to Rise in Public Perception of Unions
In a new article at the Prospect, Harold Meyerson tells us that unions are getting higher marks than they did a few years ago:
Read more...Category Archives: The destruction of the middle class
ObamaCare Rollout: Punts on Income Verification and Employer Insurance Checks, Setting Stage for Insurers to Call Mistakes “Fraud” and Rescind Policies
By lambert strether of Corrente.
Obama’s career transition from selling hope and change to selling insurance seems to be, at least so far, a wee bit rocky. Kudos to WaPo’s Sarah Kliff and Sandhya Somashekhar for breaking the story of the newest #FAIL, which required them to process 600 pages of dense HHS prose on July 5; a classic Friday document dump, with bonus points for the holiday weekend, and super double bonus sparkle pony points for following hard on the heels of another huge #FAIL, Obama’s triage of the employer reporting mandate (chirped White House apparatchick Valerie Jarrett: “We are full steam ahead for the Marketplaces [exchanges] opening on October 1.” Right onto the rocks, Val!). Kliff and Somashekhar write:
Read more...It’s Time to Levy the Land
Yves here. While some of the concerns in this post are specific to Australia, they can be readily translated to other property regimes. The part that is missing, however, is that the US relies on “real estate taxes” which includes the value of the buildings on the land. Michael Hudson has advocated taxing land much more heavily, since unlike taxing capital or labor, it does not burden the economy with higher costs . As he explains in a 2009 interview:
Read more...Why Have Student Loans At All? Let’s Get the Burdens of Debt off College Students’ Backs — And Make Wall St. Pick Up the Tab
Higher education used to be free for millions of Americans. A transaction tax on the financial houses could help make it free again
Read more...Summer Rerun: Why Don’t Americans Take More Vacations? Blame It on Independence Day
If you think Independence Day came to be a national holiday as an organic expression of pride in our successful rebellion against England, you need to think twice.
Read more...US: Desperately Seeking Income
By Leith van Onselen, Chief Economist of Macro Investor, Australia’s independent investment newsletter covering trades, stocks, property and yield. You can follow him on Twitter at @leithvo. Cross posted from MacroBusiness
Westpac Institutional Bank yesterday released a sobering note (below) on the ongoing income squeeze taking place in the US.
Read more...“The Political History of American Inequality”
Inquality.org, which is a portal for news and data about income inequality, has published a particularly well-presented paper, The Political History of American Inequality, by Colin Gordon, a professor of history at the University of Iowa who has focused on 20th century American public policy and political economy. I’ve sampled it, and it’s clear and engagingly written and has great interactive chart porn,
Read more...Sherrod Brown Wimps Out on Secret Trade Negotiations In USTR Vote; Elizabeth Warren Takes Risk in Bucking Obama
Has Sherrod Brown started to follow Obama’s lead in the bait and switch category? Elizabeth Warren showed a lot more spine than he did in an trade-related vote on Wednesday.
Read more...More Obama Administration Secrecy: Rep. Grayson Can’t Discuss Classified Trans-Pacific Partnership Draft
OK, you remaining Obama fans: tell me why we should trust the biggest baiter and switcher in the history of the Presidency, particularly when he insists on unprecedented levels of secrecy? Because he has nice teeth and cute kids?
Read more...Lynn Parramore: Meet America’s Most Shameless Defender of the 1 Percent, Harvard Economist Greg Mankiw
Readers were duly exercised about a paper published by Greg Mankiw which had to go through so many hoops to promote the idea that inequality was the result of merit as to be worthy of our Frederic Mishkin Iceland Prize for Intellectual Integrity.
Suffice it to say further ridicule of Mankiw is in order, and Parramore provides a useful contribution.
Read more...NYU Administrators Create Student Debt Slaves to Subsidize Summer Homes, Ginormous Pensions
When union members demand decent pay levels and work conditions, they are charged with featherbedding and overmanning or the new neoliberal catchall, “demanding uncompetitive wages”. But when the upper crust loots institutions, the mainstream media is typically missing in action.
Read more...The Party is Over: Children, Clean up the House! Lessons from the Turkish #OccupyGezi
Yves here. This post swings for the fence, but still makes an important point about how the uprising in Turkey differs from Arab Spring and the Orange Revolution.
Read more...Joe Firestone: What Social Security/Medicare Solvency Problem?
Joe Firestone reviews the state of play on the Social Security/Medicare “reform” debate.
Read more...Yanis Varoufakis: Occupying the Closure of Greek Public TV (Journalists at BBC, ABC, and CBC, Take Note). Updated
For those of us who grew up in the Greece of the neo-fascist colonels, nothing can stir up painful memories like a modern act of totalitarianism. When the television screen froze last night, an hour before midnight, as if some sinister power from beyond had pressed a hideous pause button, I was suddenly transported to the 60s and early 70s when a disruption in television or radio output was a sure sign that another coup d’ etat was in the offing. The only difference was that last night the screen just froze; with journalists still appearing tantalisingly close to finishing their sentence. At least the colonels had the good sense of pasting a picture of the Greek flag, accompanied by military tunes…
Read more...Sasha Breger: More Ways That Financiers Suck Wealth From Agricultural Providers (and Ultimately, You)
By Sasha Breger, a lecturer at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and author of the recent book Derivatives and Development. Her research includes global finance, derivatives, social policy, food, and farming. Cross posted from Triple Crisis
In my last two posts (http://triplecrisis.com/a-great-sucking-sound-part-2/, http://triplecrisis.com/a-great-sucking-sound-part-1/), I addressed the roles of debt, farmland acquisition, and physical commodity hoarding in helping finance siphon wealth from global agriculture. In this final post, I discuss the role of derivatives and insurance markets in this redistributive process.
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