Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
In the past two decades there has been a sharp drop in the share of national income going to working- and middle-class Americans. As the discontent among these workers begins to affect their livelihoods and the entire nation’s politics, policy makers must either hope the market will somehow fix wage stagnation or enact policies to…
Getty In an age of unprecedented inequality, Senate Republicans still found the gall to pass a tax plan in the early hours of Saturday morning that constitutes an enormous transfer of wealth from the poor to the very wealthy. As The New York Times reported on Friday: “By 2027, people making $40,000 to $50,000 would…
Image by Jim Cooke/ GMG Blue blazers. Blue checked shirts. Collar open. No tie. Brown shoes. Black shoes. Or Nike shoes. New, new, all new. Soft leather satchels with bold brass zippers. Good cufflinks. Good watches. Better than you know. Hundred dollar haircuts. Straight razored shaves. Shaped cuticles. Manicured nails. Clean, soft, tailored. New. Talking…
It is time for polite, respectable, rational people to start saying what has become painfully obvious: It is time to stop respecting the rich, and start stealing from them. In earnest. Inequality is eating America alive. It has been growing for decades. To say that “the American dream is dead” is no longer a poetic…
Google has discriminated against its female employees, according to the US Department of Labor (DoL), which said it had evidence of “systemic compensation disparities”. As part of an ongoing DoL investigation, the government has collected information that suggests the internet search giant is violating federal employment laws with its salaries for women, agency officials said….
The good news: our relatively strong economy helped to raise wages for everyone in 2016. The bad news: this is a mere blip in the context of overall inequality. And it’s likely to get worse. The Economic Policy Institute today released its annual report on the state of wages in America. Last year had some…
“CEO” is a term for someone who is paid more money than you because they are able to project a large degree of confidence about their wrong ideas. Don’t take my word for it—it’s science! The duties of CEOs vary somewhat from company to company, but they all have a few things in common: They…
Image by Jim Cooke Realistically, there is only one way out of our predicament. We know that we live in an age of staggering economic inequality. The top 10% of earners now take in nearly half of all our national income, a portion that has been rising steadily since the Reagan era. Meanwhile, the average…
The claim that if wages go up, jobs go down isn’t a description of reality at all. It is a negotiating strategy used by employers to keep wages down and profits high, writes billionaire venture capitalist and $15 minimum wage proponent Nick Hanauer. Photo by Brendan McDermid/Reuters Editor’s Note: This column is reproduced with permission…
There is little empathy at the top. Most of America’s richest think poor people have it easy in this country, according to a new report released by the Pew Research Center. The center surveyed a nationally representative group of people this past fall, and found that the majority of the country’s most financially secure citizens…