Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
The wealth gap between blacks and whites in America will take hundreds of years to close — if ever. If current trends persist, it will take 228 years for black families to accumulate the same amount of wealth as whites, according to a report released this week from the Corporation for Economic Development and the…
Where poor people live: Flickr Who gives the best advice? You, the idiots slacking off at your stupid job, reading Gawker. One wealthy mom desperately needs your help! This question was posted today on UrbanBaby.com, the best website on the internet, full of advice-seeking wealthy parents, some of whom are real. We have taken the…
Occupy Wall Street protestors. Photo via Flickr user Paul Stein It’s not news to anyone that the economy fucking sucks for pretty much everyone in the world who isn’t a Koch. Since the financial meltdown of 2008, discussions about the 99 percent, wealth inequality, and the many related economic and social issues have been prominent….
Debt is an unwelcome guest at the table in many American households. The average U.S. household with debt carries $15,310 in credit card debt and $132,086 in total debt. It’s easy to say we should simply pay off our balances and free ourselves of the burdens — financial and emotional — that come with…
Citibank reported holding $175.6 billion in consumer credit in its 2016 Q2 earnings. – Justin Sullivan/Getty Images U.S. banks are lending to consumers at the fastest rate since 2007 and the increasing debt is causing concern given the slowing economy, the Financial Times (subscription required) reported this week. Lenders issued $18 billion in debt debt for card loans…
FOSHAN, China—In a steamy room full of small appliances, Zhao Guoyao frowned over a pot of rice. Mr. Zhao, a product manager at appliance giant Midea Group, 000333 1.01 %wants to make a better rice cooker. It is one small part of a nationwide push to make quality goods for a burgeoning middle class, a process that will help…
This article originally appeared on Capital & Main. What if millions of American workers were being denied health insurance, job security and the most basic legal protections, from overtime pay to workers compensation to the right to join a union? What if tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer revenues — money desperately needed to…
I wrote last week about the new nonfiction book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance, the Yale Law School graduate who grew up in the poverty and chaos of an Appalachian clan. The book is an American classic, an extraordinary testimony to the brokenness of the…
The Republican party wants my liberal vote. This was the most shocking wave to wash over my brain last week as I sat in the convention center in Cleveland. It was more startling in its way than the storm of hate that I saw descend on former GOP hero Ted Cruz, stranger than the absence…