Evidence suggests jobs are crucial not only to economic well-being but also to self-esteem.
— Robert Reich
Standing up to bullies is the hallmark of a civilized society.
The 'free market' is the product of laws and rules continuously emanating from legislatures, executive departments, and courts.
One tax dodge often used by multi-national companies is to squirrel their earnings abroad in foreign subsidiaries located in countries where taxes are lower.
As income from work has become more concentrated in America, the super rich have invested in businesses, real estate, art, and other assets. The income from these assets is now concentrating even faster than income from work.
Instead of worrying about who's American and who's not, here's a better idea: Create incentives for any global company to do what we'd like it to do in the United States.
What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society.
Patagonia, a large apparel manufacturer based in Ventura, California, has organized itself as a 'B-corporation.' That's a for-profit company whose articles of incorporation require it to take into account the interests of workers, the community, and the environment, as well as shareholders.
Political scientists after World War II hypothesized that even though the voices of individual Americans counted for little, most people belonged to a variety of interest groups and membership organizations - clubs, associations, political parties, unions - to which politicians were responsive.
What are called 'public schools' in many of America's wealthy communities aren't really 'public' at all. In effect, they're private schools, whose tuition is hidden away in the purchase price of upscale homes there, and in the corresponding property taxes.
Technology is changing so fast that knowledge about specifics can quickly become obsolete. That's why so much of what technicians learn is on the job.
Official boundaries are often hard to see. If you head north on Woodward Avenue, away from downtown Detroit, you wouldn't know exactly when you left the city and crossed over into Oakland County - except for a small sign that tells you.
Average working people need more fresh starts. Big corporations, banks, and Donald Trump need fewer.
In America, people with lots of money can easily avoid the consequences of bad bets and big losses by cashing out at the first sign of trouble.
Conservatives believe the economy functions better if the rich have more money and everyone else has less. But they're wrong. It's just the opposite.
America spends a fortune on drugs: more per person than any other nation on earth, even though Americans are no healthier than the citizens of other advanced nations.
Media outlets that are exploiting Ebola because they want a sensational story and politicians using it to their own ends ought to be ashamed.
It's true that redistributing income to the needy is politically easier in a growing economy than in a stagnant one.
Bankruptcy laws allow companies to smoothly reorganize, but not college graduates burdened by student loans.
Freedom is the one value conservatives place above all others, yet time and again, their ideal of freedom ignores the growing imbalance of power in our society that's eroding the freedoms of most people.
We don't have to sit by and watch our meritocracy be replaced by a permanent aristocracy, and our democracy be undermined by dynastic wealth.
In reality, most of America's poor work hard, often in two or more jobs.
Increasingly, corporate nationality is whatever a corporation decides it is.
Some argue shareholder capitalism has proven more efficient. It has moved economic resources to where they're most productive, and thereby enabled the economy to grow faster.
The monied interests are doing what they do best - making money. The rest of us need to do what we can do best - use our voices, our vigor, and our votes.
If we give up on politics, we're done for. Powerlessness is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
As we segregate by income into different communities, schools in lower-income areas have fewer resources than ever.
As digital equipment replaces the jobs of routine workers and lower-level professionals, technicians are needed to install, monitor, repair, test, and upgrade all the equipment.
Detroit is really a model for how wealthier and whiter Americans escape the costs of public goods they'd otherwise share with poorer and darker Americans.
Economies are risky. Some industries rise, and others implode, like housing. Some places get richer, and others drop, like Atlantic City. Some people get new jobs that pay better, many lose their jobs or their wages.
The only way to grow the economy in a way that benefits the bottom 90 percent is to change the structure of the economy. At the least, this requires stronger unions and a higher minimum wage.
America is one of few advanced nations that allow direct advertising of prescription drugs.
Government subsidies to elite private universities take the form of tax deductions for people who make charitable contributions to them.
More people are killed by stray bullets every day in America than have been killed by Ebola here. More are dying because of poverty and hunger.
America's real business leaders understand unless or until the middle class regains its footing and its faith, capitalism remains vulnerable.
Tax laws favor capital over labor, giving capital gains a lower rate than ordinary income. The rich get humongous mortgage interest deductions while renters get no deduction at all.
Even if there's no way to stop U.S. corporations from shedding their U.S. identities and becoming foreign corporations, there's no reason they should retain the privileges of U.S. citizenship.
We already have an annual wealth tax on homes, the major asset of the middle class. It's called the property tax. Why not a small annual tax on the value of stocks and bonds, the major assets of the wealthy?
Rather than subsidize 'American' exporters, it makes more sense to subsidize any global company - to the extent it's adding to its exports from the United States.
Most financiers, corporate lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants are competing with other financiers, lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants in zero-sum games that take money out of one set of pockets and put it into another.
In the 1980s, corporate raiders began mounting unfriendly takeovers of companies that could deliver higher returns to their shareholders - if they abandoned their other stakeholders.
The only way back toward a democracy and economy that work for the majority is for most of us to get politically active once again, becoming organized and mobilized.
Money buys the most experienced teachers, less-crowded classrooms, high-quality teaching materials, and after-school programs.
Community colleges are great bargains. They avoid the fancy amenities four-year liberal arts colleges need in order to lure the children of the middle class.
Too many young people graduate laden with debts that take years, if not decades, to pay off.
Sugary drinks are blamed for increasing the rates of chronic disease and obesity in America. Yet efforts to reduce their consumption through taxes or other measures have gone nowhere. The beverage industry has spent millions defeating them.
You might say those who can't repay their student debts shouldn't have borrowed in the first place. But they had no way of knowing just how bad the jobs market would become.
The job creators are members of America's vast middle class and the poor, whose purchases cause businesses to expand and invest.
Drug company payments to doctors are a small part of a much larger strategy by Big Pharma to clean our pockets.
Public fear isn't something to be played with.
