Sam Pizzigati: Satisfaction and Smiles in an Unequal World
If President Obama played basketball with the king of Bhutan, would the world have a better shot at becoming a happier place?
Columns on Inequality
Salvatore Babones: Inequality and Growth
The inequality and growth debate is a red herring. It just doesn’t matter. The problem is inequality, and its solution is simple.
Polly Cleveland: Grover Norquist Is Right to Oppose Internet Sales Taxes
Sales taxes — of whatever stripe — fall harder on poorer than richer customers. And they squeeze smaller retailers more than big ones.
Sam Pizzigati: A Promising Path for Pummeling Plutocracy
Looking for a quick fix to inequality? Stop your searching. We need to strategize instead for the long-term. A riveting new work helps us see how.
Salvatore Babones: Why Are Luxury Car Sales Growing at Record Rates — In a Recession?
How can sales of super-luxury cars grow at super-fast rates during a recession? The answer is simple: it’s not a recession for everyone.
Sam Pizzigati: From a Sloppy Spreadsheet, an Eternal Truth
The lesson of the Reinhart-Rogoff affair: If we let wealth continue to concentrate — and corrupt our societies — we’ll all end up crying ‘96 tears.’
Salvatore Babones: Exploding the Debt Threshold Myth
Following on the heels of the 2008 global financial crisis and the associated spike in government borrowing in Europe and the United States, the Reinhart-Rogoff paper quickly became a touchstone for the small-government crowd. Austerity is the order of the day. Reinhart and Rogoff are its prophets.
Salvatore Babones: Inequality, Greed, and the Demise of our Better Natures
Greed is not good, and high inequality is making all of us greedier than we should, or could, be.
Sam Pizzigati: Not the Picture Picasso Would Have Painted
A colossal gift from a fabulously rich patron of the arts has the museum world buzzing. But hold the hosannahs. The rich aren’t saving us.
Salvatore Babones: Government Exists to Serve the People, not the Privileged
Call it vote-buying if you want, but when a government effectively buys the votes of 80 or 90 percent of the population, I call that government of the people, by the people, for the people.