Myths of Economic Statistics
The American economy is growing. It's not roaring, but it's growing, and at a good pace. According to the latest figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real US gross...
Articles
Are Heartless People Simply Born That Way?
People who cut food stamps — and gut child labor laws — most all had empathy when they came into the world. So what squeezed the empathy out? Analysts are...
Rupert Murdoch’s Political Homecoming
Fox News may have failed to have an impact on the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election in the United States, but media organizations controlled by Rupert Murdoch celebrated a...
Amid Record Pay, CEOs Aren’t Celebrating
America's top execs don't have the time to party. They're too busy waging a corporate holy war against what may be the most promising check yet on executive pay excess....
Do We Need Another Rolls-Royce Showroom?
A tiny tax on global personal wealth over $1 million could ensure that no child anywhere on the planet has to live in extreme poverty. By Sam Pizzigati [caption id="attachment_5767"...
A Politics Really Worse than Watergate?
If the Supreme Court chooses to erase our remaining post-Watergate campaign finance reforms, Richard Nixon's scandalous reign may come to seem — thanks to growing inequality — mere kid's play....
After the Shutdown, Maybe a Little Equality?
Executives at private companies with federal contracts are getting rich off our tax dollars — at the expense of their low-wage workers. But we can turn the tables. Here's how....
The Year Persistence Edged Plutocracy
Exactly a hundred years ago, decades of progressive struggle finally paid off and outfitted America with a tool for braking the unlimited accumulation of grand private fortune. By Sam Pizzigati The...
A Documentary Antidote to a Future ‘Elysium’
From gated communities in outer space to graphs about who owns the wealth, two new films are giving Americans a window into the issue of income inequality Matt Damon...
Federal Regulators Finally ‘Mind the Gap’
The long-delayed SEC disclosure rule on CEO-worker pay turns out to be surprisingly strong. The power-suit reaction? More bombast. [caption id="attachment_5698" align="alignright" width="300"] The CEO pay debate inside the SEC's...
Taxing Carbon is Like Taxing Diamonds
To reduce carbon emissions, we must tax fossil fuels—but, say the pundits, we can’t do so because the tax would be regressive, clobbering the poor. In general, sales taxes are...
Let the Government Default on Its Bonds — And Build a Better Budget on the Ruins
Conventional wisdom in Washington and New York is that a US default on its interest payments due to bond investors is unthinkable. Editorial after editorial proclaims that a US default...