Our Chronic Cronyism — and Corruption
America's top bankers and CEO's don't have any more talent than millions of other Americans. They do have, two timely new data dumps remind us, plenty of generous friends in...
Articles
Swedes and Suicide: A Fresh Perspective
Why do Swedes and citizens of other relatively equal nations take their lives at a higher rate than residents of more unequal nations? Four investigators have tapped a wealth of...
A Window into America’s Executive Suites
The data in the latest executive compensation survey from the AFL-CIO effectively debunk the justifications for excessive pay that come from CEO flacks — and buttress the Dodd-Frank reform act provision that requires major firms to disclose the pay ratio between their top execs and typical workers.
The Hazards in Our Fairytale Marketplace
We’ve come to expect, here early in the 21st century, that business will abuse workers, at every opportunity. We’ve watched corporate leaders downsize and outsource, slash benefits, raid pension funds,...
Our Trickle-Down Achievement Gap
Growing economic inequality, new research details, is translating into an ever greater achievement gap in America's classrooms. His vitally important central finding: That achievement gap most certainly — and most...
Executive Pay Excess: A New Battlefront
Taxpayers, once again this year, are subsidizing over-the-top CEO pay by the billions. But now on the table: a promising new proposal that encourages corporations to share that excess —...
A Time When Government Never Shut Down
Did America’s rich 50 years ago live on a different planet? Or reside in some parallel universe? Taxing today’s rich could, of course, help fill these budget shortfalls and avoid...
A Ghost from a Ghastly Public Policy Past
House budget-cutters are taking their inspiration from the greatest giveaway — to the rich — artist the nation's capital has ever known. You won’t find many photos with smiles on...
How Inequality Quite Literally Kills
Why do we have murders? The “police procedurals” that dominate prime-time TV almost invariably end up blaming deranged delinquents. But the global academic “near consensus,” notes the just-released first Research...
America’s Billion-Dollar-a-Year Men
Hedge fund honchos bet on stocks. They bet on gold. They bet on lawsuits. Most of all, they bet that the rest of us will never wise up to the...
A New Record Hedge Fund Windfall
The hedge fund industry’s trade journal has just released its annual figures for hedge fund manager earnings. The big winner for 2010: John Paulson. His winnings: the biggest ever, an...
U.S. Wealth: A Second Opinion
The dust has now settled from the 2008 financial crash. The money, too. The question of the day: In whose pockets? Two sets of researchers have offered answers to that...