Hypocrites with Fat Wallets: CEOs Want It All
America's top corporate executives love lecturing the rest of us about 'fiscal responsibility.' They want us to expect less from government. But they expect more, and a new report shows...
Research & Commentary
From academics to activists, thoughtful people worldwide are focusing their attention on economic inequality as never before.
Why Are Luxury Car Sales Growing at Record Rates — In a Recession?
The world has been mired in recession since 2008 -- nowhere more so than in Europe. It might thus come as some surprise that sales of super-luxury cars are booming...
Looting the Treasury to Benefit Big Insurance
Do you know how much the cuts in Social Security benefits now getting debated in Congress will ‘save’ America? Not nearly as much as a tax loophole that benefits the...
From a Sloppy Spreadsheet, an Eternal Truth
If we let wealth continue to concentrate — and corrupt every element of our contemporary societies — we'll all end up crying ‘96 tears.’ Aging baby boomers may remember, from...
Exploding the Debt Threshold Myth
In January 2010, two prominent Harvard University economists, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, published a highly influential paper in which they argued that high levels of government debt are associated with low...
The Only CEO Pay Number that Really Matters
How much did America's top execs make last year? The scorekeepers don't all agree. But that won't matter if we keep our eyes on the most important figure of all: the pay gap between CEOs and workers.
Inequality, Greed, and the Demise of our Better Natures
Contrary to popular wisdom, most people are basically descent. Most people want to do good in their lives, to be useful, to make the world a better place. All other...
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. Thomas Campbell didn't have a...
Retirement Vehicle or Giveaway to the Rich?
The uproar over the future Social Security benefit cutbacks in the new White House budget proposal has overshadowed a little-known retirement tax break that, unlike Social Security, really does need...
At Tax Time, Our Emperors Have No Clothes
Today's conventional wisdom in Congress on taxing the rich — that tax rates on income at our economic summit have gone as high as they can sensibly go — has...