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A valentine for you
When I began this newsletter almost five months ago I had no idea what I was doing. I still don’t. But your enthusiastic response, thoughtful comment…
3 years, 10 months ago
Personal History: Why Labor Secretary Marty Walsh should stay the hell away from baseball
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh says he’s ready to step up to the plate and help end Major League Baseball’s lockout.
My advice to Marty, as former labor…
3 years, 10 months ago
What's happened to income and wealth in America over the past 40 years? - Wealth and Poverty Class 1
Good morning and welcome to the first day of class!
The questions we’ll focus on today: Is some inequality both inevitable and necessary? At what poin…
3 years, 11 months ago
How do employers shaft workers? Let me count the ways.
More inflation buzz today. The U.S. consumer price index for January rose at an annual rate of 7.5 percent, the largest such increase since 1982.
Yes,…
3 years, 11 months ago
How can we be so publicly miserable and so privately happy?
Many people tell me America is going to hell.
But when I ask them how their own lives are going, they say pretty well.
This discrepancy between how p…
3 years, 11 months ago
The Week Ahead: The Four Horsemen of the Neoliberal Apocalypse
The biggest stories this week are likely to be the continuing standoff between NATO (led by the United States) and Putin in the Ukraine, the new Russ…
3 years, 11 months ago
Caption contest resumes next Sunday. Today, background watching in preparation for "Wealth and Poverty" starting Friday
Thank you so much for joining me in this community. It’s an experiment in group learning and teaching about the American system — and it’s succeeding…
3 years, 11 months ago
The Fed is about to shaft American workers
Today’s January jobs report is heightening fears that a so-called “tight” labor market is fueling inflation, and that therefore the Fed must put on t…
3 years, 11 months ago
So you don't think labor unions have a future?
As former secretary of labor, I’m always interested in the annual count of unionized workers issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This year’s co…
3 years, 11 months ago
How to get teenagers to read important books
When I was a young teenager near the middle of the last century, I asked the high school librarian if I could borrow J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in t…
3 years, 11 months ago