Category: News and Opinion

As a high school student back in Poland, Domestic Partner fomented rebellion.

The teacher in Charge of “Family Living in a Socialist Society” was giving a hygiene lecture.

Many people wonder why Republican legislators and Tea-Party members are so hard on President Obama.  Frederick Douglass may have given us the answer 128 years ago:

For the past near 40 years, more and more U.S. income has become concentrated at the top, as the average worker has earned less and less adjusted for inflation, and yet this had not been reflected either in what businesses could sell, or how most Americans lived. A rising share of Americans had a car, had more than one car, lived in bigger housing units with more bathrooms, had color TVs, had more than one TV, had air conditioners, ate meals prepared by others, and traveled on airplanes. Falling inflation-adjusted wages, particularly for younger generations, were offset by more workers per household as more women entered the labor force, and at first overall household income (and spending) kept rising. Then by lost future income, as defined benefit pensions were replaced by defined contribution retirement plans in the private sector, and then the defined contributions stopped. That didn’t effect past spending, but it will lead to much less spending by retirees when the affected younger generations reach old age. In the final phase, millions of Americans went on a debt binge to keep the spending going as real wages kept falling. That finally collapsed, leaving soaring public debts as the only source of demand preventing consumer-based economies from a downward spiral.

The questions for the wealthy, U.S. businesses and older generations are this: Who are you going to sell your product or service to, now that not only your employees but everyone else’s employees (or former employees) don’t have any money and can’t borrow anymore? When you want to sell stock or your home, how much can the next generation pay for it, given that they are much worse off? I’ve been saying this for some time. The surprise – the shock really – is that suddenly a bunch of economists and financial analysts now seem to understand this, as this article on Bloomberg News lays out essentially the same argument.  Read it, to the end, where the dicussion of political effects is followed by a discussion of economic effects.

With great interest it's noted, Cornell West and Tavis Smiley challenge President Obama at every turn. 

Notice the other night how Bill O'Reilly treated them, even openly talking down to them.  But hey, it doesn't matter to West/Smiley, as long as they are the ones in the media spotlight.

I will say it.  Both of them need to go somewhere and sit down, and pimp other issues, not the President of the United States.

It's amazing the tone West and Smiley use for President Obama, and how they were put in their place by O'Reilly.

No mere glorified bookkeeper, John Liu brings to the Comptroller's office a track record of innovative and dynamic creativity–and he's a hands-on manager who says he's never heavily relied on an accountant or treasurer to handle his campaign finances, overseeing the operation himself: “I’m responsible for my own campaign.”