Category Archives: Economy

Watch them burn

Fierce Planet Posted on by

The most shocking story of the day is up at Think Progress: Tennessee County’s Subscription-Based Firefighters Watch As Family Home Burns Down . Seriously, Obion County has a subscription-based fire department that only covers those who subscribe, rather than the normal sort that is paid out of taxes and covers everyone. So firefighters came to the fire and watched as that family’s home burned to the ground. They hadn’t been paid, so they refused to help. It’s the perfect example of life under a libertarian, big business conservative vision of life, where we have no mutual responsibilities to our community … Continue reading →

Tax Cut fight

Fierce Planet Posted on by

I like this very much. It’s the clearest presentation I’ve seen of what’s at stake in the fight over the Bush-era tax cuts. I wish the White House had put this out weeks ago. Maybe then I wouldn’t have heard so much misinformation in the discussions on this subject on the news channels.

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Unions and the Tea Party are united on trade

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When it comes to free trade treaties, workers in this country are very skeptical. In fact a new NBC/WSJ poll finds that 65% of union members and 61% of Tea Party sympathizers say that free trade has hurt the U.S. I think there are some sectors in the U.S. that have benefited from free trade treaties. Certainly stockholders and CEOs have become fabulously wealthy as they chased cheap labor and poor environmental standards around the globe. But the race to the bottom has hurt U.S. workers, who are now consistently being told that they need to accept the “new reality” … Continue reading →

If you only had $4.33 a day for food…

Fierce Planet Posted on by

What would you eat? What would you do without? And how would you feel if that extravagant sum was suddenly decreased to only $3.75? That’s the amount food stamp recipients will receive if Congress lowers food stamp benefits. In order to boost state Medicaid and education funds Congress has proposed to cut $26 billion from food stamp programs, sort of taking from the poor and working class in order to help the poor and working class. It’s a very odd decision, to say the least. The New York Coalition Against Hunger has a post that illustrates how much food you … Continue reading →

Stephen Colbert speaks truth to power

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I am not a religious person, but I know Colbert is, so I suspect that his study of gospel informed this profound moment in his Congressional testimony on migrant workers last week. Despite our different frames, I found this bit of his statement, when he moved out of character, emotionally deep and true.

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Republicans never change

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I know this won’t come as a surprise to anyone reading this blog, but the Republicans are up to their same old tricks. They say they’re concerned for “small business” but in fact they are only interested in enriching the wealthy. Democratic Rapid Response calls them out on their “Pledge to America” in this short video.

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More on income inequality

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Annie Lowrey at the Washington Independent points us to a report on income inequality from the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee. She highlights several graphs and conclusions that show the remarkable way that the wealthy have become even more so over the past decade, while middle class and working incomes have stagnated or declined. The charts are interesting in part because they break out income and tax rates according to the various modern-day Presidential administrations. Here is one example: Even under Clinton you can see that the wealthy increased their share of total income. And in fact, Lowrey notes that according … Continue reading →

Budget deficit has declined over the past year

Fierce Planet Posted on by

After all the constant hand-wringing about the deficit from many feckless politicians, you might be surprised to learn that the deficit declined 13% over the past year. We face a lot of economic problems, but I remain unconvinced that the deficit is, at this moment, one of them. Edit to add: That said, it seems perfectly legitimate to me to use the deficit as a cudgel against Republicans who demagogue about the deficit when it comes to spending, only to ignore it completely when it comes to tax cuts. Pointing out that kind of hypocrisy is always good.

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