By Walter Simon – BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The last time I was in the vicinity of the Boutwell Auditorium in Birmingham was in the winter of 2012 at the occupy camp we set up, wrapping around the corner sidewalk of 20th and 5th avenue north in front of the entrance to Regions bank. The bus…
Taking over a federal building at the point of a rifle gives protest a bad name – By John Kiriakou – The armed men occupying an isolated federal building in a remote Oregon bird sanctuary say they won’t leave until the federal government stops its “tyranny.” Yet it’s not clear what that tyranny is, exactly.…
By Robert Reich – If you haven’t yet seen “The Big Short” – directed and co-written by Adam McKay, based on the non-fiction prize-winning book by Michael Lewis about the housing and credit bubble that triggered the Great Recession — I recommend you do so. Not only is the movie an enjoyable (if that’s the…
By Robert Reich – Economic forecasters exist to make astrologers look good, but I’ll hazard a guess. I expect the U.S. economy to sputter in 2016. That’s because the economy faces a deep structural problem: not enough demand for all the goods and services it’s capable of producing. American consumers account for almost 70 percent…
By Curtis Seltzer – BLUE GRASS, Va. — Six months ago, I wrote that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders would be the nominees for president in 2016. Those predictions seemed far-fetched at the time. Now, Trump seems nearfetched, and Sanders is running a stubborn second to Hillary Clinton. Both Trump and Sanders have gotten stronger…
By Robert Reich – What’s at stake this election year? Let me put as directly as I can. America has succumbed to a vicious cycle in which great wealth translates into political power, which generates even more wealth, and even more power. This spiral is most apparent is declining tax rates on corporations and on…
By Eugene Robinson – You probably noticed that 2015 was pretty weird. But hey, it’s a brand new year — a fresh start, a blank slate, an unwritten script. In 2016, what could possibly go wrong? Uh, where to begin? My fingers balk at typing the words “President-elect Trump” because I don’t think such a…
By Robert Reich – Martin Shkreli, the former hedge-fund manager turned pharmaceutical CEO who was arrested last week, has been described as a sociopath and worse. In reality, he’s a brasher and larger version of what others in finance and corporate suites do all the time. Federal prosecutors are charging him with conning wealthy investors.…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – You must have been naughty children. Although you didn’t get a lump of coal in your stocking, you got a wad of glop. It’s your present from Alabama governor Robert Bentley, often confused with creepy Mr Burns in The Simpsons show. But that’s only because of their eerily…
By Edgar Wilson – As popular as it has become (frankly, it has crossed the threshold to cliché) to compare governance to private-sector business management, America’s selection of would-be Manager-Politicians routinely fail to grasp the single most dynamic force of business today: innovation. It isn’t entirely their fault. By design, America’s political structure is slow…
By Eugene Robinson – History will remember 2015 as the year when The Republican Party As We Knew It was destroyed by Donald Trump. An entity called the GOP will survive – but can never be the same. Am I overstating Trump’s impact, given that not a single vote has been cast? Hardly. I’m not…
By Robert Reich – The great American middle class has become an anxious class – and it’s in revolt. Before I explain how that revolt is playing out, you need to understand the sources of the anxiety. Start with the fact that the middle class is shrinking, according to a new Pew survey. The odds…
By Juan Cole – The price of petroleum fell Monday to levels not seen since the crash of 2008, at one point hitting $35 a barrel in New York. There is every reason to expect prices to remain low for a few years, and they could easily go lower as Iranian crude comes back on…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the Paris climate conference just built an eight-lane freeway to Hades. Leaders and nerds from 195 countries sifted through separate plans for saving the species from itself and tried to meld them into an agreed text about shrinking…
By Anne Applebaum – Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he wants to give away $45 billion. I’m sure he needs some advice on how to spend it. Here’s mine: He should use it to undo the terrible damage done by Facebook and other forms of social media to democratic debate and civilized…
By Bill Boyarsky – Watching Donald Trump on television Monday urging that Muslims be banned from entering the United States was like listening to Hitler on the radio in the early 1930s. As was the case with Hitler, Trump appeals to a substantial number of angry people who cheer his call for making outcasts of…
By Eugene Robinson – “A cancer that has no immediate cure” was not the most soothing metaphor President Obama could have chosen, but it was the most honest. He has no idea how to prevent another terrorist attack like the one in San Bernardino – and neither does anyone else, including his Republican critics. The…
By Chris Hedges – The charade of the 21st United Nations climate summit will end, as past climate summits have ended, with lofty rhetoric and ineffectual cosmetic reforms. Since the first summit more than 20 years ago, carbon dioxide emissions have soared. Placing faith in our political and economic elites, who have mastered the arts…
By Edgar Wilson – America’s political leaders are not agents of change. They campaign as thought-leaders and strategists, but they are really glorified marketers. Their primary wares for sale to the public? Overwhelmingly, incentives and punishments—typically financial in nature—that will supposedly herald a sea change in behavior, shepherding the country into the future. Everything from…
By Robert Reich – In this holiday season it’s especially appropriate to acknowledge how many Americans don’t have steady work. The so-called “share economy” includes independent contractors, temporary workers, the self-employed, part-timers, freelancers, and free agents. Most file 1099s rather than W2s, for tax purposes. It’s estimated that in five years over 40 percent of…
