Briefly Noted

Recently Noted – about healthcare

The New York Times has a piece this Sunday (7/30/17) by the well-known former Bush II economics advisor Greg Mankiw, “Why Healthcare Policy Is So Hard”. The article broadly acknowledges what every other developed country has recognized for decades, healthcare is not a good candidate for market control. Interesting that --->> read more -->>
Free-market Ideology

Neoliberalism Revisited

A return to a topic first posted 2/10/2017. Neoliberalism – a term that needs never to be used February 10, 2017 Dollars and Sense has been around since the 1970s. Always a source of well researched critiques of capitalism. I recently, after a more than 30 year hiatus, re-upped a --->> read more -->>
Free-market Ideology

Regulations vs Protections – more than just words

In a recent stream of comments about a post in GossipsOfRivertown, “More about Dumped Cement” Virginia Martin wrote to me: Mark Orton said “This is why we have government regulations.” Linguist George Lakoff would say the term “regulations” is ill-considered. He’d say they’re protections. This is why we have government --->> read more -->>
Economy

Job (Business) Killing Regulations

Ever since Ronald Reagan told us in his 1981 Inaugural Address, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” government bashing by right-wingers, Republicans and many Democrats has been a constant drumbeat of political rhetoric. Now we have Trump with his “Kill 2 regulations for every --->> read more -->>
No Picture
Politics

Diversity and Identity Politics Is A Deadend

Progressives have to declare class war as a central strategy. Otherwise we will all be sitting at the dinner table basking in our glorious diversity with nothing to eat. For many good reasons identity and diversity have dominated our politics for decades.  Progressives celebrate its expansion and Republicans and their --->> read more -->>
Economy

Park Avenue and How We Got There

“There” is our current situation in which our government has been bought by the rich and corporations, over 80% of the population has not had a pay raise in 40 years and the public sphere, schools, parks, our infrastructure, really anything not behind the gated walls of private wealth, is --->> read more -->>
Economy

The Gig Economy in the Academy – a note

The values of capitalism, especially as expressed through free market (neoliberal) ideology, have come to dominate how we organize our lives. Silicon Valley and the tech sector is busy celebrating the “gig” economy. Companies have simply stopped hiring employees and now conduct much of their work using “temps”, “1099ers”, part-time --->> read more -->>
No Picture
Politics

Election Results: The Next Ten Years

– The Morning After – The election of Trump and the continued Republican control of both Congress and Senate guarantee that the rich will continue to get richer at the expense of the shrinking middle class and further aggravate conditions for the poor. Trickle down economics and tax subsidies will flow --->> read more -->>