The Citigroup Plutonomy Memos With key quotations from documents that are being disappeared. This post has been the #1 response to a Google search for "plutonomy memo."
Two hypotheses for why US CEO pay is so high Charts show that in the US CEO pay is about double that in other advanced countries, implying either that there is a shortage of talent in the US, or that the US CEO pay market is broken.
The American Dream died in February 1973 This post, which makes the top 10 almost every month, has graphs from multiple sources showing stagnation of inflation-adjusted middle class incomes since the 1970s after strong and steady post-WWII growth
The history of US per-capita petroleum consumption will surprise you. A graph and other data show US per-capita consumption of petroleum is down substantially from the 1970s, has been very stable since 1983 because of CAFE standards, and has fluctuated only slightly with retail price changes.
US job creation has been declining since April 2000 and is now in freefall. Discussion around a dramatic graph showing our employment-to-population ratio strongly increasing until 2000 followed by a devastating loss in 10 years of all the gains made in the previous 20 years.
Comparative Advantage—The Unicorn of Free Trade A collection of sources and analyses demonstrating that the assumptions of classic Ricardian theory rarely if ever align with real-world conditions.
The Dysfunction and Corruption of Our Healthcare System, Its Damage to the National Economy and other Basic Healthcare Matters (Guest Post) Describing a system that is destroying American business global competitiveness, that violates fundamental insurance risk principles, and that has inherent conflicts of interest preventing quality national health care delivery and cost efficiency, and proposing a solution.
Is the New York Times editorial board adapting to reality, or is this cognitive dissonance? In August 2008 the NYT editorial board acknowledged that globalization is one of the reasons "Americans are working harder and not getting ahead," but it continues to urge readers to "embrace" globalization.
"We demand free and fair elections untainted by Big Money." Explaining why the Occupy Movement should make this its central unifying demand.
What I saw at Occupy Los Angeles On Saturday afternoon November 7, it was small, earnest, harmonious, well organized, clean, law abiding and not likely, in my estimation, to change the world until it becomes much bigger and feistier.