Dollars & Sense articles from January 2001

Dollars & Sense archives from January 2001

Colorado: 1870-2000.(Review)
January 1, 2001... John Fielder and W.H. Jackson (Westcliffe Publishers, 1999) In 1870, Colorado was six years away from statehood. The boom towns of the Central Rocky Mountains were beginning to explode with railroads and mines. Native Americans were...

THE "OTHER AMERICA" REVISITED THE WAR ON POVERTY: GAINS AND LOSSES.(Census Bureau report on poverty)(related article: What is the Poverty Line?)(Statistical Data Included)
January 1, 2001... "The American poor are one of the greatest scandals of a society that has the ability to provide a decent life for every man, woman, and child," wrote Michael Harrington in his 1962 book, The Other America. At the start of the 1960s, statistics...

ASK DR. DOLLAR.(trickle-down economics)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Dear Dr. Dollar Is there any empirical evidence to support the theory of "trickle-down" economics? I mean, if the rich get richer, why does it follow that the poor would get richer too? Sarah Skowronski, Palm Harbor, Florida. One...

THIRTY YEARS OF CHILEAN SOCIALISM.
January 1, 2001... In 1988, the Chilean Socialist leader Ricardo Lagos dared to go on national television to denounce the country's military dictatorship. Lagos pointed an accusing finger at the camera as he said that Chileans would no longer tolerate General...

BUSINESS AND CLIMATE CHANGE.(industry accepts role in global warming)
January 1, 2001... PRIVATIZING ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION? Human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases have "contributed substantially to the observed warming over the past 50 years" and, if left unchecked, could cause the earth's average surface temperature to...

HUNTERS OR SHEPHERDS OF THE SEA?(reform of fisheries needed in face of dwindling fish stocks)
January 1, 2001... UNDERSTANDING THE FISHERIES CRISIS OF THE NORTHWEST ATLANTIC On October 29, 2000, the Portland, Maine, fishing community gathered on the city's Fish Pier to hold a memorial service for Carlyle "Butch" Minot. Minot's body had been recovered...

THE ABCs OF "FREE-TRADE" AGREEMENTS.
January 1, 2001... In the United States, the corporate media have framed the debate over "globalization" largely as a struggle between cosmopolitan advocates and their provincial opponents. The pro-globalization types are celebrated as champions not only of a...

THE IMF AND WORLD BANK'S COSMETIC MAKEOVER.(International Monetary Fund)
January 1, 2001... Medieval doctors always prescribed the same "cure"; no matter what the ailment, they applied leeches to patients and bled them. For the past decade and a half, critics have likened the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to...

"THE CASES REPORTED HERE ARE NOT EXCEPTIONAL ...".(labor laws do not protect employees adequately)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... In the wake of the dispute over Florida's vote count last November, many pundits wondered whether the electioneering tactics typical of dictatorships -- fraud, manipulation, and other "irregularities" -- had somehow made their way into the...

SERBIA AFTER MILOSEVIC.(economic policy following ouster of Slobodan Milosevic)
January 1, 2001... LET THE NEOLIBERAL GAMES BEGIN BELGRADE--It's October 5th. The fires at the federal parliament and Radio Television Serbia sparked during the start of the revolt hours earlier have begun to die down. Gangs of people run through the streets...

CORPORATE WELFARE FOR WELFARE CORPORATIONS.(welfare reform in Wisconsin)
January 1, 2001... Sandra (not her real name) is a Milwaukee woman in her early thirties who suffers from three separate mental health conditions. Two of her children are disabled; several are in foster care. Last July, one of the children in her custody got sick...

AN ELECTORAL FIXATION.(Brief Article)(Editorial)
January 1, 2001... Now that the presidential election is over, maybe we can get back to doing some political work. Every four years, it's the same old story: We trundle off to the polls, buoyed by the myth that -- by "choosing" one of two pre-selected...

ACTIVE CULTURE.(anti-globalization demonstrations in France)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Since last June, hundreds of French graduate students in economics have been rising up in protest against the way they're being taught. Economics, they say, hides behind mathematical equations in order to avoid dealing with real-world problems...

Pet Site Goes Belly Up.(Pets,com)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... The casualty list in the internet-economy bloodletting now includes Pers.com and its famous mascot, the lovable black-and-white-spotted-dog sock puppet. According to the November 8, 2000, Wall Street Journal, the web-based pet-supplies company...

Catching Up with Cuba.(low-cost health system)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Considering its general promarket direction, one might expect the United Kingdom's Labor government to emulate the United States or some other capitalist country in reforming the National Health Service (NHS). According to an October report in...

A Capital Idea.(2001 Index of Economic Freedom)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... The Heritage Foundation's 2001 Index of Economic Freedom, released in November 2000, ranks 155 countries on "the absence of government coercion or constraint on the production, distribution, or consumption of goods and services." The scale...

Remember the "Peace Dividend"?(U.S. military spending)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
January 1, 2001... On the cusp of the 21st century, U.S. military spending still stands at 90% of its Cold War level. This exorbitant spending, argues Boston Globe correspondent and former assistant secretary of defense Lawrence J. Korb in an October 2000...

The Best Laid Plans.(land reform in Zimbabwe)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... In early November 2000, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which had been mediating land issues between Zimbabwe and Great Britain, announced plans for a gradual, controlled land reform in the southern African nation. Great...

Easy Come, Easy Go.(internet stocks)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... With the collapse of once-soaring internet stocks, the paper multimillionaires that the "bubble" created have suffered a big cut to their bottom line. The Wall Street Journal has coined the phrase "90% club" to describe the group of internet...

Car-Free in Colombia.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... "Are you in favor of creating an environmentally sustainable city, with cleaner air, fewer traffic jams, and a higher quality of life?" So began an admirable, if somewhat loaded, Bogota, Colombia, ballot question to restrict automobile use...

World Bank Backpedaling.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... The mainstream press was quick to pickup on the March 2000 World Bank report, "Growth is Good for the Poor," as fodder for its pro-"globalization" claims. After the report came under fire from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR),...

What Goes Around.(Florida election controversy)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... If Al Gore wants a reason he did not win Florida handily last November, he need look no further than those disenfranchised due to the "war on drugs," argues the November 14, 2000, issue of the London newspaper The Guardian. The last eight years...

Letters.
January 1, 2001... DIRTY POLITICS Massachusetts supposedly has a clean election law ("The Clean-Elections Movement," D&S, July/August 2000). Actually, we do and we don't. In 1998, a campaign finance reform referendum was overwhelmingly endorsed by the...