Dollars & Sense articles from January 2004

Dollars & Sense archives from January 2004

From the editors.
January 1, 2004... Although we try to plan every issue of Dollars & Sense to include at least one or two items that represent a cause for optimism, we don't always succeed. No wonder--we are living in a time of right-wing ascendancy, when corporate power...

"World's most corrupt deal".(the short run)
January 1, 2004... BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace) is the United Kingdom's single largest arms manufacturer. It has always had a nightmarish reputation among people who support the environment, health, human rights, or democracy. Now BAE stands accused...

Ampersand.(the short run)
January 1, 2004... YOU KNOW, LATELY SOME PRO-CHOICERS HAVE BEEN SAYING WE PRO-LIFERS "HATE WOMEN." THAT'S SIMPLY NOT TRUE! TAKE THE WAY WE'VE CUT OFF FUNDS TO THE UN POPULATION FUND, CLAIMING THEY SUPPORT FORCED ABORTIONS IN CHINA. EVEN GEORGE BUSH'S...

World Bank Opposes FTAA?(the short run)
January 1, 2004... On the eve of the Miami negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in November, the World Bank released a report titled "Inequality in Latin America & the Caribbean: Breaking with History?" In it, experts at the bank conclude...

Reaping the rewards of corporate fraud, again.(the short run)
January 1, 2004... While the executives of Enron, WorldCom, and HealthSouth were overstating their companies' earnings to drive up stock prices, they made sure their tax returns matched their stated earnings, in order to avoid audit by the IRS. Now they want...

Sweatshop gives P. Diddy a bad rap.(the short run)
January 1, 2004... Sean "P. Diddy" Combs has added a new twist to his bad boy image. The hip-hopper's clothing company, Sean John, is under fire for using a sweatshop in Honduras where workers earn 90 cents an hour, according to the New York Times. The workers at...

Life's two certainties in a moving van.(the short run)
January 1, 2004... The 2001 federal estate tax cuts have indirectly created a new burden for the wealthy in their financial planning: those who expect to die before 2011 now have to decide where they'll do it. The new federal rules phase out the estate tax by...

Economic recovery raises unemployment, poverty.(the short run)
January 1, 2004... Although the Bush recovery is not bringing more jobs (in fact, 3 million have been eliminated in the private sector since G.W. took office), some economic indicators are up: The average unemployment rate for 2002 was 5.8%, compared to a...

Ideology trumps AIDS funding.(the short run)
January 1, 2004... Marie Stopes International (MSI) is a well-regarded group that provides AIDS and reproductive health services to 3.6 million people in 35 countries worldwide. It's a member of the Reproductive Health for Refugees Consortium (RHRC), a coalition...

Letters.(the short run)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... We received a number of letters critical of the article "Backs to the Wall" by Lucy Mair and Robyn Long (November/December 2003). None of the letter writers disputed the article's description of the effects of the Israeli waft on the...

No quid pro quo, of course.(the short run)
January 1, 2004... You may not be able to buy love--but advantageous legislation is another story. Over 50 of President George W. Bush's biggest donors (or their spouses) work as executives or lobbyists for corporations that will benefit from either the Medicare...

Grassroots campaign in San Francisco wins minimum wage hike.(active culture)
January 1, 2004... San Franciscan Ruby Kelson-Brenner works two jobs while attending college full time. Even so, given exploding tuition rates and the city's high cost of living, her meager wages have not allowed her to rent an apartment. Until recently, she saw...

Clouds on the recovery horizon.(comment)
January 1, 2004... With the recent spate of positive economic reports, the business press is cheering the recovery. To be sure, the economy seems to be picking up speed as we enter the new year, propelled by the third-quarter spike in gross domestic product (GDP)...

FTAA-lite.(making sense)
January 1, 2004... Last November, western-hemisphere trade ministers were expected to finalize the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) at their Miami meeting. Instead, the talks stalled and nearly collapsed, then were cut short. Trade ministers salvaged...

United States arrests Iraqi labor leaders.(making sense)
January 1, 2004... U.S. occupation forces in Iraq have escalated their efforts to paralyze Iraq's new labor unions. On December 6, a convoy of 10 humvees and personnel carriers descended on the office of the Iraqi Workers Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). Twenty...

Immigrant restaurant workers hope to rock New York.(Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York)(Cover Story)
January 1, 2004... When terrorists attacked the first of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, they destroyed, among many other things, the Windows on the World restaurant. At 8:46 a.m., the first hijacked plane crashed into the north tower where...

The power of Salvadoran labor: interview with Sara Quintanilla.(Sindicato de Trabajadores del Sector Electrico (STSEL, Union of Electricity Workers))(Interview)
January 1, 2004... The Sindicato de Trabajadores del Sector Electrico (STSEL, Union of Electricity Workers) is at the forefront of the labor movement in El Salvador, but its very existence is threatened by the government's push to privatize electricity. When...

Harvard works because we do: an excerpt from a new book of interviews with low-wage workers at Harvard University.
January 1, 2004... The Harvard Living Wage Campaign attracted national attention in 2001, when after three years of organizing, students staged a 21-day sit-in inside the university's main administrative building. The sit-in catapulted the national living wage...

Wealth inequality by the numbers.
January 1, 2004... Not since the Gilded Age has this country seen such a yawning gap between the very rich and those with little wealth. Wealth concentration has spiked since the 1970s: whereas in 1971, the top 1% of households held less than 20% of total...

Tax wealth to broaden wealth: a proposal to tax the inherited fortunes of the rich in order to fund a policy agenda for greater wealth equality.
January 1, 2004... For the past decade, a coalition of business lobbyists and wealthy families has waged a crusade to abolish the nation's only tax on inherited wealth. They've misled the public into believing that the estate tax falls on everyone (when it...

The Chad-Cameroon Pipeline.(Barrelfuls of trouble)
January 1, 2004... Amid the lush forests of Cameroon, pipeline construction has nearly come to an end. Cranes and trucks, uprooting the earth to bury the tons of steel pipe necessary to transport Chad's ample oil reserves to the Atlantic coast of Cameroon for...

God bless the revolution!
January 1, 2004... Ken Estey. A New Protestant Labor Ethic at Work. Pilgrim Press, 2002. 144 pages, $14.00. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda. Healing a Broken World: Globalization and God. Fortress Press, 2002. 256 pages, $20.00. Not ideas, but material and ideal...

Who votes, and how?(economy in numbers)
January 1, 2004... Of the last four presidential elections won by the Republican candidate, the two closest ones (in 1980 and 2000) would have gone to the Democrat had lower-income people voted in the same percentages as higher-income groups. So suggests an...