Dollars & Sense articles from January 2007

Dollars & Sense archives from January 2007

From the editors.(income distribution)
January 1, 2007... From debates about the minimum wage to outrage about (and defenses of) humongous Wall Street bonuses, inequality is a hot topic lately. But does inequality matter? If so, why? Here's an interesting statistic, courtesy of a...

Psst! Corporations don't pay taxes!(the short run)
January 1, 2007... An obscure state law allows any Wisconsin resident to find out the taxes paid (or owed) by any taxpayer--including any corporation. You just have to fill out a simple form, which is exactly what researchers from the Institute for Wisconsin's...

Two scoops.(the short run)(New York Times columns)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Has someone at the New York Times been reading Dollars & Sense? Three recent NYT articles make us wonder. A December article, "Small Businesses Fight Fickle Rules," covers some of the ground Chris Moraff covered in "The Incredible Shrinking...

Supersize the irony.(the short run)(www.ron-aldmchummer.com on environmental impact of McDonald's Corp.)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... MacDonald's, which trumpets its "longstanding global commitment to environmental protection and leadership," partnered with General Motors last year to include toy Hummers (in eight models and colors!) in its Happy Meals. Not missing the...

The proliferating--and vanishing--gift card.(the short run)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... I remember the days when the best gifts came from my grandfather's breast pocket. "Folding money," the perfect present--convertible into whatever I desired, universally accepted, and waste-free. I know, of course, that some people lack my...

Beverage boosters.(the short run)(scientific studies on the health issues of beverages)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... He who pays the piper may indeed call the tune--at least when it comes to scientific studies on the possible health benefits of various beverages. A review of 111 such studies found that "studies funded entirely by industry were four to eight...

Ampersand.(the short run)(Cartoon)
January 1, 2007... WILL NO ONE TAKE PITY ON OUR POOR, SUFFERING MAJOR CORPORATIONS? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] amptoons.com

Letters.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2007... To the editors: In Immanuel Ness' otherwise very fine article on immigrant worker militancy (Sept./Oct. 2006) he asserts that "The perception that new immigrants undermine U.S.-born workers by undercutting prevailing wage and work...

Homelessness Marathon: bringing homeless voices to the airwaves.(active culture)
January 1, 2007... Interviewed on a cold day in Portland, Maine, each member of a group of disabled veterans was in worse shape than the next. One had diabetes; another, gangrene; another faced encroaching blindness. They had all been declared "disabled" by...

Activism against DRM: digital rights or digital restriction?(active culture)
January 1, 2007... When John Chin tried to transfer music files he purchased from iTunes onto his friend's non-Apple music player, he ran into problems. "I tried three times and it just didn't work, and I couldn't figure out why." It seems that Chin was prevented...

The estate tax: a recycling program in disguise; Last November, Washington state voters recognized the value of their state's inheritance tax and voted to preserve it.(making sense)
January 1, 2007... Last fall, anti-tax organizations in Washington state sponsored an initiative, I-920, to abolish the state's estate tax. Given Washington's history of voting overwhelmingly for tax cuts, it looked as if the estate tax was a goner--especially as...

Mind boggling inequality: enough to make even Adam Smith worry.(UP AGAINST THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)
January 1, 2007... Do soaring corporate profits (higher as a share of national income than at any time since 1950) and a green Christmas on Wall Street (green as in record-setting multimillion dollar bonuses for investment bankers) have you worried about economic...

Milton Friedman's "Chilean miracle".
January 1, 2007... The death last November of Milton Friedman, one of the best known and most influential conservative economists of the 20th century, unleashed a chorus of fawning eulogies. In the days after Friedman's death, the "mainstream" media, conservative...

Slicing up at the long barbeque: who gorges, who serves, and who gets roasted?(economic inequality)
January 1, 2007... Economic inequality has been on the rise in the United States for 30-odd years. Not since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century--during what Mark Twain referred to as "the Great Barbeque"--has the country witnessed such a rapid shift in the...

School finance: inequality persists; We know how to eliminate school funding disparities--we just choose not to.
January 1, 2007... In his groundbreaking 1991 book on U.S. public school finance, Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol painted a stark picture of conditions in some of the public schools that poor children--mostly children of color--attend. After visiting...

Made in Argentina: Bolivian migrant workers fight neoliberal fashion.
January 1, 2007... Dubbed "the Paris of the South," Buenos Aires is known for its European architecture, tango clubs, and haute couture. But few people are aware that Argentina's top fashion brands employ tens of thousands of undocumented Bolivian workers in...

Ask Dr. Dollar.
January 1, 2007... Dear Dr. Dollar: My congressman, John Mica (R-Fla.), sent me a letter claiming that "the high income tax rate of 40% for U.S. corporations, unlike most competitors, does not provide relief for the double taxation of corporate income." Like...