Dollars & Sense articles from March 2001

Dollars & Sense archives from March 2001

letters.(Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers)(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2001... ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE Hahnel and Peters seem to base most of a whole four-page article ("What Might Work Look Like?" D&S, November/December 2000) on what was accomplished in the way of worker participation and self-management at South End...

IN MEMORIAM RHONDA M. WILLIAMS.(African American economist and activist)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
March 1, 2001... Last November, the economics profession, feminist scholars, black intellectuals, proud lesbians, and those committed to social and economic justice lost a great sister/friend. Rhonda M. Williams died in her home of cancer, at the age of 43. ...

Entrepreneurial Spirit.(credit card fraud on the Internet)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Despite the falling prices of tech stocks, the high level of praise for the "New Economy" seems to be holding steady. According to its celebrants, the "New Economy" stimulates the ever-innovating tech entrepreneur, who seizes the opportunity to...

One Step Forward...(international conference on climate change at the Hague)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Despite moves by automobile and other companies (whose sincerity and efficiency are debatable) to market more environmentally friendly products, greenhouse-gas emissions continue to concern environmentalists greatly. (See David. L. Levy,...

Dr. Who?(Dr. Andreas Bichlbauer address, anecdote)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The Center for International Legal Studies in Salzburg, Austria, could not have known what it was getting into when it invited World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Mike Moore to address its October 2000 conference. In reply to its...

The "Replacement" Guard.(United States National Guard use on strikes)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... According to the December 26, 2000, Wall Street Journal, National Guard units have crossed picket lines and filled striking workers' jobs during several recent labor disputes across the country. In one case, National Guard troops staffed a...

"Techie" Organizers.(workers at Etown.com vote on union election)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... "A deep strain of individualism tends to run through the people who populate the technology community," claims the December 9, 2000, Washington Post. Young "techies" are belying this stereotype, however, with the first unionization efforts in...

Will Teach for Food.(Coalition on the Academic Workforce, report)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Who's teaching in U.S. college classrooms? Increasingly, an underclass of part-time instructors and graduate teaching assistants (TAs), according to a November 2000 report from the Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW). The CAW, a group of...

Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing.(Coca Cola Co. celebration at Library of Congress)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Corporate Crime Reporter's Russell Mokhiber and Multinational Monitor's Robert Weissman were, surprisingly, among those invited to a November 2000 Library of Congress ceremony honoring Coca-Cola. The company had just donated a complete set of...

Is There a Problem, Officer?(traffic ticket fines indexed to income, Finland)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... A wealthy BMW owner recently received a $71,400 fine for driving 18 miles over the speed limit, while a Volkswagen owner earning $724 a month paid $106 for the same offense, according to the January 2, 2001, Wall Street Journal. Both tickets...

Wal-Mart Wounded.(Reno, Nevada, votes against Wal-Mart Stores Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Which would you prefer, to have a Wal-Mart store invade your neighborhood, or a pig farm around the corner? Reno, Nevada, residents faced that question at a November 2000 town meeting, where the Reno City Council considered whether to grant the...

ACTIVE CULTURE.(Second South-North Gathering)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... "A land tortoise was trapped under a fallen tree in a huge forest. He had to wait for the tree trunk to decompose -- hundreds of years -- to free himself. The tortoise represents the indigenous communities of the world. The tree trunk is the...

THE ELUSIVE SEARCH FOR "THE CAPITAL" IN CAPITAL GAINS.(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... If the Republicans have their way, Congress will soon enact another hefty cut in the capital gains tax. That proposal is based on the claim that, if we tax investments less, investors will rush to invest more, thereby expanding the economy and...

DISARMING THE DEBT TRAP.(aiding Third World nations)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Question: What if the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and G-7 governments canceled the debts of the poorer countries right now, fully and with no strings attached? Answer: Within five years, most would be up to their necks in...

JUBILEE 2000: DROP THE DEBT, NOT THE CAMPAIGN.(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... In April 1996, faith-based activists gathered in London to launch Jubilee 2000, a worldwide campaign to eradicate Third World debt. (See Marie Michael, "Food or Debt: The Jubilee 2000 Movement," D&S, July/August 2000.) In the four years...

MINISTERING TO THE POOR.(faith-based charities)
March 1, 2001... CHURCH AND STATE, TOGETHER AGAIN For years, mainstream politicians have used poor people as a political football, excoriating them for their supposed moral failings and attacking them as a drain on the public treasury. From Bill Clinton,...

STILL A BAD IDEA: THE BUSH TAX CUT.(George W. Bush)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... We said we didn't want it. Most people didn't even vote for it. In survey after survey, public opinion polls rank a large tax cut as one the least desirable uses of the federal budget surplus. And Republican and Democratic leaders alike have...

FORGING A NEW NATION.(East Timor)(Interview)
March 1, 2001... THE FUTURE OF THE EAST TIMORESE ECONOMY AN INTERVIEW WITH AJIZA MAGNO, After over 400 years of Portuguese colonization and a quarter-century of Indonesian occupation, the southeast Asian island country of East Timor is approaching...

GENETIC ENGINEERING AND THE PRIVATIZATION OF SEEDS.(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... In 1998, angry farmers burned Monsanto-owned fields in Karnataka, India, starting a nationwide "Cremate Monsanto" campaign. The campaign demanded that biotech corporations like Monsanto, Novartis, and Pioneer leave the country. Farmers...

TEACHING ABOUT STOCKS -- FOR FUN AND PROPAGANDA.
March 1, 2001... Every year, more than a million U.S. primary, middle, and high school students play the stock market at school. They use pretend money and imaginary trades, but students experience the feel of real-world finance, tallying their gains as they...

QUEBEC CITY "FREE-TRADE" FLASHPOINT.(Summit of the Americas and demonstrations)
March 1, 2001... The "Battle in Seattle" in December 1999 gave notice of the growing resistance to neoliberal "globalization." Since then, protestors have clashed with police across North America -- in Washington, D.C.; Windsor, Ontario; Mexico City; and...

THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.(political, economic history and growth)
March 1, 2001... LATIN AMERICA'S LATEST ECONOMIC "MIRACLE"? While I was living in the rural town of San Jose de Ocoa, Dominican Republic, in 1980, water outages often made me complete my morning shower by scooping water from nearby buckets filled earlier to...

ASK DR. DOLLAR.(foreign exchange rates and forces)(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2001... Dear Dr. Dollar: What are the primary forces that cause foreign exchange rates to fluctuate, and what are the remedies to these forces? Mario Anthony, West Palm Beach, Florida A foreign exchange rate is the price, in terms of one...

IS SOCIAL SECURITY BROKE?(possible ammendments in taxation)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Everybody has heard claims that Social Security has no future, and many people have come to believe it. You almost never hear it said that Social Security's problems are fixable and that there is plenty of time to do the fixing. Social...

SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH REDUCING THE MARRIAGE PENALTY?(income tax policy United States critique)
March 1, 2001... The purpose of monogamous marriage is to transform the nuclear family into the basic economic unit of society, wrote Friedrich Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State well over a century ago. And the tax code damn...