Dollars & Sense articles from November 2005

Dollars & Sense archives from November 2005

From the editors.
November 1, 2005... President Bush has returned from the latest Western Hemisphere summit, aimed at reviving the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, with nothing to show for his trouble. New York Times columnist John Tierney offered this explanation: "No...

Baby, it's cold outside.(the short run)(Christmas shopping season)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Did you notice that the Christmas shopping season started frighteningly early this year--several weeks before Halloween? The New York Times explained: "Advertisers, marketers and retailers, worried that fuel prices will crimp spending on...

Radio City not-so-Spectacular.(the short run)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... When the women refused to accept their new terms of employment, the company's representatives burst in on them at work and locked them out in the rain. Before the raid, the company stooped to robbing the women of their legal rights and using...

Top ten reasons Americans like our cars so darn big.(the short run)(Cartoon)
November 1, 2005... 10 TINY, TINY WEE... WEES [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 9 FIGHTING OVERPOPULATION! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 8 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 7 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 6 IT'S ALL ABOUT SAFETY! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Forced into scabbery.(the short run)(California Pacific Medical Center hires scab labor)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... A temp agency in San Francisco placed twelve Katrina survivors as scabs at the California Pacific Medical Center, Labor Notes reported in October. Eight hundred workers, represented by SEIU, have been on strike at the hospital since September...

Drink away those hurricane blues.(the short run)(commercial use of the name Katrina)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Two lawyers from Louisiana have attempted to trademark the name "Katrina" for a new line of alcoholic beverages. According to the Smoking Gun website, a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office includes not only the name, but the slogan...

Govs try green.(the short run)(governors use energy efficient vehicles )(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... A record hurricane season, record-high gas prices. Governors sprang into action, the Associated Press reports, by "park[ing] their SUVs" in favor of vehicles with better gas mileage. Does that mean you can now find them biking or walking around...

Lap (dance) of luxury.(the short run)(perks at conference hotels)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Apparently, getting an all-expense-paid trip to some exotic location is not enough for the mostly upper-level white-collar workers who attend corporate meetings and conventions. So Meetings & Conventions magazine reports on the range of perks...

A measly $9.92 billion?(the short run)(Exxon Mobil profits)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Oil giant Exxon Mobil is claiming its third-quarter profit of $9.92 billion, a 75% increase from the same quarter last year, is actually no big deal. While companies usually trumpet their strongest numbers, Exxon is modestly explaining away its...

TABOR update.(the short run)(Taxpayer Bill of Rights)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... This summer, we reported the disastrous results of Colorado's "Taxpayer Bill of Rights," the 1992 amendment to the state constitution that returns budget surpluses to the taxpayers and ratchets down spending for future budgets ("Stopping...

Health Care Security in NYC.(active culture)(The Health Care Security Act)
November 1, 2005... While companies in the airline and auto industries are doing their best to cut health benefits, something unusual has happened in New York City: businesses have joined with activists to fight for mandatory, employer-based health care. The...

"Justice does not trickle down": the Sylvia Rivera Law Project stands up for low-income transgender people.(active culture)
November 1, 2005... You have to stand up. You can't let go and be shy. Life is a battlefield and you have to fight because nothing comes easy." These are the words of Veronique, a 29 year-old transgender Lebanese immigrant. Like many other trans people, Veronique...

Bernanke's dilemma: Alan Greenspan popped the late-1990s stock market bubble and threw the economy into recession. Will the new Fed chief do the same with the housing bubble?(comment)(Ben Bernanke)
November 1, 2005... If Ben Bernanke is unlucky, he may inherit the whirlwind when he succeeds Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chairman early next year. The Greenspan Fed is once again pursuing a high-risk strategy while concealing its real intentions from the...

The personal and the structural in New Orleans: media lessons from Katrina.(comment)
November 1, 2005... The brilliant left sociologist C. Wright Mills once said that the core purpose of scholarship on social and political affairs was to make connections between individual pain and structural inequality. The point of such work, by Mills'...

$262 billion: case closed? In their zeal to justify the Bush tax cuts, the Wall Street Journal's editors fudge the numbers.(UP AGAINST THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)
November 1, 2005... $262 billion in additional federal tax revenues in fiscal year 2005 is the most ever, even after correcting for inflation. That should be enough to convince everyone, especially GOP senators, that the Bush tax cuts are working, and that now...

China and the global economy: why China must shift from export-led growth to domestic demand-led growth.
November 1, 2005... Over the last twenty years China has undergone a massive economic transformation. A generation ago, China's economy was largely agricultural; today, the country is an industrial powerhouse experiencing rapid economic growth. Now, however, many...

Will the WTO strike out in Hong Kong? The December meeting could be a repeat of Seattle and Cancun--or the rich countries may have some new tricks up their sleeves.
November 1, 2005... This December, delegates from 148 countries will meet to shape the future of the world's nearly 6 billion people. From December 13 to 18, the World Trade Organization will hold its sixth major meeting, known as a ministerial, in Hong Kong,...

Economic Democracy: a Dollars & Sense interview with David Schweickart.(Interview)
November 1, 2005... What might a post-capitalist future look like? That is the question David Schweickart has been writing about for a quarter century, most recently in his book After Capitalism (Rowman & Little-field). Schweickart's vision of an economy that...

From resistance to production in Argentina: worker-controlled businesses take the next step.
November 1, 2005... One day last June in downtown Buenos Aires, hundreds of demonstrators filled the lobby of the worker-run Hotel Bauen to demand that the Argentine government expropriate the property in favor of the workers. Upstairs in the restaurant, new wait...

A Troublemaker's Handbook 2: how to fight back where you work and win!(Book review)
November 1, 2005... A TROUBLEMAKER'S HANDBOOK 2 How to fight back where you work and win! Edited by Jane Slaughter A Labor Notes Book/2005/$24 Most of us spend the greater part of our waking life at work," writes Dan La Botz in A Troublemaker's...

Grading the economy: Bush's recovery comes up short.(BALANCE SHEET)
November 1, 2005... When George Bush was in college, students who were not serious about their studies would walk into a final exam pretending to walk a dog, to make it clear to everyone that they would be happy to pass the course with a D. George Bush undoubtedly...