Dollars & Sense articles from September 2008

Dollars & Sense archives from September 2008

Confidence game.(from the editors)
September 1, 2008... Hyman Minsky, the theorist of financial fragility whose work has enjoyed a revival as U.S. financial institutions crumble, always maintained that "there is nothing wrong with macroeconomics that another depression wouldn't cure." Whatever...

Chronology of a meltdown.(the short run)(Chronology)
September 1, 2008... Regular readers of D&S know to turn to us for big-picture, long-term coverage of the economy. For up-to-the-minute analysis, check out the D&S blog (dollarsandsense.org/blog). As you might imagine, posts in recent weeks--both discussions by our...

Free market man in "health care adventure".(leftycartoons.com)(Cartoon)
September 1, 2008... FREE MARKET MAN IS READING THE PAPER! BIG GOVERNMENT SURE IS TOO BIG... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHEN SUDDENLY! HEY, THAT SMARTS! AW, HECK. SORRY ABOUT THAT, FREE MARKET MAN! NO SWEAT! MISTAKES HAPPEN,...

ICE descends on Rhode Island: activists and advocates cope with a "climate of fear.".(active culture)
September 1, 2008... All day on July 15, the activist community in Providence, R.I., had the sense that something was about to happen. As an immigration panel convened by Republican Gov. Donald Carcieri met, rumors were flying about possible raids and arrests...

The greed fallacy: you can't explain a change with a constant.(comment)
September 1, 2008... Various people explain the current financial crisis as a result of "greed." There is, however, no indication of a change in the degree or extent of greed on Wall Street (or anywhere else) in the last several years. Greed is a constant. If greed...

Passing on single-payer health care: union leadership is out of touch with the rank and file--and the public--on health care.(comment)
September 1, 2008... Acoalition of major labor unions and liberal organizations has recently created what it calls "a national grassroots campaign organizing millions of Americans to win a guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all." Health Care for...

The bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.(making sense)
September 1, 2008... On Sunday, September 7, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced that the U.S. government was taking control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two giant home mortgage companies, which together either own or guarantee almost half of the...

Immigrant rights are labor rights: Postville and the lessons of the Hormel strike.(making sense)
September 1, 2008... On May 12, 900 officers from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security descended on the small northeast Iowa community of Postville (population 2,200), home to Agriprocessors, Inc., the...

One-quarter of large U.S. corporations don't pay profit taxes--why should the rest?(UP AGAINST THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)
September 1, 2008... You have to hand it to the Wall Street Journal editors: They don't embarrass easily. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that one-quarter of large U.S. corporations paid no income taxes in 2005, and the editors whine that high...

Indiana and Honda mold a white workforce: Honda's new Indiana plant nets the company $141 million in subsidies--and a segregated workforce.
September 1, 2008... HONDA GEARING UP FOR DIVERSITY." That was how Bloomberg News headlined its story last March on the opening of a new 2,000-worker Honda plant in the town of Greensburg, Ind., 50 miles southeast of Indianapolis. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

The right to stay home: transnational communities are creating new ways of looking at citizenship and residence that correspond to the realities of migration.
September 1, 2008... For almost half a century, migration has been the main fact of social life in hundreds of indigenous towns spread through the hills of Oaxaca, one of Mexico's poorest states. That's made migrants' rights, and the conditions they face, central...

Citizenship, political rights, and labor rights.
September 1, 2008... Citizenship is a complex issue in a world in which transnational migrant communities span borders and exist in more than one place simultaneously. Residents of transnational communities don't see themselves simply as victims of an unfair...

Back to the future with labor law reform: labor has pinned its hopes on passing the employee Free Choice Act next year. But is that a winnable fight--or even the right one?
September 1, 2008... I recently came across an article in the United Mine Workers Journal denouncing the management bias of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and calling for labor law reform. Here's how it described the workers' rights violations that cried...

Ask Dr. Dollar.
September 1, 2008... Dear Dr. Dollar: U.S. activists have pushed to get foreign trade agreements to include higher labor standards. But then you hear that developing countries don't want that because cheaper labor without a lot of rules and regulations is...