Blogs: Making It In America

A number of groups representing American manufacturing companies and industries have asked the Obama administration for clear language that bans currency manipulation to be included in any new trade bills. more »

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Which is better for an economy: millions of future jobs and trillions of future dollars, or a few people making a quick buck today by selling out their country? For decades America's 1%-backed conservatives have chosen the latter course, and we can see the results all around us. more »

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Told ya so. more »

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Another month and another terrible trade deficit report. Why is it that DC elites who profess to care so much about deficits say so little about our worst deficit? The trade deficit drains money from our economy, lowers our wages and forces us into an ever-lower standard of living.

Trade Deficit Rises 14%

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Is this guy a Presidential candidate from a major party, or a fringe nut? He sounds like Rush Limbaugh. HuffPo: Mitt Romney: Obama 'Takes Marching Orders From Union Bosses', more »

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The trade agreements we have entered into over the last few decades have greatly enriched the already-wealthy 1% but not worked for the benefit of most of us. They have created massive trade deficits that drain our economy. They have cost millions of manufacturing, textile and other jobs. They have empowered huge, multi-national corporations to break unions and force pay and benefit cuts. more »

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The unemployment rate is now officially higher than it was when President Obama took office. That's a slow recovery, but still good. Here is the bad news.

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What's end of the line for austerity? We've gone through despair, desperation, and indifference. The latter feeds the first two, creating what Robert Reich calls "a tinderbox society," as "those collecting capital gains" demand austerity, resulting in "rising frustration over the inability of most people to get ahead. That frustration, Reich notes, is fanning the flames of public anger in Europe, fueling student revolts in Chile, and could plunge China into turmoil.

Where austerity goes, violence and unrest follow. The danger lies in the unpredictable nature of public anger, once ignited. When sparks fly, there's no telling where they catch fire or who will get burned.

It's a combustible concoction wherever it occurs: Increasing productivity, widening inequality, and rising unemployment create tinder-box societies.

Public anger and frustration can ignite in two very different ways. One is toward reforms that more broadly share the productivity gains.

The other is toward demagogues that turn people against one another.

To borrow a line from Bonnie Tyler's 1983 hit single, austerity means "we're living in a powder keg, and giving off sparks.

Except there is no more "we," anymore. As austerity-engineered scarcity makes day-to-day survival, people see their fates as divorced from one another. Solidarity gives way to detachment, an "everyone for him or herself" becomes the general , if you want to survive.

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Tremulous times in the world of U.S. more »

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The path to creating millions of jobs is so easy and obvious. Hire people to modernize the infrastructure and to retrofit buildings to be energy efficient. Millions would be paying income taxes instead of receiving unemployment or food stamps. The companies that supply the materials and steel would also be hiring and paying taxes, and the companies that supply them ... more »

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