An Economy for All
Top Stories
Building a Smart Grid, Smartly
October 27th, 2009
President Barack Obama announced today $3.4 billion in government grants to help build a "smart" electric grid. Like many Obama initiatives, it’s a smart first step. But much more is needed and one piece is rarely mentioned at all. more » Featured Issues
The Next Financial Crisis
Our banks have gotten into the habit of needing to be rescued through repeated bailouts. During this crisis, Bernanke — while saving the financial system in the short term — has done nothing to break this long-term pattern; worse, he exacerbated it. As a result, unless real reform happens soon, we face the prospect of another bubble-bust-bailout cycle that will be even more dangerous than the one we’ve just been through.... more »
Ron Bloom named "manufacturing czar"
Brief statement from Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) Executive Director Scott Paul on the naming of Ron Bloom as the Obama Administration’s Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy.... more »
The Jobs Agenda At The G-20 Summit
Did President Obama seize the opportunity at the G-20 summit to set a new foundation for job growth and fair trade? We examine the issues that preceded the summit and critique what it accomplished for American workers.
» Read Dave Johnson's blogs from the G-20 | Other G-20 blogs and commentary
» THE CONTEXT: Robert Borosage: It's not yet time to declare victory over the recession.
» G-20 PREVIEW REPORT: Lessons to Learn, Choices To Make | Blog by Eric Lotke
... more »
The Case
Why An Economy for All?
Conservatives call the state of the economy the “greatest story never told,” but in reality it’s an economy reminiscent of the Gilded Age. The myth of a booming economy does not reflect the everyday experiences of working-class Americans. In fact, most Americans see the nation either in or near a recession. We need a broad reassessment of our economic policies.more »
Minimum Wage Hike: Stimulus When We Need It
On July 24, the federal minimum wage increased to $7.25 an hour. At a time when getting money into the hands of workers—and thus consumers—is key to jump-starting the economy, a 10.7 percent wage increase will mean $1.6 billion in extra purchasing power for the estimated 4.5 million workers directly affected by the increase. more »
The Facts
Manufacturing Jobs Decline 17% Past Seven Years
Between 2001 and 2007, more 3 million manufacturing workers lost their jobs—a 17 percent decline.
Unfair Taxes, Benefit Wealthy, Hurt Middle Class
Today, the top federal income-tax rate for ordinary income is 35 percent, meaning that earned income is taxed at a rate 2 1/3 higher than income from capital gains
The News
Fisker to Make Plug-in Hybrids at Former G.M. Plant
October 26th, 2009
4.5 Million 'Net' Green Jobs in America Possible by 2030
October 26th, 2009
The Case
How Goldman Secretly Bet on the Housing Crash
In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting. more »
How Wall Street and Its Backers on Capitol Hill Silenced a Critic
When the a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the derivatives market, Robert Johnson was the only non-industry expert invited to speak. The former economist at the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Budget Committee was invited just sixteen hours before the hearing. His testimony was cut short after five minutes by Congresswoman Melissa Bean, and the committee has since refused to post online his full testimony along with the statements of the other panelists. Robert Johnson explains what he tried to tell Congress.more »
Latest from our Bloggers
nov
4
2009
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6:00 am
At a meeting with bloggers before last week's Building The New Economy conference, AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka talked about how we have developed two economies, one real and one financial. more »
nov
1
2009
12:38 pm
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Investing recklessness at Harvard is making 'the best and the brightest' look awfully silly — almost as silly as a nation that lets staggering quantities of wealth continue to concentrate.
oct
30
2009
8:30 am
8:30 am
The daily Progressive Breakfast serves up what progressive movement members need to know to start their day. Bill Scher is traveling; he will return Monday.
Thursday's news that the nation's gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the third quarter comes with a lot of asterisks. A few of them:
oct
29
2009
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It's was 80 years ago this week that the Crash of 1929 kicked off the Great Depression.
Not quite 79 years later, the fall of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, sent the stock market into a meltdown precipitated by the crises of such Wall Street Giants as Bear Stears and AIG, among others.
Comparisons between now and then are, of course, inevitable.
more »oct
28
2009
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The kind of global economic stress we are experiencing is bound to create tensions within the world trading system. Understandably, every company is working to improve its own position. But in countries and regions that are unconstrained by the due process requirements of the U. S. justice system, we have seen signs of trade actions that seriously undermine the global steel market. Nowhere are these destabilizing actions more apparent than in China.more »
oct
28
2009
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To our nation’s peril, the free trade orthodoxy continues to ignore a fundamental economic fact: It matters where things are made.
Over the past decade the U.S. industrial base has suffered an unprecedented decline. The loss of more than 5 million manufacturing jobs and the closure of more than 50,000 manufacturing facilities have undermined our nation’s technical capacity to innovate and to make things, while at the same time decimating our middle class.
Flawed trade and tax policies and a financial system focused on short-term profits drove good jobs offshore, led to record trade deficits, and left the economy in ruins. With the manufacturing share of gross domestic product withering to 12 percent (from 15.9 percent in 1995) and the financial sector growing to 22 percent, the structure of the U.S. economy looks more like Monaco than Germany. This growth model of asset bubbles, low wages, credit pyramids, toxic assets and unregulated out-of-control global capital has been a recipe for disaster.
oct
27
2009
6:42 pm
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Now that thousands of demonstrators confronted bankers at the "showdown in Chicago" during the American Bankers Association convention there this week, activist energy is now urgently shifting to Washington and to communities across the country.
