We have all the makings of a pronounced spike in income and wealth inequality. The major trends of the last 8 months suggest that the least wealthy/lower earning 80% of the American population are in increasingly severe pain. The vast majority of Americans live off of labor income and possess...

All over America, pundits are spinning the wisdoms and trends revealed by the New Jersey, Virginia, mayoral, and Maine votes. No doubt, much is simple spin, and many fine observations lurk. This short article will try to bend the debate in a very different direction. I believe that hordes of...

It is the best of times. It is also the worst of times and everything in between. You are probably sick of hearing the cheerleading about the recovery. You are probably equally sick of hearing many -- present author included -- pontificate skeptically. Let's look at what is going well...

As consensus builds for economic recovery, mass anger is building in lock-step. Consumer sentiment surveys show that the public does feel better about the economy. Stock and bond markets have been celebrating, here and abroad, since March. Public officials have been speaking of the rebound for at least three months....

It is hard to make sense of economic news in the best of times. These are not the best of times. Much of the "good" news pertains to a relatively small cross section of the US. Much of the "bad" news involves reporting on widely suffered pain. Housing market numbers...

We are all sick of hearing about how we need to be doing more for less. We have all been doing more for less for a long while. What has changed? We are now doing more and more for less and less at a faster pace. The 11 August 2009...

In the last two weeks, a key element of how we got into our present sorry state has surfaced. Our national attention is often focused in strange places for long periods of time. During these times, the earth does not stand still. The last two weeks have hosted a bizarre...

As GM slides toward Chrysler-style bankruptcy it is brutally obvious that we lack a national industrial policy. There is no debate that we need one. The screaming lack of any coherent macroeconomic plan is obscured by face-offs that pit union fans against bond holder rights advocates. The national media debate...

It seems almost too perfect to have swine flu be the pandemic fear of the hour. We have, after all, been dealing with economic swine flu for the better part of two years now. Debt and speculation ruled the global roost from 2002-2007. The speculative fever that gripped the world...

A defining element of the ongoing economic crisis has been an endless series of large numbers. Everything seems to be measured in the billions, hundreds of billions and trillions. So it is with large, global losses and bail-outs. Contextualizing and making real such large numbers is rare. What follows is...

Last week $2.15 trillion dollars in plans were announced from the Federal Reserve (Fed), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the US Treasury. These plans have received little attention. Instead, attention was focused on the raging battle over $170 million in AIG bonuses. This is truly sad. There are...

Most Sunday mornings I have the pleasure of joining the Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., his daughter Santita Jackson, and various guests on Keep Hope Alive Radio. The show melds experts, academics, politicians and listener calls. With each passing week the listeners' calls reflect deepening pain. The past Sundays, March...

These days it is hard to be optimistic about the economy. The business of America has been in business for a long, long time. Business is not good. Many are optimistic about a bright, new, young President. I understand the power of hope and the need for change. It has...

There remains very little debate regarding the depth and extent of our economic downturn. Each passing week brings news of mass lay-offs, rising anxiety and fears about further economic trouble. The last year has seen more than 4 million Americans added to the unemployment statistics and over 3 million...

Symptoms and Solutions

Economic pain is slippery to diagnose, discuss and dissect. We all know there exists a business cycle and that gains and pains come with our system. We all now know that we have exited a gain period and are in a painful stretch. It...

So much in our America rests on the celebration of success and the harsh judgment of failure. In the best of times, this drives astonishing striving and victory. In turbulent times of national emergency, our elevation of "winners" and castigation of "losers" can be become maniacal and counter-productive. In many...

We are cursed to live in interesting times. We all have front row seats to the death of a global economic order. The old order ran from the late 1970s through the spring of 2007. We have watched faith and wealth in the old system decline in rapidly accelerating fits...

I can't bring myself to join the gleeful investing masses. Watching shorting become illegal around the world and tax billions pledged, I feel an acute sense of unease. Secretary Paulson has attempted to declare himself the most equal of pigs in our animal house economy. The Treasury seeks more than...

The seizure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will shape and change international credit markets and US real estate financing for years. It will take months to assess and learn how much the worlds of borrowing, lending and home ownership will be altered. Born in the depths of the depression,...

As attention shifts from the Olympics to running mates and the celebrity "news" de jour, the infrastructure beneath your house is termite infested. Just beneath the nicely painted exterior and behind all the new appliances, doubt is boring through the beams, gnawing at the studs. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...