If Europe and the United States do what must be done next to contain Putin’s despicable invasion – blocking Russian exports of gas and oil – energy prices will soar. That means consumers will have less money to spend on everything else. This could well push the U.S. economy back into recession. Which makes all the more bizarre Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s statement yesterday to the House Financial Services Committee that he will propose increasing interest rates at the central bank’s...
Mar 03, 2022•4 min
When I was in elementary school in the 1950s, I was periodically required to “duck and cover” by huddling under my desk in case the Soviet Union dropped an atomic bomb on my town. If I didn’t survive, I was also issued a dog tag with my name and address to help my parents identify my body. (I remember thinking that if the bomb dropped my parents wouldn’t be around to identify me anyway.) The whole thing was terrifying. Years later, when I had my own children, I learned that the only means by whi...
Mar 02, 2022•3 min
In a few minutes, Joe Biden will give his first State of the Union address. It’s his best opportunity between now and November’s midterm elections to shape the narrative — describing the key choices ahead and explaining where he’s leading America. But there’s far more at stake than mere politics. Biden needs to frame not only what he’s accomplished and wants to accomplish but also what America stands for at this precarious point in our nation’s history. That should be the choice between democrac...
Mar 01, 2022•6 min
The world is currently and frighteningly locked in a battle to the death between democracy and authoritarianism. Yesterday, Vladimir Putin issued a new threat to the West — telling his defense minister and his top military commander to place Russia’s nuclear forces on alert. It is a new cold war. The biggest difference between the old cold war and the new one is that authoritarian neo-fascism is not just an external threat. A version of it has also taken over one of the major political parties i...
Feb 28, 2022•6 min
In the midst of Putin’s attack on Ukraine, it’s hard to keep our minds on domestic priorities — such as protecting voting rights, delivering economic security, and fixing our woefully expensive and unfair healthcare system. Yet maybe this is exactly the time to focus on these domestic goals. Doing what’s right for our people strengthens our moral authority to defend democracy and human rights abroad. Protecting voting rights lends credibility to our claims of the superiority of democracy to auto...
Feb 26, 2022•4 min
We must do what we can to contain Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. But we also need to be clear-eyed about it, and face the costs. As I’ve said before, economics can’t be separated from politics, and neither can be separated from history. Here are eight sobering realities: 1. Will the economic sanctions now being put into effect stop Putin from seeking to take over all of Ukraine? No. They will complicate Russia’s global financial transactions but they will not cripple the Russian economy...
Feb 24, 2022•8 min
The stock market is gyrating wildly in light of Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, but Wall Street traders are doing just fine. Bad news is good news for traders who make money off volatility. After all, in the year of Delta and Omicron, climate chaos, Trump Republican attacks on democracy, bitter divisiveness, a calamitous exit from Afghanistan, and accelerating inflation, the Street’s biggest banks have reaped record profits. Bonuses are through the front Porsche. Hundreds of traders have racked u...
Feb 22, 2022•5 min
Happy Presidents Day. It’s a good day to contemplate whether Joe Biden has a prayer of keeping a Democratic House and Senate next year. Call me a hopeless optimist, but I think he does. Yes, I know: Republicans are suppressing votes, Democrats are hopeless at messaging, Biden’s poll numbers are in the basement. But let me give you ten reasons why I think there’s a decent chance Democrats can maintain control of both the House and the Senate, and maybe even gain some seats. First: It’s likely tha...
Feb 21, 2022•4 min
Hello again, friends. Thank you for joining me for the second week of my Wealth and Poverty class. In today’s class, we begin to explore why such inequalities have soared since the late 1970s and early 1980s. The questions we’ll focus on today are: How did the market for financial capital contribute to inequalities of income and wealth? Did the accepted purpose of the American corporation change over the last fifty years, and, if so, when and how? More generally, for whom should the corporation ...
Feb 18, 2022•2 min
For many years, my right ankle has been losing cartilage that keeps my ankle bones from scraping up against each other. The result: increasing inflammation and pain. An orthopedic surgeon suggested replacing the ankle with an artificial one, but the procedure is costly, takes months to heal, and requires lots of physical therapy. So I’ve taken a different route. I cut way back on sugar, began an exercise program aimed at strengthening the muscles around my ankle, and lost twenty pounds. Now, six...
Feb 17, 2022•5 min
I got my start in American politics about 50 years ago. America was in many ways a different country then, but my political views weren’t all that different than they are now. I was against the Vietnam War and the military-industrial complex, pro civil and voting rights, and against the growing power of big corporations. That put me just left of the center. Today I’m much further left of center than I used to be — because the “center” has moved to the right and the right has become far far more ...
Feb 16, 2022•2 min
I mentioned yesterday that I’ve been inspired by the young Starbucks baristas who are leading the charge to unionize the company. The number of unionizing stores has risen to seventy-two since the fall. The weekly spate of new Starbucks election filings represents a breakthrough for labor. Starbucks executives are counterattacking. Last week, they fired seven Memphis baristas who had led the organizing in that city. I urge you to watch my interview with leaders of the Starbucks baristas (just do...
Feb 15, 2022•1 min
When I began this newsletter almost five months ago I had no idea what I was doing. I still don’t. But your enthusiastic response, thoughtful comments, and helpful feedback have guided me — and continue to make it all worthwhile. It has been a journey into the unknown. We’re figuring it out together. A big thanks to you. I hope you’re finding my course on inequality (which began here last Friday, and will be continuing for the next 13 weeks) helpful. I hope you’re also finding useful (and someti...
Feb 14, 2022•5 min
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh says he’s ready to step up to the plate and help end Major League Baseball’s lockout. My advice to Marty, as former labor secretary to the current one: Stay away from baseball. I wouldn’t touch another baseball labor dispute if Babe Ruth asked me in person. In 1995, the owners and players were at loggerheads, too. I tried to mediate. Bill Clinton (on phone): “Bobby, this is Bill. How you doing on the strike?” Translated: What the hell’s going on? The World Series may ...
Feb 12, 2022•10 min
More inflation buzz today. The U.S. consumer price index for January rose at an annual rate of 7.5 percent, the largest such increase since 1982. Yes, prices are increasing. But would you prefer a recession? As a practical matter, that’s the choice the Fed gives us. When the Fed puts on the brakes, it often pushes the economy into a ditch. (Anyone remember when Paul Volcker “broke the back of inflation” by putting the economy into a tailspin?) A recession will cause far more hardship for many mo...
Feb 10, 2022•9 min
Many people tell me America is going to hell. But when I ask them how their own lives are going, they say pretty well. This discrepancy between how people feel about America’s public life and their own private lives is wider today than it’s been since the late 1960s. Then, our public life was marked by assassinations, riots, an escalating war in Vietnam, and the deeply flawed Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. But our private lives featured love-ins, Woodstock, and the Beatles. (I know; I was the...
Feb 08, 2022•7 min
The biggest stories this week are likely to be the continuing standoff between NATO (led by the United States) and Putin in the Ukraine, the new Russo-Chinese detente, and the Republican Party’s continuing drift toward Trumpism. One way of tying these together to reveal a larger pattern is to talk about the expanded Child Tax Credit. You heard me right. The fate of the expanded Child Tax Credit illustrates a basic problem that runs through all this. Let me explain. Even before the pandemic, more...
Feb 07, 2022•8 min
Thank you so much for joining me in this community. It’s an experiment in group learning and teaching about the American system — and it’s succeeding far beyond my expectations. Your interest and enthusiasm make it all worthwhile. Please let others know! In preparation for my course on Wealth and Poverty, which starts Friday on this page, you may find useful the documentary below. It’s called Inequality for All. I made it a few years ago with the talented director Jacob Kornbluth. It’s won many ...
Feb 06, 2022•2 min
Today’s January jobs report is heightening fears that a so-called “tight” labor market is fueling inflation, and that therefore the Fed must put on the brakes by raising interest rates. This line of reasoning is totally wrong. Among the biggest job gains in January were workers who are normally temporary and paid low wages (eg, leisure and hospitality, retail, transport and warehousing). Employers cut fewer of these low-wage temp jobs than in most January’s because of rising customer demand comb...
Feb 04, 2022•5 min
As former secretary of labor, I’m always interested in the annual count of unionized workers issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This year’s count shows that the 70-year decline of unions continues . The share of unionized American workers dropped from 10.8 percent last year to 10.3 percent now. The rate among private-sector workers hit a new rock bottom of 6.1 percent — about one-seventh of its level in the middle of the 20th century. How to square this with the huge surge in labor activi...
Feb 03, 2022•8 min
When I was a young teenager near the middle of the last century, I asked the high school librarian if I could borrow J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Why did I want to read it? she asked. I lied and told her my parents told me it was excellent literature. The real reason I wanted to read The Catcher in the Rye was it had been banned from the library. I knew the librarian kept one copy behind her desk, and I was determined to get it. She reluctantly handed it to me. I read it voraciously. ...
Feb 01, 2022•4 min
The midterm elections are just over nine months away. What will Democrats run on? What will Republicans run on? One hint came at a Houston-area Trump rally Saturday night. “If I run and if I win,” the former guy said, referring to 2024, “we will treat those people from January 6th fairly.” He then added, “and if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.” Trump went on to demand "the biggest protest we have ever had" if federal prosecutors in Wash...
Jan 31, 2022•8 min
In light of the news this week that the economy has been growing at a record rate (and corporate profits are also hitting record highs, the stock market notwithstanding), several of you have asked me specifically what can be done to spread the benefits of economic growth. I have a few ideas, which I’ll share with you in coming weeks. One idea is an old one that was tried with great success but is now all but forgotten. It’s called profit-sharing . It emerged from the tumultuous period when Ameri...
Jan 29, 2022•6 min
How can it be that the U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace since 1984 last year (according to yesterday’s report from the Commerce Department) but most Americans remain gloomy about the economy, and blame Biden and the Democrats? The New York Times declares that the cause of this paradox is inflation: “Biden is suffering in the polls as high inflation saps confidence in the economy, even as growth comes in strong.” Rubbish. Americans are gloomy about the economy despite its record growth becau...
Jan 28, 2022•6 min
I just heard Joe Manchin say Biden should move to the “center.” Political consultant Mark Penn wrote in the New York Times that “Biden should follow the lead of Bill Clinton, and move to the center.” Duh. Who wants to be on the fringe? Political careers are imperiled by labels like “left-winger” (or “right-winger”). The public feels safer with a president who proclaims total commitment to the middle. FDR always sought to position himself as a centrist. So did Nixon (remember the “silent majority...
Jan 27, 2022•4 min
Inflation! It’s dominating all economic news. It’s the main reason the stock market is going nuts. It’s what Fed officials are discussing in today’s meeting (they’re expected to raise interest rates several times over the next twelve months). But in all of the inflated verbiage over inflation, there’s been little or no discussion about the role that large, hugely-profitable corporations are playing. Yet inflation is intimately connected to corporate power (as I discussed on this page last month ...
Jan 25, 2022•7 min
In light of last week’s devastating senate vote on voting rights, I keep hearing “voting rights are dead.” Wrong . If voting rights are dead, American democracy is dead. And if American democracy is dead, the entire project that began (imperfectly, to be sure) in 1776 and has been a beacon for the world, is dead. I will not accept that. Nor, I assume, will you. But what can and should be done now? I’ll get to that in a moment. First, though, it’s important to acknowledge that our two major parti...
Jan 24, 2022•7 min
Wall Street may be having a bad week, but top bankers are doing wonderfully well. After a blockbuster year , the five biggest Wall Street banks just paid out $142 billion in bonuses and compensation for 2021. This was $18 billion more than in 2020. JPMorgan Chase reported record profits, and Citigroup’s annual profit more than doubled. Let me remind you (as if you need reminding) that 2020 and 2021 were not exactly blockbuster years for the rest of America. In the first three decades after World...
Jan 22, 2022•7 min
What can possibly explain Manchin’s and Sinema’s votes against voting rights this week? Why did they create a false narrative that the legislation had to be “bipartisan” when everyone -- themselves included -- knew bipartisanship was impossible? Why did they say they couldn’t support changing the filibuster rules when only last month they voted for an exception to the filibuster that allowed debt ceiling legislation to pass with only Democratic votes? Why did they co-sponsor voting rights legisl...
Jan 21, 2022•8 min
Across America, hospitals are pushed to the limit because so many health care workers have quit just as Omicron is surging. But hospitals aren’t alone, and Omicron isn’t the only culprit. We’re witnessing one of the most profound changes in the American labor force in a half century, at least since middle-class women entered paid work in large numbers during the 1970s. Only this time, women and men aren’t entering work. Many are leaving it (or at least, the way work has been organized). For deca...
Jan 20, 2022•5 min
