Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – “Toxic workplace” is the phrase of the day. You do not have to be the male offspring of a famous political family to foster your own toxic workplace. Even US citizenship is not required. CBC did an indepth report on Canada’s Governor General, and plausible accusations that […]
In Bipartisan Infrastructure Package, opportunity to alter fundamental climate and economic priorities is being squandered
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – How to assess the infrastructure package? Lots of big numbers, but budgetary appropriations are moral statements, and this package disappoints. An opportunity to alter fundamental climate and economic priorities is being squandered. Perhaps no aspect of the American political economy is more iconic that the auto. Not […]
Republican Governors have gone too Far in Banning Local Mask, Vaccine Mandates
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – With the Delta variant of Covid 19 now producing escalating case counts and hospitalizations, talk among pundits has turned to the possibility of a federally imposed vaccination mandate. Many of these discussions and debates have revolved around familiar albeit simplistic dichotomies, such as voluntary choice versus government […]
Living on a Newly Unrecognizable Planet
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Germany is a wealthy nation. Its business and political leaders accept the reality of climate change and have made at least modest progress to prepare for and mitigate its effects. How then to respond to such events as a family moving to the roof of their house […]
This time, it is the Students and the Unions that the Gov’t Needs to Bail out for a Healthy Economy
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Digging our way back out of the pandemic recession will not be easy, but we have the advantage of knowing what worked and did not work in the 2008 crisis. Any policy choice today does not operate on a blank slate. No one knows this more than […]
Why we need a Debt Jubilee for Renters as the Covid eviction Moratorium expires
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – What is going to happen when the eviction protections now scheduled to expire at the end of July finally do so? The rental deficits hanging over some tenants’ heads are so extreme that default is virtually inevitable, and the numbers affected so many that rental debt is […]
Dear National Public Radio: The Stock Market is not the Economy– Tell us about Hunger and the Real Unemployment Rate
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – I have a pet peeve with NPR. Why do so many of its top- of- the- hour five minute newscasts begin and end with short stock market updates? Is there no more important factoid its news editors could be passing along to us? NPR likes to portray […]
Central American Migrants: They’re Here Because We Were There
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Democrats claim to defend an honest rendition of US history, one that will be attentive to the injustices inflicted by slavery and racism. Unfortunately, however, that honesty stops at the water’s edge. While the president prepared for and conducted a widely- covered summit that among other things […]
Is America’s Big Problem Really overly generous Unemployment Benefits?
Ending enhanced unemployment benefits has become the signature economic agenda for the GOP, a party with little else to promote. Unfortunately the largely low- key response of the President on this issue has been disappointing. The failure to mount a vigorous defense of these benefits is bad ethics, bad policy, and bad politics. As for […]