Economics & Empire

Food Stamps and Krazy Glue

benefit card May 10, 2013

On a recent Monday morning, an officemate and I were discussing the current financial state—always a cheery subject on a Monday.  Mark, a financial planner, said that many believe we are currently in a for-real, genuine, bona fide… depression.
“Many

Read the full article →

What Then Must We Do?: Worker Ownership Redux

cover May 2, 2013

The following is an excerpt from from Gar Alperovitz’s What Then Must We Do? (Chelsea Green, 2013) and is reprinted with permission of the publisher. Learn more about the book here. 
By the way, and finally (for the moment), there are also many, many worker-owned…

Read the full article →

Capital Offense

April 14, 2013

Washington, DC…
I’ve been spending my semester in exile in our nation’s capital. My apartment is in Arlington, on a ridge overlooking the city. From that spot I have a clear view of the Pentagon, the Capitol dome, the Washington

Read the full article →

U.S. ‘Intervention’ in Syria Unlawful

600px-Syria_(orthographic_projection)_svg April 8, 2013

Proponents of Syria “intervention” did not seem to notice any irony as Secretary of State John Kerry, on the one hand, chastened Iraq for letting Iran use its airspace to aid President Assad’s regime in Syria,[1] and, they, on the…

Read the full article →

Democracy Is A Racket

71fmyledCZL._SL1360_ March 22, 2013

War and Democracy…
by Paul Gottfried
Arktos Media Ltd
170 pp., $21.00
 
In this slender volume Paul Gottfried addresses everything from the influence of ancient Greek thought on Oswald Spengler, to the influence of Zionism on US foreign policy,

Read the full article →

In Defense of President Obama’s Syria Policy

U.S. President Obama speaks at the White House in Washington March 21, 2013

Myriad calls have been made for intervention in Syria. President Obama has been blamed with everything from “feeble paralysis most foul” to subcontracting “foreign policy to the likes of Qatar” and lacking principle in his national security calculus. Supposedly, Syria…

Read the full article →

Filibustering the Filibuster

Senate-chamber March 9, 2013

Washington, Connecticut. As I watched Senator Rand Paul slurp his dripping candy bar, a sinking feeling set in. This does not diminish his determined stance but one should rightly be filled with despair at the idea that a Senator must…

Read the full article →

What Does the Boss Really Do? Business Education and the Liberal Arts

boss March 7, 2013

An address given to the Ciceronian Society at Mount St. Mary’s University, March 3.
At the start of each semester, I ask my MBA students, “What are you here for? An education or a credential?” The students neither hesitate nor…

Read the full article →

The Journey Home

journey home March 4, 2013

If you had told me, a happy and professionally satisfied D.C. lawyer living on Capitol Hill, just over a year ago, that I would be back someday soon living in my hometown of East Grand Rapids, Michigan, writing this, I…

Read the full article →

Exurban Dream? What Exurbs and Suburbs Have in Common

exurb dream February 28, 2013

When in 1967 my parents were the thirteenth family to move into newly minted Columbia, Maryland, I was three months old. The American dream at that time generally took the form of owning a house in the suburbs. In the…

Read the full article →

The Budget Redux

February 7, 2013
Thumbnail image for The Budget Redux

So I’ve recently written about the GAO’s overview of the US Economy. The CBO has just released its own report projecting economic activity and the budget for the next ten years. It is, again, a bracing report. Despite the President’s…

Read the full article →

The Budget: A Citizen’s Guide?

February 2, 2013

The Department of the Treasury recently released its “Citizen’s Guide to the 2012 Financial Report of the United States Government.” At 246 pages of relatively dense economic analysis I’m guessing not too many citizens have read it. It has all…

Read the full article →

Free to Share

samaritan January 31, 2013

When SueAnne Bassett learned that she had stage four cervical cancer eight years ago, her doctors gave her a 20 percent chance that she would live five years, and that was with full-blown chemo and radiation treatment. Then she learned…

Read the full article →

Barack Obama: Socialist?

January 21, 2013

 
 
Washington DC…
When President Obama took office in 2009, many friends of capitalism were concerned that he would socialize our economy. Yet corporate profits have hit record heights during his presidency. For example, one report argues that the

Read the full article →

Behind the Beautiful Forevers, and the Ground on Which Communities Are Built

January 7, 2013

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res]
The final sentence in Behind the Beautiful Forevers…–Katherine Boo’s wonderfully written, devastatingly detailed narrative of several fascinating, despairing stories that took place over the period of a couple of years in a Mumbai slum

Read the full article →

The Founders on Taxation, Redistribution, and Property

tax December 10, 2012

Hidden Springs Lane.… As the Fiscal Cliff looms, as Red States and Blues States stand more divided than ever, as the gap between the wealthiest Americans and the rest continues to widen, the question of taxation—its purpose and extent—is a

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries