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Why is Capital So Much Stronger than Labor?

Jared Bernstein Jared Bernstein blog
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.” Progressives have all kinds of ideas to shape a more equitable primary distribution. But those ideas will never get much oxygen if we remain voluntary trapped in the cramped debate of a short-sighted economics.

A New Front in the CEO Pay Wars

Sam Pizzigati Otherwords
Two new imaginative state proposals are now seeking to leverage the power of the public purse against executive excess. In California, lawmakers are zeroing in on how government taxes. New legislation pending in Rhode Island targets how government spends.

Friday Nite Videos -- May 23, 2014

Portside
Sen. Elizabeth Warren's keynote at the New Populism Conference. John Lennon: Instant Karma. Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs. Just Say No ... to the War on Drugs. Drug Tests Must Now Include Females.

What Is the New Populism?

Robert Borosage Campaign for America's Future
This new populism is not something we have to invent. It is already stirring. It is Occupy Wall Street putting Gilded Age inequality at the center of our political debate. It’s exploited low-wage workers protesting fast-food restaurants in over 150 cities. Moral Monday protests against the assault on voting rights and the vulnerable mobilizing thousands in North Carolina and are spreading to Georgia and South Carolina.

Tidbits - May 22, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Boko Haram; Portside articles on the Ukraine; Brown v. Board-what still needs to be done; Redistributing Income; NRA, Second Amendment; John Oliver; Jon Favreau - a correction; Whiteness of Liberal Media; Was the American Revolution Really Just A Counter-Revolution; THE REAL WORLD - a graduation address never given; Announcements - DIE LINKE, SYRIZA, Future of the European Left - New York - May 28; New Book -- Torture is still an urgent moral issue

Still Separate and Unequal

Jamelle Bouie Slate
School segregation doesn’t happen by accident; it flows inexorably from housing segregation. If most black Americans live near other blacks and in a level of neighborhood poverty unseen by the vast majority of white Americans, then in the same way, their children attend schools that are poorer and more segregated than anything experienced by their white peers.

labor

Fast-Food Workers Set to Strike over Wages

Joe Garofoli SFGATE.com
Low-income workers from 150 U.S. cities and 33 countries in protests on Thursday to call attention to wealth inequality.The protest comes amid a national push to raise the minimum wage - and it could mark a significant moment in the campaign, according to John Logan, a professor of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University.

Matt Taibbi Explores Criminal Injustice With Bill Maher

Journalist Matt Taibbi tells Real Time's Bill Maher about the criminal inequalities between the rich and the poor in the USA - meaning that, for example, people who have committed $800 of fraud are not allowed to see their kids again while those that have stolen billions have not been punished.

Education is Not the Answer

Dean Baker Jacobin Magazine
Everyone deserves a great public education, but better schools alone can’t fight inequality.

Why Inequality Matters and What Can Be Done About It

Joseph Stiglitz Next New Deal
We must be careful of how we measure our progress. If we use the wrong metrics, we will strive for the wrong things. Economic growth as measured by GDP is not enough—there is a growing global consensus that GDP does not provide a good measure of overall economic performance. What matters is whether growth is sustainable, and whether most citizens see their living standards rising year after year.
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