Portside

When you dare to do big things, big results should be expected. The Sanders program is big, and when you run it through a standard model, you get a big result. - James K. Galbraith (former Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee - the congressional counterpart to the CEA). Paul Krugman in The New York Times has attacked Sanders' economics. Here a number of prominent economists respond, showing how big a change the proposals actually are. They are HUUUGE.

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While money poured into the recent mayoral and aldermanic elections, voters showed that they are tired of business as usual. Chicago has been portrayed internationally as a symbol of the growing chasm between America's haves and have-nots, the 1% and the 99%, a "tale of two cities." The concept worth contemplating now is that Chuy García could actually win. It would be a story for the ages.

While money poured into the recent mayoral and aldermanic elections, voters showed that they are tired of business as usual. Chicago has been portrayed internationally as a symbol of the growing chasm between America's haves and have-nots, the 1% and the 99%, a "tale of two cities." The concept worth contemplating now is that Chuy García could actually win. It would be a story for the ages.

Reader Comments- Netanyahu Doesn't Speak for All American Jews; SYRIZA, Greece; George Washington and Slavery; Lesley Gore; Needed-Populist Challenger; Tax Top Incomes; Militarized Future; Mississippi's Racial Murders; Ai-jen Poo, Aging; Walmart; West VA Coal; Bad Cops; Chapel Hill Murders; Water Privatization; Teachers and Education Today; Medical Volunteers Needed: Rojava Announcements: Film "Made in Dagenham", Identity Politics-Foundation for Coalition Building

People in the U.S. and around the world are being rapidly divided into two classes, the well-to-do and the lower-income majority. This severing of society will change only when progressive thinkers (and doers) agree on a single, manageable solution that will stop the easy flow of wealth to the privileged few.

Piketty's central theme is not that inequality of the ownership of wealth is going to skyrocket. The central theme is that the 1% already owns a lot of the capital stock, and the capital stock is going to get gigantic relative to the rest of the economy. Whatever the weakness this meg-tome and mega-best seller, there is no denying - the rich are getting richer, the poor, poorer. (And Piketty is not a Marxist.)

Matt Taibbi discusses his new book, "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap." The vast majority of white-collar criminals have avoided prison since the financial crisis began, while an unequal justice system imprisons the poor and people of color on a mass scale. Taibbi explores how the Depression-level income gap between the wealthy and the poor is mirrored by a "justice" gap in who is targeted for prosecution and imprisonment.