Portside

Reader Comments: Uncommitted Movement a Success at DNC; Harris’ $5 Trillion Tax Plan; Labor, Harris and Trump; Change Biden’s Policy on Israel by Upholding the Law; Union Songs for Kids!; Support the Musicians of live television shows; Cartoons; more

Thousands of artists - visual artists, painters, playrights, actor, musicians, singers, and other creatives, were employed by the Federal government through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), between 1935-43.

A self-funding national infrastructure bank modeled on the “American System” of Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt would help solve not one but two of the country’s biggest problems.

Reader Comments: I Can't Breathe - Again; Trump Second Term Means Tyranny; Reader's Respond on Tara Reade; Open Churches?; Vietnam; Indonesia; Chile; Nuclear Testing, Nuclear Cold War - Again; Resources; Events:COVID and mass incarceration; June 20th

Four out of every five - or more - have said the government makes them feel either angry or frustrated. These frustrated Americans may not fully realize it, but there's a strong case for more government - not less - as the most promising way to improve the nation's standard of living. The American government pretty much stopped growing when the civil rights movement forced whites to share public space with African Americans, then Latinos, Asians and Native Americans.

There’s a significant labor economics literature that argues that job-to-job transitions are a major driver of wage growth for workers. If the number of people moving directly from one job to another is in decline, that’s a bad sign for wage growth, as well as inflation and monetary policy. This appears to be undertheorized and not discussed enough in academic or policy discussions.