Portside

About 7.4 million Americans – up from 7.2 million as of November – are working part-time but would like to be working full-time.

A majority parliamentary presence, constitutional support, a drive to tackle gender-based violence – post-genocide Rwanda seems a good place to be a woman. But the reality is more complex.

Any sort of relief peddled by capitalist elites will only, at best, be fleeting.

We have failed to make the honest case for quantum computing—the case based on basic science—because we’ve underestimated the public. We’ve falsely believed that people would never support us if we told them the truth: that while the potential applications are wonderful cherries on the sundae, they’re not and have never been the main reason to build a quantum computer. The main reason is that we want to make absolutely manifest what quantum mechanics says about reality

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.

Output growth at the nation’s factories has [...] been weak since 2000. And though automation undoubtedly has displaced some workers in manufacturing, research suggests that persistent trade deficits and America’s decline as a location for production have accounted for much of the sector’s job loss. Boosting exports or reducing imports enough to bring trade into balance would generate 4.2 million jobs directly and another 2.1 million jobs indirectly.

The immediate threat poor blacks face today in Jackson comes from outside developers and speculators with the resources to move in and take over their neighborhoods.

The dramatic and widening gap in household wealth along racial lines in the United States reflects policies and institutional practices that create different opportunities for whites and African-Americans. Personal ambition and behavioral choices are but a small part of the equation.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!; Progressive Budget, Ryan Budget and economic inequality; General Motors; Supreme Court McCutcheon decision; USAID, Twitter and Cuba; Ukraine

The vast middle class and poor don't have enough purchasing power, as 95 percent of the economy's gains go to the top 1 percent. Some wealthy people and big corporations have a strangle-hold on our politics. "McCutcheon" makes that strangle-hold even tighter. Connect the dots and you see how the big-money takeover of our democracy has lead to an economy that's barely functioning for most Americans.