Go ahead and read these two paragraphs (go ahead, I\’ll wait for you): So there sat Bezos at the breakfast table, faced with a question for which he was apparently unprepared. Many painful seconds passed without an answer. Rutledge let the pause lengthen as long as he could bear it and was just about to tell his host to forget it, when Bezos finally spoke. He looked down at his plate. Bezos had ordered a dish called Tom’s Big Breakfast, a preparation of Mediterranean octopus that includes potatoes, bacon, green garlic yogurt, and a poached egg. “You’re...
Continue reading...Money and the Economy
Why those Beatles tickets were reasonably priced
Yglesias notes that when The Beatles came to town in 1964, tickets to see them were actually pretty reasonable, if not downright cheap: Adjusting for inflation, those tickets ranged in price from $15 to $30. These days $30 will get you in to see St. Vincent at the 9:30 Club but prices to see Kings of Leon at the Verizon Center start at about $60. There are a number of concomitant reasons why, despite it being the hottest show in the world, it was so much cheaper than any popular concert would be in 2014. First is the simplest of...
Continue reading...Economic inequality and mobility are not the same thing
It\’s the story of the day. Well, it\’s the story of the past, well, ever. It seems the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the middle gets squeezed. And, truly that’s at least been the case since 1980. Some see the cure for this malady to be “economic mobility,” which basically means, making it easier for people who were born poor to stop being so poor and start being middle class (or rich even!). Hard work and smarts! The American dream! It’s the obsession of Americans, this idea that there’s a path for people...
Continue reading...Ninety percent of fast food cooks will be affected by D.C. raising the minimum wage
D.C. recently passed a law gradually increasing the minimum wage, from $8.25 to $11.50 by 2016. According to a report by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, this will affect ninety percent of D.C. fast-food cooks. I don’t have much more to say about that, except it’s a damned shame we have to have this job-killing minimum wage, because corporations would be paying workers way better without it. Or something. Unleash the free market or whatnot.
Continue reading...Moody's "double agent" ratings: How the game is rigged
RJ Eskow: Despite all the evidence, Moody\’s is still treated as a credible player … and one that\’s powerful enough to send a warning shot across the bow of the United States government. It threatened to downgrade the US government\’s debt last March if more wasn\’t done to reduce the government\’s debt. That\’s the kind of rigged game we\’re facing: One of the biggest sources of the government\’s debt is the economic collapse. That collapse was enabled in large measure by the bad ratings issuing by rating franchises like Moody\’s. Now Moody\’s wants to hamstring the government\’s...
Continue reading...Fed keeps on keepin' on
The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee met today, and it seems they’re keepin’ on keepin’ on. At least according to their release: The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period. The Committee also will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings. Now, this is despite recognizing that...
Continue reading...It's International Beer Day! Thank Jimmy Carter!
SEE UPDATE/CORRECTION BELOW Today is International Beer Day,* and if you’re a lover of fine micro-brews (and I know you are), you have but one person to thank. No, not Jim Koch. The person you must thank is none other than former President Jimmy Carter. E.D. Kain explains: To make a long story short, prohibition led to the dismantling of many small breweries around the nation. When prohibition was lifted, government tightly regulated the market, and small scale producers were essentially shut out of the beer market altogether. Regulations imposed at the time greatly benefited the large...
Continue reading...How long until we're employed again?
The economy seems to be leveling out, but how long will it take to get employment back to where it was before the Great Recession? Brookings has this frightening chart with some explanation: In recent months, on this blog, we described the job gap — the number of jobs it would take to return to employment levels from before the Great Recession, while also accounting for the 125,000 people who enter the labor force in a typical month. After today’s employment numbers, the job gap stands at almost 11.3 million jobs. How long will it take to...
Continue reading...The Number of the Beast
You’d be remiss to not check out Richard Eskow’s new post on his blog: Revelation/Channel 13: “Biometric ID,” The Mark of the Beast, and Immigration Reform, where he does a spectacular job explaining why many evangelical/fundamentalist Christians will fear the proposal in immigration reform requiring workers to carry biometric identification by comparing it to the the “Mark of the Beast” referenced in Revelation, and why the administration may want to tread carefully on this: If Arizona’s draconian new law has put immigration back in the public consciousness, the proposal for a national “biometric ID” is about to...
Continue reading...BREAKING: Bankers are greedy and evil
JPMorgan Chase wants you to sign the slip. According to the American Banker, in a mailing from JPMorgan Chase to customers whose debit cards had been switched from Washington Mutual when JPC bought WaMu, the bank strongly urged cardholders to sign the slip rather than enter their PIN when making debit card purchases. The mailing continues, “It’s not a credit card, so the money still comes out of your checking account. But by choosing ‘credit,’ you won’t have to enter your PIN in public.” Brilliant. JPMorgan Chase wants you to be safe. Sadly, it’s also terribly dishonest....
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