Must Read

• Jared Bernstein, Real weekly earnings are up.  Here’s why. 
• William K. Black, The Study that Foreshadowed the Three Fraud Epidemics that Drove the [Economic] Crisis [of 2008]
• Christopher Ketcham, The Great Republican Land Heist:  Cliven Bundy and the politicians who are plundering the West  [Ed.:  Harper’s subscription required.  Worth the investment if you don’t have one.]
• Wayne Barrett, What Rudy Giuliani knows about love

Should Read/Watch

• Jennifer Francis, A melting Arctic and weird weather:  The plot thickens
• FrontLine (w/ Dr. Atul Gawande), Being Mortal
• Matt Taibbi, A Whistleblower’s Horror Story  [Ed.:  MT makes a couple provocative statements in his intro paragraphs which aren’t germane to the rest of the story.  Don’t let those be a distraction.]
• Larry Mishel, Failed Theory Posed by Wall Street Dems Puts Hillary Clinton in a Bind
• Teresa Tritch (NYT), When Consumers Don’t Spend
• Amy Dean, A Bigger Tent:  Can Richard Trumka Save the Labor Movement?

Labor

• Ross Eisenbrey, An Open Letter to Sec. of Labor Tom Perez  [Ed.:  Urges investigation of H-1B visa abuse.]
• Dean Baker, Bad News In China:  Blue Collar Wages Are Soaring
• Paul Jaskunas (NYT), The Tyranny of the Forced Smile
• Robert Charette, Exposing the Roots of the Perpetual “STEM Crisis”

Environment Continue reading →

Must Read

• Ron Hira, Congress and President Obama Cannot Sit Idly By While Companies Use H-1B Guestworkers to Replace American Workers
• Dean Baker, Throw the Truth Out the Door: President Obama Has to Pass a Trade Deal
• Charlie Pierce, Trading Places: The Place Where Populism Goes To Die
• Andrew Higgins (NYT), Beating Russia at Its Own Long Game

Should Read

• Shaila Dewan (NYT), States Consider Increasing Taxes for the Poor and Cutting Them for the Affluent
• Jared Bernstein, The tyranny of averages, “deltas” and the need for some version of zero-based budgeting
• John Mearsheimer (NYT), Don’t Arm Ukraine
• Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response to Obama’s Prayer Breakfast Speech
• Noam Chomsky, The World of Our Grandchildren
• Adam Vaccaro, How London’s Olympics Went Way Over Budget  [Ed.:  Worth reading because Boston is in the running to host the 2024 games and MA taxpayers would likely be on the hook for budget overruns.]

Environment

• Joe Romm, Anti-‘Geoengineering’ National Academy Report Opposes ‘Climate-Altering Deployment’
• Thomas Kostigen, Could California’s Drought Last 200 Years? Clues from the past suggest the ocean’s temperature may be a driver.
• Christina Sarich, This US City First to Run 100 Percent on Sustainable Energy

Continue reading →