Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Germany is a wealthy nation. Its business and political leaders accept the reality of climate change and have made at least modest progress to prepare for and mitigate its effects. How then to respond to such events as a family moving to the roof of their house […]
This time, it is the Students and the Unions that the Gov’t Needs to Bail out for a Healthy Economy
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Digging our way back out of the pandemic recession will not be easy, but we have the advantage of knowing what worked and did not work in the 2008 crisis. Any policy choice today does not operate on a blank slate. No one knows this more than […]
Why we need a Debt Jubilee for Renters as the Covid eviction Moratorium expires
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – What is going to happen when the eviction protections now scheduled to expire at the end of July finally do so? The rental deficits hanging over some tenants’ heads are so extreme that default is virtually inevitable, and the numbers affected so many that rental debt is […]
Dear National Public Radio: The Stock Market is not the Economy– Tell us about Hunger and the Real Unemployment Rate
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – I have a pet peeve with NPR. Why do so many of its top- of- the- hour five minute newscasts begin and end with short stock market updates? Is there no more important factoid its news editors could be passing along to us? NPR likes to portray […]
Central American Migrants: They’re Here Because We Were There
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Democrats claim to defend an honest rendition of US history, one that will be attentive to the injustices inflicted by slavery and racism. Unfortunately, however, that honesty stops at the water’s edge. While the president prepared for and conducted a widely- covered summit that among other things […]
Is America’s Big Problem Really overly generous Unemployment Benefits?
Ending enhanced unemployment benefits has become the signature economic agenda for the GOP, a party with little else to promote. Unfortunately the largely low- key response of the President on this issue has been disappointing. The failure to mount a vigorous defense of these benefits is bad ethics, bad policy, and bad politics. As for […]
Why was there such Resistance to the (correct) theory of Aerosol Transmission of Covid-19?
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Droplets or aerosols? This was the issue that gripped pandemic politics for months. The scope of the disease and the appalling number of lives at stake constituted one reason for the intensity of the conflict. Equally important was the fact that this was and remains at least […]
On How there is no Restaurant Worker Shortage, only a Shortage of Safe Jobs with Adequate Pay
From the earliest days of the Pandemic relief initiatives business lobbies and conservative pundits have griped about the $600 Federal Unemployment Insurance supplement. They complained that combined state and federal programs would give many employed workers more income than they received in their current jobs. Workers would have an incentive to stay home to sit […]
Can President Biden’s planned Waiving of Covid Vaccination Patents: begin a grassroots movement against Big Pharma?
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – When the Biden Administration announced it would no longer oppose suspension of Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) standards regarding production of COVID vaccines and therapies, there was joy in the world health lobby and anguish in the big pharma camp. Understandable as these reactions […]
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