BY DAVID MOBERG On a normal day, Sonia Acuña, a petite 41-year old mother of four, puts on her bright red McDonald’s cap and reports to work at a branch of the giant hamburger chain in Chicago’s main rail terminal, Union… Read More ›
Economy
Big Pharma made $711 bln overcharging seniors and disabled
The 11 largest drug companies have made $711 billion in profits in just a decade, largely due to overcharging Medicare, which does not seek out competitive prices and uses taxpayer funds to support Big Pharma. Since Medicare is prohibited from… Read More ›
Death of a Ruling Class Warrior: Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)
By Tom Mills Thatcher is dead. But for years she was a shadow of her former self. After her fall from power in 1990 she slowly faded away from public life and when she did wander back onto the public stage… Read More ›
CEOs Still Living the Good Life: Perks Packages Rose In Value By 18.7 Percent In 2012
CEOs are living the good life. On the company’s dime. America’s 100 best-paid corporate chiefs got an 18.7 percent boost in their perks packages, according to a survey of executive pay performed by Equilar for The New York Times. Those perks,… Read More ›
One in Six Americans already in poverty as $85 billion in cuts kick in
The estimated 50 million Americans already living in poverty will be hit hardest by the $85 billion in spending cuts set to begin after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach an agreement over the most effective way to address the… Read More ›
Woman Fired For Being Homeless
KFC manager’s version changes Written by Emily Le Coz A Tupelo woman hired earlier this month by a KFC was fired Monday after the franchise owner discovered she’s homeless. Eunice Jasica has been staying at the Salvation Army lodge since early… Read More ›
Guess What? The Debt Everyone Is Freaking Out About Does Not Exist
By Jeff Spross What nobody talks about. Between the new-and-improved Simpson-Bowles plan, Joe Scarborough’s feud with Paul Krugman, the relentless drumbeat of the entire Republican Party, and the media blitzkrieg launched by the billionaire-driven “Fix the Debt” campaign, one might think no serious and responsible American can ignore… Read More ›
40% of Americans Now Make Less Than 1968 Minimum Wage
You may have seen charts like the one to the right from the Economic Policy Institute, showing how working people’s wages stopped going up along with productivity gains. This means the gains went…somewhere else. See if you can guess who got… Read More ›
The Minimum Wage Would Be $21.72 an Hour if it Rose with Productivity Since 1968
Activists are mobilizing around President Obama’s call to raise the minimum wage to $9.00, and polling shows that Americans across the political spectrum agree with such a policy. But here’s an interesting fact about what the minimum wage could be instead. The… Read More ›
Editorial: A-Paul-Calypse Now – Bitter War in Libertarian Bizzaro World!
Seems like trouble is brewing for Ron Paul and his liberty-loving acolytes. In two separate incidents this week, it appears that Rep. Paul is proving things aren’t always as sunny as they seem in Paul-idise. The first situation started when… Read More ›
Leave it to the Market?
For more than twenty years now, the “free market” has been the rallying cry of American politics. Conservatives sing its praises while occasionally betraying it when it suits their constituency, liberals won’t criticize it but claim that it needs to… Read More ›
China overtakes US as world’s largest trading country
AFP Photo / China out China has passed the US as the world’s biggest trading nation as measured by the sum of exports and imports in 2012. It’s a position the US has held for over six decades. US exports… Read More ›
Editorial: Can’t Save? Here’s Why
By HELAINE OLEN THE odds are good that you haven’t yet given up on your New Year’s resolutions and that one of them is to swear off those expensive cappuccinos and save money for your old age. That’s a typical suggestion… Read More ›
Profiting off hunger: Wall Street makes big gains over food price spikes
AFP Photo / Tony Karuba Powerful firms like Goldman Sachs have made hundreds of millions of dollars in food future trades. Critics accuse them of profiting off starvation and market manipulation, while traders claim their profits are due to increasing… Read More ›
Stacey Campfield, Tennessee GOP Lawmaker, Wants To Tie Welfare Benefits To Children’s Grades
By Nick Wing Tennessee state Rep. Stacey Campfield (R) introduced a bill this week seeking to make welfare benefits contingent upon the grades of a would-be recipient’s children. Campfield’s legislation, filed Thursday, would “require the reduction of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families… Read More ›
The Red Phoenix 