Category: Class

Occupied with the new academic semester, I have not been able to post as frequently. So here is a cop-out post on a subject I think about, but rarely write about. People uniformly love charity. If you go to any public interest type of group and offer them a way to provide some direct temporary… Continue reading Charity and justice

While Mitt Romney was the head of Bain Capital, the firm purchased a company called Worldwide Grinding Systems. What happened next is precisely the kind of finance “innovation” that Romney’s opponents have been criticizing. Bain Capital put up $8 million to buy the company, then loaded it down with hundreds of millions of dollars of… Continue reading Strategic bankruptcies: students vs. private equity firms

I do not usually write posts like this, but this one is too hard to pass up. I published this article on January 10th about the right-wing class envy arguments. Relevant excerpt: What the conservatives call envy, the leftists call a yearning for equality. What those who scoff at envy really seek to do is… Continue reading Romney proves my thesis about class envy accusations correct

Since Occupy Wall Street pushed inequality back into the mainstream consciousness, those on the right have scrambled to mount their defenses. Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor tried to defend by emphasizing the existence of social mobility, something that is

The Congressional Research Service released a report last week on the causes of the explosion of inequality in the United States. The report analyzes tax policy, wages, capital income, and other factors, then determines to what extent each has contributed to the rising Gini coefficient. Jared Bernstein has the best short breakdown of the results… Continue reading The CRS inequality report and rewarding hard work