In the News
‘The Sense That Everybody Thought They Had WMDs Is a Total Fantasy’
The Iraq invasion is a good example of Faulkner’s line about the past not even being past. Claims about the lead-up to the calamitous 2003 attack, who believed what and…
College presidents far outearn CEOs
The salaries of so-called greedy CEOs have been a big talking point for both Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton this election season. Both Democratic candidates for president have also…
106-year-old black woman does victory dance with Obamas, but the struggle continues
There’s not a single part of James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” popularly known as the black national anthem, that isn’t moving. There’s not a single wrong note.…
The Forbes 400 Are Wealthier Than 194 Million Americans Combined
The 400 richest Americans have as much combined wealth as all African-American households in the United States plus a third of those headed by Latinos. That jaw-dropping stat comes from…
Are CEOs overpaid? Not compared with college presidents
Corporate chief executives have come under fire in recent years for their skyrocketing pay. But there’s a place that puts those executives to shame: academia. College presidents on average earn…
Climate change documentary to be screened
Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy, in partnership with Chesapeake College, Town Creek Foundation and the Center for Leadership in Environmental Education, will present a screening of the documentary “This Changes Everything,” Friday,…
Has the War on Drugs Failed?
The war on drugs has led to “near record-level” failure, according to a visiting drug policy expert, who says imprisoning users is like “curing clinical depression with a baseball bat”.…
Income Inequality: ‘The Rules of the Game Are Fixed’
In “America’s Stacked Deck” (column, Feb. 18), Nicholas Kristof identifies the central question facing voters in this election cycle: Should we come together to find solutions to our economic hardships,…
One million dollars needed to retire nicely in O.C.
To retire comfortably in Orange County – or anywhere else in coastal Southern California – you’ll need a cool million dollars stashed away in your bank accounts, analysts say. Don’t…
World Day for Social Justice 2016: Time to Share the Wealth
Every year since 2009, the United Nations has highlighted February 20th as the World Day for Social Justice in a bid to underscore the glaring inequalities that increasingly characterise the world today…
New York Times Op-Ed: America’s Stacked Deck
It’s a little bizarre this political season to see wealthy candidates in both parties denouncing our political system for representing mostly the interests of, well, wealthy people. Bizarre, perhaps, and…
America needs a “Bernie Doctrine”: How Sanders’ foreign policy weakness could become a game-changing strength
Sure, Bernie Sanders’ dovish instincts beat out the hawkish proposals advanced by Hillary Clinton for anti-war voters. But many fans of the upstart democratic socialist readily concede the consensus view: He seems…
Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems: The Rise of Wealth Therapy
Four years ago, Manhattan therapist Clay Cockrell met a patient with an unusual problem. The 21-year-old college senior said he’d recently received traumatic news. “He seemed scared,” Cockrell recalls. “Like,…
Activists keen to keep momentum on climate change, post-Paris
Every Monday evening for more than a year, demonstrators have stood in protest at an intersection in Boston’s West Roxbury neighborhood. Holding signs and singing protest songs at the cars…
The IMF’s Prescription for Europe: Exploit Refugees with Low Wages
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in January released a report urging the European countries accepting a majority of refugees to “temporarily” pay them less than the minimum wage. In its report,…
Olive Garden has unlimited breadsticks — also lots of labor issues, illness outbreaks, and an icky sexual harassment policy
With their claim, “When you’re here, you’re family,” Olive Garden has become synonymous with America’s proliferation of family-style restaurants. Olive Garden is the largest retail brand of Darden Restaurants, the…
Top 100 CEOs’ Retirement Savings: $4.9 Billion
It is no surprise that CEO salaries are far larger than that of the average worker. According toGlassdoor, the multiplier for CEOs of major firms compared to their median worker…
New U.S. Sanctions on Iran: ‘Symbolic Timing, But Iran Deal Won’t Be Derailed’
The recent US sanctions against Tehran were a political move by the Obama administration to fend off pressure, and are very narrow, so they won’t have a serious impact on…
Income Inequality May Lead to Donald & Bernie 2.0
A new report is alarming and helps explain the meteoric rise of political outsiders Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The charity Oxfam said in Davos (which is like delivering a…
US election turns heat on to the uber-rich and rampant inequality
merica has become a reality show called Food, Medicine, Rent: Pick two,” the US political comedian John Fugelsang tells the audience during a recording of his stand-up show. It was…
Study Finds Radioactive Waste at St. Louis-Area Landfill Has Migrated Off-Site
Radioactive contamination from a St. Louis-area landfill containing nuclear-weapons-related waste likely has migrated off-site, according to a study published this week in a scientific journal. One of the authors of the private,…
Saudi Mass Executions Provoke Region-Wide Escalation
Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates on Monday severed or downgraded diplomatic ties with Iran, in the latest sign that Saudi Arabia’s rash of brutal executions over the weekend…
Study Finds Radioactive Waste at St. Louis-Area Landfill Has Migrated Off-Site
Radioactive contamination from a St. Louis-area landfill containing nuclear-weapons-related waste likely has migrated off-site, according to a study published this week in a scientific journal. One of the authors of…
What Does Half of the U.S. Population Have in Common With the 20 Richest People?
We all know that wealth is unequally distributed in the United States. But, the results of a new study by the Institute for Policy Studies, authored by Chuck Collins and…
The Forbes 400 now own about as much wealth as America’s entire black population
You may have heard about the staggering wealth inequality that exists in America. A new report gives us some new figures that show just how bad the situation is. Among…
These 100 People Have More Money Than All Black Americans Combined
The country’s richest people are incredibly, stunningly, jaw-droppingly wealthy — with more assets than millions and millions of Americans put together. That gulf was starkly illustrated in a report this week from…
Zuckerberg’s Philanthropy Isn’t a Substitute for Taxation
Mark Zuckerberg is part of a tiny group that has amassed enormous wealth in recent years. He is one of the 20 wealthiest Americans who now own as much wealth…
Top 20 billionaires worth as much as half of America
The real wealth gap in America isn’t between the 99 percent and the 1 percent. It’s between the 0.00001 percent and everybody else. A new study from the Institute for…
The 20 Richest Americans Own More Wealth Than Half of the Country Combined
On Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, vowed to give away 99% of their Facebook shares, currently worth over $45 billion, to support various causes during…
20 People Now Own As Much Wealth as Half of All Americans
The 400 richest Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the population, a report released on Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) reveals. According…
