Margaret Thatcher, Polarizing Right-Winger The major news media celebrated Margaret Thatcher upon her death.  They seem to praise her stubbornness and ability to move the UK to support her very conservative anti-union, pro-deregulation and privatization policies and talk of her impact on the UK.  David Brooks, a typical voice on the right who saw Thatcher...

I learned of a petition at the presidents site, that one where anyone can start a petition and have it addressed if you reach 100,000 signatures. We the People it's called. The petition is sponsored by United Front Against Austerity which also goes by the name Against Austerity.org  I know nothing about this organization, though I have looked....

Travis Waldron at Think Progress pointed out this excellent article by David Cay Johnston. It dovetails well with my last post, which showed the fall of individual real wages and their failure to regain their peak fully 40 years after it was reached. Johnston writes: Incomes and tax revenues have grown from 2009 to 2011 as the economy recovered,...

Cross-posted from Middle Class Political Economist. Your read it here first: Real wages fell 0.2% in 2012, down from $295.49 (1982-84 dollars) to $294.83 per week, according to the 2013 Economic Report of the President. Thus, a 1.9% increase in nominal wages was  more than wiped out by inflation, marking the 40th consecutive year that real wages...

It sums up this week and what it means. I think, and dearly hope.

The ever hopeful infinitely patient Ezra Klein attempts to find good Republican proposals for health care cost control.  He notes that the Congressional leadership's proposal to raise the Medicare eligibility age would increase total health care spending and sins grievously against Ballance writing "But an increase in the eligibility age would be a...