"Words that make actions speak louder."
Tricky auto loans didn’t cause the financial meltdown on Wall Street. Unscrupulous payday lenders didn’t cost taxpayers a $700 billion “troubled asset” bailout. So fussing about whether U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd’s financial reform legislation contains an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency is like worrying about whether you’ll lose your tool shed as a conflagration consumes […]
Sen. Jim Bunning, the Kentucky Republican who single-handedly delayed unemployment benefits for 400,000 desperate Americans and forced an unnecessary furlough of another 2,000, should be a figure regarded with wonderment. The awesome power he held in his hands! The utter disregard for vulnerable Americans he exhibited while wielding it! Bunning is a Republican Superhero. He […]
Leo W. Gerard: Richard, when you appeared recently at Youngstown State University as a guest of the Center for Working-Class Lecture Series, you talked about how essential manufacturing is to the U.S. economy and how politicians seem clueless about that. In fact, you said, “Politicians don’t get it.” When did that happen because clearly politicians […]
A screwy thing happened after the United Steelworkers and eight domestic steel producers won their trade case late in December against Chinese manufacturers of the steel pipe used for oil and gas drilling. Instead of describing it as an important victory for U.S. industry and workers, one in which they proved to the U.S. International […]
Leo W. Gerard: Tom, your new book, Up From Wall Street: The Responsible Investment Alternative, provides both cautionary tales for those responsible for investing workers’ pension funds and a field guide of practical assistance for institutional investors who want to use responsible investing (RI) techniques. Let’s start with the caution. Why should workers care how […]
In Columbus Ohio, a 5-year-old girl jumped onto Santa’s lap last month and asked if he could give her dad a job as an elf. Mike Smith, who works the Santa station at the Polaris Fashion Place in Columbus, asked why, the Wall Street Journal reported. The little girl in the Dora the Explorer sweatshirt […]
Can’t buy me love Everybody tells me so Can’t buy me love No, no, no, no From the 1964 Lennon/McCartney song, “Can’t Buy Me Love” Maybe you can’t buy love, but you can buy a job. Franklin Delano Roosevelt did it with the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. And the $787 billion stimulus […]
It turns out a Texas windmill farm developer’s request last month for nearly half a billion in stimulus funds to create 2,000 jobs in China doesn’t rank first on the audacity scale. Shockingly for American taxpayers, and sadly for the staggering 10.2 percent of Americans who are unemployed, it doesn’t even rank second. That’s because […]
A business group is honoring Roger Agnelli, the CEO of Vale, one of the largest mining companies in the world, which, coincidentally, is in the midst of its longest ever labor dispute. The award is for exceptional accomplishments in corporate social responsibility. The Business Council for International Understanding will give Agnelli the Dwight D. Eisenhower […]
Taking candy from a baby: A consortium of Chinese and American companies goes to Washington and announces plans to build a $1.5 billion windmill farm in West Texas using $450 million in U.S. stimulus funds, which will create 2,330 jobs – 2,000 of them in China. The baby — Washington — doesn’t cry or whine […]