Today we saw a duel for spin control between our two most prominent newspapers, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The spin concerned how to interpret the response that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie received in his first town hall meeting since the Washington bridge scandal burst into national consciousness a few […]
The announcement by the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour will lead to 500,000 jobs disappearing is just wrong. Now I’m not saying that the report’s authors are lying or stupid, just that they are making the wrong assumptions or looking at the numbers in the wrong […]
Read More… from CBO estimate on additional unemployment from raising minimum wage is probably wrong
You can almost hear Chubby Checker intoning “How low can you go?” in the lowest register he could hit. What made me think of Chubby’s hit, “Limbo Rock” is the limbo dancing that conservatives are doing with the minimum wage. It seems as if right-wingers are falling over themselves in advocating for a new minimum […]
Read More… from Conservatives play Limbo Rock with proposals to lower minimum wage
Sports Illustrated and Mattel have entered into a relationship based on the exchange of money and sex. For those who haven’t figured it out yet, the whore is Sports Illustrated. The transaction is what in advertising is called a “pay-for-play.” Mattel has bought four pages of advertising in the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and […]
For 30 years, children, primarily girls before their teen years, have played with plastic dolls called My Little Pony. The first My Little Pony hit the toy stores in 1983 as a single doll. Now manufacturer Hasbro sells dozens of models, each with its own name and distinct look; plus My Little Pony doll houses, […]
How soon would you get bored if every other song on the radio station included the exact same guitar riff, usually at the beginning of the tune? Not long I imagine. Nothing to fear: music producers and musicians would figure it out pretty quickly and come up with new riffs and other ways to make […]
If a business owner has three job openings and 10 people apply, she can pay less than if only two apply. It’s one of the most simple examples of the law of supply and demand—the less the supply or the greater the demand, the higher the price. The law of supply and demand is a […]
Here is an abridged version of my review of G. William Domhoff’s new book, The Myth of Liberal Acendancy: Corporate Domination from the Great Depression to the Great Recession, which appears in the Winter 2014 issue of Jewish Currents. Check out the longer version online and buy the issue, which has a lot of other interesting […]
Most media critics are calling the Super Bowl ads tame and sweet compared to past years, then declare unofficial commercial winners based on how much online activity each ad drew. Virtually ignored is a trend that has been building gradually but inexorably over the past few decades. The trend has encompassed all of public life—from movies […]
Read More… from This year, Super Bowl ads went to the dogs, like much of the rest of the country
The dining experience of most Americans is beginning to resemble how the agricultural industry prefers to raise cattle and chickens: an impersonal industrialized process. Unbeknownst to many, most of the food eaten in casual dining restaurants comes to the restaurant already prepared and partially cooked, often frozen, ready to be popped in the microwave or […]
Read More… from The future of eating out: microwaved frozen food served by robots