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Opponents of income redistribution often argue that taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots is at odds with individual rights. 

But here's a simple fact: There is no surer way to lose all your individual rights than to be dead. And evidence keeps mounting that people with lower incomes die earlier. In effect, one result of inequality is that the all-important right of living is enjoyed more by some members of our society than others. 

In the latest anti-HFT salvo, a 12-year veteran of Goldman Sachs Monday applied a new definition to the essence of high frequency trading, seeing it as a purposeful distortion of the flow of market information rather than just a successful trading technique. With that he also prescribed a financial transaction tax as part of a cure.

Sequestration is a heavy blow to regulatory agencies. For the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), among many others, the $85 billion in cuts is the next step in deregulation, which accelerated in the 1990s, especially in the financial arena.

Here's a plain fact: record disinvestment in higher education at the state level leads to record tuition hikes. In 2012, the trend escalated with the biggest single year jump on record.

When a crew that calls themselves the "Systemic Risk Council" speaks, it's a good idea to pay attention. After all, the last time people pooh-poohed deep seated problems within the financial system, trillions of dollars vanished into thin air and millions of people were thrown out of work. 

David Callahan's points about the inequality-widening effects of technological change add up to a strong argument that wealth taxes should play a bigger role in the progressive project of reducing inequality.

Proposals to raise the minimum wage are enormously popular with the American public, but there’s a reason they are successful only on occasion.

The powerful business lobby is quite effective at getting through to lawmakers with their message that higher wage requirements will lead to less employment. That’s a particularly potent argument in today’s environment, after four years of elevated unemployment levels.

“The very rich,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, “are different from you and me.”

It turns out he was right. According to a new study by the think-tank Demos (PDF), the affluent tend to hold a different vision of a just society than the public at large, and it is that vision which tops the political agenda in Washington and in state houses across the country.

If you've got debt and die tomorrow, don't assume it will disappear. Chances are, it will eat into the assets you may be planning to leave your heirs and may even wipe out your estate.