Media

The 2011 fourth quarter GDP numbers released today show a 2.8 percent growth in economic activity, due in part to the increase in spending around the holidays. But, what do GDP numbers really show? A new report from Demos, Beyond GDP, looks at the flaws in our dependence on GDP as the sole measure of progress and highlights important economic and social measures that are not captured by GDP.

In the State of the Union address the President sketched out a blueprint that would reduce economic inequality, demanding that wealthy play by the same rules as ordinary Americans. What we didn't hear, though, was a blueprint for attacking political inequality so that the voices of the wealthy stop overpowering those of everyone else here in the world's oldest democracy. 

If powerholders in the New York State government have any decency, they will “…spare New Yorkers further hypocrisy and keep to themselves ridiculous claims that their bold-faced power grab was done in the name of minority enfranchisement.” This is just one of the dozens of bitter statements that came out of yesterday’s proposed NYS Assembly and Senate district maps.

President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address was a mixed bag with regard to this nation’s clean economy future, as detailed here yesterday. The President laid out some ideas that were cogent and compelling, and which could act as the pillars of a credible energy policy. Other proposals, however, would help further entrench an antiquated economy dependent on dirty energy.

President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address was a mixed bag with regard to this nation’s clean economy future, as detailed here yesterday. The President laid out some ideas that were cogent and compelling, and which could act as the pillars of a credible energy policy. Other proposals, however, would help further entrench an antiquated economy dependent on dirty energy.

David Brooks recently wrote, contrary to my last blog, that Mitt Romney is neither too rich nor elite to truly represent the American people.

A perpetual topic of conversation in progressive circles is how we need to boil down our prolix jumble of causes and beliefs to a streamlined vision -- something that can rival the crisp parsimony of the right's credo of "less government, traditional values, and strong defense."

Is the problem in America today that workers are too powerful in comparison with the corporations that employ them? Are our wages too high? Do too many of us have health coverage and retirement plans?