Tag Archives: unions

Christmas week: From inequality to hope

Screen Shot 2015-12-20 at 10.28.58 AMTalking Points Memo published an important four-part series in December, The March to Inequality: How did we get here? It’s one of my Christmas week readings, which I recommend despite its distinctly un-merry description. To balance the darkness, I also recommend bell hooks’ recent New York Times interview. But first, Josh Marshall’s introduction to the terrible inequality of today’s economy:

“Half a century ago, the US political economy was profoundly different. Wealth and income inequality were at historically low levels. The US still had the immense advantage of being the factory for rebuilding the world after the devastation that scarred much of the globe during the Second World War. And unions were a pervasive feature of the industrial economy. So how did we get from there to here?”

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News Day: Lightening up in the legislature / Burroughs brouhaha / Union battles / Entenza announces / more

A little legislative levity In a day that ran long past midnight, Rep. Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake) injected a little humor, offering an amendment that would require:

“A legislator that lives within 50 miles of the State Capitol must provide housing, food, laundry and entertainment for legislators that reside greater than 50 miles from the State Capitol during a special session.”

Rep. Joe Mullery (D-Minneapolis) wanted an assurance that metro legislators could choose which colleagues they wanted to entertain, but after a bit of back-and-forth that included inserting the word “wholesome” before “entertainment,” the proposal was scuttled and what City Hall Scoop called the “world’s best amendment” was withdrawn.
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