Clinton’s Advisory Team Pressed for Wall Street Deregulation, Documents Show

Donald Kaufman / Truthdig Apr 21, 2014 New documents reveal the back story of how Wall Street deregulation was pushed by the advisers of President Clinton. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Prognosticator: Karl Marx Foresaw 2014

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Feb 1, 2014 The 19th-century economic theorist "accurately predicted several aspects of contemporary capitalism, from the Great Recession to the iPhone 5S in your pocket," Sean McElwee writes at Rolling Stone. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Bankers Brought to Justice

Monte Wolverton, Cagle Cartoons Jan 6, 2014 Dig deeper

Iceland Sends Four Bank Bosses to the Slammer

Staff / Truthdig Dec 13, 2013 The onetime CEO of Iceland’s Kaupthing Bank, one Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, is going to jail for five and a half years for his part in his firm's downfall -- which also helped his country’s economy bottom out in 2008. He’ll be in good company. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Unemployment IS Down: When Good News Really Isn’t

BLANK Dec 9, 2013 Those who were heartened by the recent drop in the unemployment rate have less to cheer about than it seems as the gap between those with jobs, and those who have given up, yawns widely. The percentage of working-age Americans with jobs is still painfully low -- and not likely to change soon as corporations hoard cash. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Another Win for the Koch Brothers: Underfunded Public Schools

BLANK Sep 20, 2013 The American working and middle classes aren’t the only sectors still suffering the effects of the Great Recession. Public schools have yet to regain their economic footing, either. That fits in perfectly with the dreams the Koch brothers-backed American Legislative Exchange Council has of dismantling the system, and democracy itself. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Abracadabra: You’re a Part-Timer

By Barbara Garson, TomDispatch Aug 22, 2013 The truly mysterious aspect of this “recovery” is that 21% of the jobs lost during the Great Recession were low wage, meaning they paid $13.83 an hour or less, but 58% of the jobs regained fall into that category. The lost jobs with better wages, benefits and long-term security have completely vanished. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

The Investment Crisis Midwifing the Ongoing Recession

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Aug 10, 2013 Investment in what experts call "real inputs" -- structures and machines that enable and boost future output and productivity -- is one way an economy grows over time. No wonder, then, that an economic crisis occurred just decades after the share of national income going to investment began declining during the start of the neoliberal era, around 1980, UMass-Amherst professor Gerald Friedman writes in Dollars & Sense. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

How the 40-Year ‘Long Recession’ Led to the Great Recession

By Barbara Garson, TomDispatch Apr 10, 2013 If you had to date the Great Recession, you might say it started in September 2008 when Lehman Brothers vaporized over a weekend and a massive mortgage-based Ponzi scheme began to tumble. By 2008, however, the majority of American workers had already endured a 40-year decline in wages, security and hope -- a Long Recession of their own. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

Shortchanged Workers Fuel the Missing Recovery

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Mar 6, 2013 "Today the stock market is high not from profits from expanding sales revenues, but from labor cost savings," former Reagan Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts writes in CounterPunch. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Super Size Your Paycheck

Staff / Truthdig Feb 11, 2013 A union in New Zealand got fast food chains such as McDonald's and Starbucks to raise their workers' wages by 50 percent; Palestinian books don't indoctrinate children against Jews after all; and perhaps, rather than fear Massive Online Open Courses, we should embrace this opportunity for cheap widespread online education. These discoveries and more after the jump. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

The Anti-Economist: Misleading American History

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Jan 29, 2013 By ignoring the historic role government played in enabling economic growth, the prevailing myths about how the U.S. became prosperous allow lawmakers, officials and lobbyists to craft policies that prevent the majority of Americans from taking their rightful share of the national wealth, Jeff Madrick writes in Harper’s Magazine. Dig deeper ( 4 Min. Read )