Features

Has the Microsoft case helped bring back the term “monopolist” as an insult of choice even in corporate America? When the Walt Disney Company and its ABC television stations tangled early in May with Time Warner Cable, some television viewers were briefly deprived of such vital ABC programming as “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” […]

In Michael Mann’s gripping new movie The Insider, the two central characters uphold the truth through acts of corporate disobedience—the moral equivalent of civil disobedience in an age when the threat to freedom so often comes from corporate rather than state power. Fired as head of research at cigarette-maker Brown & Williamson, Jeffrey Wigand (Russell […]

The rise of the new economy and skyrocketing prices of Internet stocks have caused a certain discomfort and ambivalence among older Americans, which in this case generally means anyone over 26. There is, of course, due acknowledgment of the great promise of e-commerce and even some national pride about the phenomenon (only in America!). But […]

Any time now, government economists will decide whether America Online’s (AOL’s) $165-billion proposed take-over of Time Warner is likely to be good or bad for consumers. If good, the government will sign off. If bad, there’ll be negotiations with AOL and Time Warner until an agreement can be reached on what the new company would […]

When The New York Times revealed in April that Microsoft had hired Ralph Reed, the onetime executive director of the Christian Coalition, to lobby George W. Bush on the company’s behalf, the story that generated all the attention was Reed’s obvious, if bizarre, conflict of interest–he was also a paid adviser to Bush’s presidential campaign. […]

Here’s the best news to come out of the otherwise screwed-up 2000 election: The political juggernaut that during the last third of the twentieth century transformed the states from staunch foes of gambling into gambling’s chief sponsors has slowed to a crawl. The voters of Arkansas rejected a lottery-casino ballot measure, joining the voters of […]

A merica’s ambivalent electorate seems to reflect the paradoxes of our times: hunger amidst prosperity, a monumental and growing wealth gap, and record-high employment while millions of workers struggle to make ends meet. Yet no unifying policy framework commands broad support, and no strategy exists to convey a new vision in popular terms. In the […]

For the first time in a decade, our economy is in recession. It’s not official yet–the group that dates recessions doesn’t act until after the fact–but there’s little doubt that we’re in the midst of a downturn. The tragedy of September 11 didn’t sink the economy; it was already listing badly. But the terrorist attacks […]

The American Economic Association (AEA) met January 7-9 in Boston, for a millennial program distinguished by its attention to international policy issues, most particularly financial crises (as in Asia) and the failure of the so-called “economic transition” (as in Russia). And yet, in this odd rush to relevance, something was curiously awry. Apart from a […]

Even before the World Trade Center tragedy struck a blow at the economy, the national unemployment rate had begun to rise in recent months–and comments like these began appearing in the press: “The economy is moving to a more normal, sustainable unemployment rate after a period of rapid growth” (Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit […]