In a bid to combat drowsy driving, Uber recently announced a new policy limiting drivers to 12-hour shifts without breaks. After 12 hours, the app will go offline, and drivers must take at least a six-hour break. While the effort to encourage safer driving is laudable, one must ask: Uber drivers sometimes work nonstop for […]
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Posted inEducation in America
Study: International Students Avoiding U.S. Graduate Schools
International students vote with their feet. For the first time in more than a decade, university admissions officials reported a decrease in the number of applications to graduate school programs from international students, according to a recent Council of Graduate Schools study. Researchers found that international graduate applications declined by 3 percent and first-time enrollments […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Scott Walker Doubles Down on Foxconn-omics
It was just a few months ago that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker unveiled a massive deal that would give the Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn $3 billion in tax subsidies to open a $10 billion LCD TV factory, promising to bring 13,000 jobs to southeastern Wisconsin. That’s a public cost of $230,000 per job. Initial estimates […]
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Tipping Has Long Reinforced Inequality—and Trump’s DOL Wants to Make It Worse
A proposed Department of Labor rule would allow employers to pocket their employees’ tips. The proposed rule in no way requires that these pocketed tips are distributed among employees—employers could simply take them (a fact the DOL tried hard to cover up). The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the rule would cause workers to lose […]
Posted inTAP
What is Trump up to, with his take-it-or-leave-it immigration offer?
For starters, he and his ultra-nationalist domestic policy adviser, Steve Miller, are continuing to play to Trump’s hard-core base. Second, Trump is trying to demonstrate that he’s the boss here. There are several problems, however. First, there is no such thing as a take-it-of-leave-it demand in politics. This may work as a ploy when you […]
Posted inTAP
Solar Panel Tariffs
The administration’s decision this week to place a 30 percent tariff on imports of solar panels has drawn a predictable backlash from a range of critics, including the companies that install solar panels and the disciples of corporate free trade. Among the latter are a number of congressional Republicans and right-wing think tanks, which have […]
Posted inTAP
It is appalling how misleading is the mainstream press coverage of trade issues
Virtually all mainstream writers have imbibed the conventional wisdom that there is a simple divide between something called “free trade” and something disparaged as “protectionism.” Free trade, good; protectionism, bad. But how do you proceed when another country is clearly protecting its home markets and its exports—by subsidizing their manufacture and selling them below the […]
Posted inTAP
Another year, another Davos…
…another wildly divergent set of articles on what the super-rich have planned for the rest of us. Consider the contrasting takes in two news stories today, one in The New York Times, the other in The Washington Post. The contrast is clear even before you read the stories, since they’re expressed in the headlines. “Ahead […]
Posted inTAP
The Senate is set for a noon vote today…
…on whether to defer consideration of DACA and keep the government open for three weeks. Democrats would be fools to take this deal. In three weeks, nothing will have changed, and Congress will go through this all over again. Public opinion supports extending DACA by margins upwards of 80 percent, depending on the poll. Even […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Watchdog Groups Catalogue a Year of Trump Tales
Compiling a comprehensive list of Donald Trump’s lies, norm-flouting acts, and other abuses of power during his first year in office is no small task. But two watchdog organizations dedicated to upholding integrity in American government have taken up the challenge. “The Art of the Lie,” a report published Monday by Common Cause and Democracy […]
