Fresh audio product

Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): January 25, 2018 Vijay Prashad on Syria, Trump, and the state of the global left • Jennifer Cohen of Miami University on feminism and economics (the NYT article is here)

Fresh audio product

Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): January 18, 2018 Sandra Cuffe on Honduras after a stolen election and waves of official violence • Alexander Main on U.S. policy towards Latin America under Trump • Janet Capron, author of Blue Money, on drugs and prostitution (without regret) in 1970s NYC

Janus risk

Chris Maisano reminded me on Facebook of something I forgot to mention in today’s union density post—the forthcoming Supreme Court decision in the Janus case. I appended this to the closing paragraph of the original: A major threat to that [getting union density up]: the forthcoming Supreme Court decision in the case of Janus v. AFSCME, which would make public sector union dues optional. Should the Court decide against the union, which is almost certain given the configuration of the cast of robed ghouls, many workers would stop paying dues and not bother to join the… Read More

Shocker: unions hold their own

Unions had a pretty good year in 2017: they didn’t lose any ground. According to the latest edition of the Bureau of Labor Statistics annual survey, released this morning, 10.7% of employed wage and salary workers were members of unions, unchanged from last year. There was a mild uptick in the share of private-sector workers represented by unions (aka union density), from 6.4% to 6.5%. Density was unchanged at 34.4% for public sector workers—mildly surprising, given the war on labor being conducted by Republican governors and legislatures across the country. As the… Read More

Market timing, lbo-news style

As I’m typing this, bitcoin is having another terrible day, trading at $10,050, down 11% from yesterday and 48% from its all-time high of $19,290. (For the latest price, click here.) Of course, it also had a spectacular upward run. On August 17, 2010, when the cryptocurrency’s price history begins, it was worth $0.08. Four-and-a-half months later, January 1, 2011, when the chart just below begins, it was worth $0.30, a gain of 290%. A year later, January 1, 2012, it traded at $5.20, a gain of 1,633%. Five years later, January… Read More

Fresh audio product

Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): January 11, 2018 Kaveh Ehsani on the reasons behind the protests in Iran • Franklin Zimring, author of The City That Became Safe, on the reasons behind the record-breaking decline in crime in NYC

Fresh audio product

Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): January 4, 2018 Tithi Bhattacharya, editor of Social Reproduction Theory, on capitalism, Marxism, feminism, and society