Pages tagged "Economics"

 

Dear Friends: April is the season for pondering the U.S. income tax system and the fact that about half our tax dollars are used to support the Department of Defense, even when the US is not engaged in any major conflict in the world. 

An interview with Jeff Perkins

“We are tired of smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society,” said Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963). To address this crisis, Dr. King (along with Quaker activist Bayard Rustin) launched the Poor People’s Campaign, focusing on economic justice, especially around jobs and housing. In February 1968, King announced the Campaign’s specific demands: $30 billion for anti-poverty programs, full employment, guaranteed income, and the annual construction of 500,000 affordable residences.

Written by Peri Muldofsky

As an economist, I study and teach about money, markets, and the economy. Given that I have been on this professional journey for nearly half a century, something makes me feel that I should have it all pretty much figured out by now. But I don’t. In some ways, I know less now than I once did. Perhaps this is good. Perhaps some unknowing is just what we need to improve our understanding of what the economy is and how it should work.

With global warming’s impact of floods and droughts becoming ever more apparent, this ten-book series gives hope that, oriented by the spirit and coupled with mindful research, people can make a difference in reducing causes of environmental destruction. I read three books in this series:

It feels like I failed this morning.

The Price of Folly: A Lay-Person’s Guide to American Plutocracy

So yesterday, a lady comes to our produce table at the local Farmer’s Market, hefts one of our football-sized sweet potatoes, and asks, “How much?”