“I have nothing more to lose.” These were the words of Lebanese citizen Sali Hafiz after storming a bank with a toy gun to withdraw her own money. Her widely publicized action, which she said was to pay for her sister’s medical bills, triggered a second wave of bank “robberies” in Lebanon. Despite this, the […]
Tag: economic inequality
The Powell Puzzle
There are two ways the story of Jerome Powell’s time as chair of the Federal Reserve is commonly told. One narrative goes like this: Powell is the most progressive Federal Reserve Chair since the New Deal, a staunch advocate of worker power, and the person who stopped financial calamity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The other […]
No More Lies: The Truth About Raising the Minimum Wage
“I budget and budget, and I still can’t really buy no food,” explained Carolyn Allen, a 58-year-old minimum wage worker at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. She dreams of paying her medical bill and still being able to afford Pine-Sol or bleach to clean her house. Other minimum wage workers, like Laugudria Screven Jr., resort to […]
The Populist Wing of the GOP Is No Friend of the Middle Class
“The 9 most terrifying words in the English language,” Ronald Reagan once quipped, “are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” In the three decades following President Reagan’s famous one-liner, this way of thinking — a stalwart commitment to free markets and free trade — has come to dominate the Republican Party. In […]
New Paradigms of Prosperity: Challenging Traditional Metrics of Success
It’s a running joke across many college campuses that economics is the “dismal science”. For those who are not economists, it can be hard to connect abstract terms like “absorptive capacity” and “nonparametric statistical methods” to the real lives of people across the globe. Part of the reason that these concepts seem so obfuscated is […]
Malaysia: Lessons on Institutional Roadblocks to Climate Change Adaptation
It is one of the world’s most tragic ironies that the most detrimental impacts of climate change will accrue to the countries that have had only a minor role in bringing them about. The Southeast Asian island nation of Malaysia is a prime example. The country is already feeling the disastrous effects of climate change: […]
Community College: Undivided Over an Educational Divide
On January 08, 2015, President Obama unveiled “a bold new plan” to universalize the first two years of community college. His initiative would provide free tuition to all students across the economic spectrum, but on the condition that students maintain a 2.5 GPA while attending school at least part-time. Although Obama’s proposal is only in […]
The Tale of Two Brazils
On October 26th, 2014, incumbent Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff won the second round of presidential elections in Brazil over her challenger, Aécio Neves, though only by a close margin with 51.64% of the vote. President Rousseff now enters her second term since 2011, but the election has left Brazil deeply divided. The contest between both […]