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“Meet the “China Price” or else.” Remember that phrase — “meet the China Price,” because you’ll be reading much more about what it means to this country, its working families and its communities. U.S. chartered corporations are telling their suppliers that if they do not meet the “China Price”, they can either lose business, cut…

Two very different men in their early Nineties passed away last week. Both were active in their unions— Ronald Reagan in the Actorís Guild, Victor Reuther in the United Auto Workers (UAW). Then, needless to say, their paths diverged markedly. Ronald Reagan became the conservative politician with the dulcet speaking voice. Victor Reuther became the…

Unless cooler heads prevail, the American Medical Association is teetering on the brink of public ridicule, mockery and indignation. Resolution 202 has been introduced by Dr. J. Chris Hawk III from South Carolina to the AMA’s Committee B. It is aimed directly at trial lawyers as patients. This resolution sets a new record for loss…

Listening to what passes these days for debates in the U. S House of Representatives and the U. S. Senate, it is easy to get the impression there are no new ideas left-certainly no new progressive ideas or suggestions that there might be solutions to the nation’s multitude of social and economic problems. At best,…

Remarkable what digital cameras can do. The photos of low level prisoners being abused and humiliated by both U.S. troops and private contractors in an Iraqi prison are the beginning of what Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) called “the worst is yet to come.” The Senator warned Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, at a Senate Hearing on…

Big time middlemen merchants have a hard time avoiding conflicts of interests where they say they represent your interests as buyers while they are receiving kickbacks or, more politely, “retrospective commissions” from the sellers. Such situations undermine making deals on your behalf that are on the merits of the product or service instead of on…

When President Roosevelt launched the New Deal in the 1930s nearly half of the U. S. population still lived in rural areas. By the last census in 2000, almost 80 percent of citizens were living in urban communities. Between 1950 and 1990, the U. S metropolitan population–located in central cities and close-in suburban areas–skyrocketed by…

Byrd Community Academy is a crumbling elementary school in Chicago next to one of the largest and most perilous public housing projects — Cabrini-Green. It also is the location of one of the more spectacular fifth grade classes in the country. In Room 405, since December, the entire course curriculum is devoted to one project…

T.S. Elliot once wrote, “April is the cruelest month. . . .” He wasn’t referring to the unfilled promise of The New York Auto Show – which is featuring “advances” in automotive engineering this week at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. But anyone who has visited this event knows – the distance…

The civil rights movement of the 1960s raised high hopes among African American citizens that they were at last on the road to true equality with the opportunity to share fully in the nation’s prosperity. Now, nearly a half century later, there are big questions about just how far we have come to meet those…