In his SOTU address, Bush once again advocated benefit plans that require workers to pay for benefits that were once fully employer-funded.

On January 1 Congress allowed two tax breaks that benefit the wealthy to become effective. The cuts eliminated current provisions of the tax code that limits the amount of personal exemptions and itemized deductions that Americans with high incomes can take.

Employers have escalated their attempt to abandon pension plans. Although freezing pension contributions was once a tactic used primarily by companies with falling profits, this strategy is now pursued by highly profitable companies to cut costs and raise earnings.

There is no connection between tax cuts for the rich and job creation, says a recently published study by United for a Fair Economy. In fact, slow job growth, declining wages and benefits, accompanied by widening income and employment inequality by race and ethnicity is the hallmark of Bushonomics.

The release of government figures on employment recently caused the New York Times to describe the jobs aspect of the "recovery" as "anemic." According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy added a mere 108,000 jobs in the month of December.

It is common wisdom on the political right that tax cuts stimulate economic growth. President Bush and the Republican-dominated Congress insist that the nearly $900 billion in tax cuts (overwhelmingly aimed at the nation’s richest households) enacted since 2001 have saved the country's economy from deeper recession.

The free enterprise system AKA the free market, AKA capitalism is an economic system, as we all know, that is dedicated to maximizing profits at any cost. Neither ethics, morality, honor, the environment, nor human life itself will be spared by this system and its quest to put profits before people (and everything else).

This is one of the better books published in the past year on the question of globalization that examines and critically links the issues of women's labor, global capitalism, imperialism, and gender inequality.

The rise of disaster capitalism is extremely disturbing for a simple reason: if a private company makes its income by selling services to the victims of tragedies, it will have an economic interest in the increase in frequency of tragic occurrences, and may use its exorbitant political and economic power to promote policies which will make disaster more likely.

Economic disaster is looming in Katrina's wake. Key government indicators show that job losses and inflation are spiking while real wages are falling. Economic stagnation was the hallmark of the Bush-Republican economy prior to the hurricane, but the ensuing catastrophe has exposed major underlying weaknesses.

I am Iranian by birth, a citizen of the US for over twenty years...[My] article, entitled, Taxation or Racketeering, is about a radical reformulation of taxation that will lead to substituting the current system with one in which the very individual who pays the taxes decides how to spend it.This is about direct democracy and about taking (some of) the levers of control back for the citizenry so that the corporate fat cats cannot fleece us all so easily and then leave us to die in our times of need.

President Bush frequently compares the war in Iraq to World War II. While giving the commencement speech at the U.S. Air Force Academy in June of last year Mr. Bush noted, “Like the Second World War, our present conflict began with a ruthless surprise attack on the United States.”

In our opinion globalization and imperialism today cannot be analysed separately from neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism is inseparable from globalization and from the capitalism of today. It is a combination of extreme exploitation, some times in new forms; it is a combination of domestic political, economic and ideological pressures, backed up by international pressure and military force if necessary.

“I’m shocked,” my wife told me many times this week, reflecting on the human calamity in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast states from the fury of Hurricane Katrina. “Where was the disaster planning to help those poor people?”

As President Bush stews about losing vacation time to the tragedy of Katrina, economic reports that came out late last month show that he has more than tens of thousands of homeless, a health crisis, and tens of billions in damage to worry about.

I got gas at a cheap off brand station for $2.43 a gallon, and came back today, three days later, to find that that it was $2.99 a gallon. Of course there is the New Orleans disaster, a great disaster, which has devastated oil refining.

WITH headlines tracking the ever-rising price of oil, the lack of any major effect of the shock on global growth has become the subject of discussion and speculation. Taking one of the many internationally traded varieties of relevance to developing Asia, the price per barrel of Dubai Fateh crude averaged $28 in February 2004, around $35 between May and December 2004, nearly $40 in February 2005, crossed $45 in March and $50 in June and stood at $55 in mid-August.

The most recent round of economic reports points to higher growth in all parts of the economy except one: wages. Wage increases are weak and are forecast to remain low in 2006.

A new survey released last week shows that Americans are increasingly worried about the economy. The Consumer Confidence Index declined by three percent in July. Economists monitor the index closely because consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of all economic activity in America.

It’s easy to understand why the Bush administration has remained silent about the issue of slow job growth and the staggering number of long-term unemployed. Slack labor markets and ongoing unemployment best serve the interests of the administration and the corporate community at this particular economic juncture.