Inequality’s Impact: A New Debate Opens

If the wealth of the wealthy really bothered Americans, flacks for grand fortune enjoy declaring, our political system would be shaking something fierce. They don’t see a whole lot of shaking. Should we? Read more . . .

The History Behind the White House Tax Deal

The tax cut pact the Obama administration announced last week has angered a good many Americans. But the pact’s lavish generosity toward America’s rich should not have given anyone a surprise. Read more . . .

At Our Financial Summit, No Need to Fret

Newly victorious lawmakers have wasted no time rushing to show they really do care — about keeping Wall Streeters lavishly rewarded.

Why We Still Suffer with Our Suffrage

Let’s try to get more precise. America’s super rich aren’t ‘buying’ our elections. They’re making an ‘investment’ in prosperity. Their own.

Should Vanity Candidacies Have Us Worried?

A new study says super-rich candidates who personally bankroll their own campaigns almost always lose. But that, unfortunately, doesn’t make the rest of us winners.

A Painless Fix for America’s Budget Squeeze

An emergency 1 percent ‘wealth tax’ on the nation’s richest 1 percent could raise enough revenue to keep teachers on the job and libraries open. But our dysfunctional political system can’t even raise that possibility.

A New Field Guide to America’s Plutocracy

An up-close look at the early Obama administration — and the prodigious capacity of concentrated wealth to distort our political process. A review of A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama’s Promise, Wall Street’s Power, and the Struggle to Control Our Economic Future, by Robert Kuttner

Washington and Wall Street: A ‘Democracy’ in Denial

Some Americans get all bent out of shape when they hear someone label the United States a ‘plutocracy.’ But if we have an honest-to-goodness democracy, where the people really rule, then how can we explain Goldman Sachs?

Did the Founders Want Government Small?

The new conservative ‘Mount Vernon Statement’ unveiled last week claims that right-wingers are upholding what the Generation of 1776 held dear. But those right-wingers, history shows, are conveniently overlooking what the Founders truly feared. A review of Securing the Fruits of Labor: The American Concept of Wealth Distribution 1765-1900 by James Huston.

A Democracy in Deep Disrepair

In contemporary American political life, only the rich can afford to be politically impatient. The big question: How long will the rest of us tolerate our starkly unrepresentative political status quo?