U.S. plant closings in September, October   Another 114 American plants closed or announced closings, this month and last. In September 2011, 56 plants closed. This month so far, it’s another 58.   The rate of closings is typical for recent years. The sectors in which plants closed are the usual ones. Metal products lead [...]

Access to health care comes up in GOP debate For one brief, shining moment . . .   It was just a flicker. During Tuesday night’s debate among GOP presidential candidates, Texas governor Rick Perry mentioned the concept of access to health care.   Perry even used the word “access.” From the transcript, CNN’s Anderson [...]

Government help for small business at the end of World War II The current GOP-lobby-multinationals attack on ‘government’, root and branch–that would be our government they’re talking about–is as amnesic as it is uncivic-minded. When World War II ended, with a million U.S. troops home and needing to make a living, the U.S. government had [...]

Civic Group Plans Jobs after War –in 1944 Page ten of the Feb. 27, 1944, Dallas Morning News ran this article titled “Civic Group Plans Jobs After War.” “(First of a series of three articles to appear daily.)” BY ROBERT M. HAYES, East Texas Bureau of The News.”   Quoted in full below: “SHREVEPORT, La., [...]

Rick Perry at ‘Niggerhead’ Crossroads of history   One of the first things you learn looking up tiny Paint Creek, Texas, Gov. Rick Perry’s home town, is that it survived the Great Depression largely because of the New Deal. Perry’s own Democratic forebears were partly responsible for naming the town after a nearby stream, one [...]

  The GOP 2012 primary schedule is gradually falling into place, as a disaster. Running the gamut from boos to jeers, the Republican Party in Florida moved up its primary to January 31, flouting its national party’s schedule supporting four important states for the primary season and fouling up the campaign schedule particularly for the [...]

Shouldn’t we have more rent-to-buy in housing?   Mortgage rates are the lowest they have been in decades, unemployment and underemployment are so high that people are dipping into their savings to live, housing is sitting unsold on a stagnant market, and the over-all economy is suffering. In these conditions, it is often prohibitively difficult [...]