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Monday’s Mtg: Is Workplace Discrimination Law Too Narrow?
Much of the liberal legacy lives on in areas of our lives that most people don’t see up close or at least not very often. One of these is employment antidiscrimination law. Since the 1960s, federal...
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Monday’s Mtg: What’s Killing Our Small Businesses?
I think this is a good topic for Bill to audio-record as part of the “Talk of the Town” radio show that we are trying to put together for next year. Why? America’s small businesses –like the rest of...
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Monday’s Mtg: “Conscience Clauses:” Faith and Obeying the Law
When does having a strong moral objection to the law allow you to refuse to obey it? Not very often – try it next time you’re stopped for speeding. But, “conscience clauses,” provisions in law that...
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Monday’s Mtg: Immigration Reform – What Reforms Would Work?
Ooh, is this a big, fat issue for our group, even bigger than education reform that we took on last week! Immigration reform is bitterly divisive and the last try at a comprehensive rewrite went down...
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Monday’s Mtg: Costs and Benefits of America’s Discount Consumer Culture
Here’s a thought. Are those low, low, low consumer prices and our economy’s relentless focus on discount consumerism a root cause of some of our burgeoning social problems? Does our “the (discount)...
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Monday’s Mtg: Implementing Obamacare.
The Affordable Care Act , a.k.a., Obamacare, is “one of the most complex laws ever” to pass the Congress, in the words of one, pro-ACA analyst I link to below. The law is supposed to give many more...
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Monday’s Mtg: Do Big Corporations Deserve All the Criticism?
We have a fun topic for Labor Day, at least if your idea of fun is coming to this group on a holiday. The criticisms of big corporations have escalated to a crescendo since the Great Recession began...
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Monday’s Mtg: Why Is Poverty Getting Worse in the United States?
Why does so much poverty persist in the richest country on earth? Right now, 15% of Americans live below the traditional poverty line, or bit less if you use the government’s new measure of poverty...
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Monday’s Mtg: Are Schools Prepping Our Kids for 21st Century Jobs?
I’ve been trying to get us to talk more about education and other topics that don’t quite this group’s demographic profile. I thought this week we would try to come at it from another angle, the...
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Monday’s Mtg: Are We Too Pessimistic About Our Country’s Future?
A debate broke out in the blogosphere this week that’s perfectly timed for Monday’s topic (except they’re debating the opposite of our question, but that won’t stop us). The economist Larry Summers...
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Monday’s Mtg: How To Raise Americans’ Wage Levels
Next Tuesday, President Obama will deliver his sixth state of the union address. He is expected to focus on small steps the government can take to start restoring the widely-shared prosperity that our...
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Monday’s Mtg: Should Workers Have More of a Voice in Corporate Decisions?
Traditionally in America, labor has been little-involved in corporate decision making. Under FDR’s National Recovery Act, there was an effort to bring labor and capital together to make big planning...
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Monday’s Mtg: Corporations and the First Amendment
You may not know it, but we may be in the beginning of a mini-revolution in Constitutional doctrine, and many conservatives are determined to make it a full-on revolution. It all concerns the first...
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Monday’s Mtg at NEW LOCATION: Why Are So Many Rhetorically-Valued Jobs So...
This will be a meeting of transitions for Civilized Conversation. We start a new life at a new location – The Village Café, 10415-B Mission San Diego Road. (Coco’s closed suddenly, as have dozens of...
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Monday’s Mtg: How Will Technology Change the World of Work (the Robots mtg)?
We’ve previously discussed how 21st century technological breakthroughs might alter the future of work in the Unit4ed States. In November 2013 I had us devote an evening to the “Great Stagnation”...
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Monday’s Mtg: Are Free Trade Agreements in the Public Interest?
This might be our best-timed topic in a long time! Friday, the House of Representatives rejected President Obama’s request for “fast track” trade authority, officially known as Trade Promotion...
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Monday’s Mtg: Is There a Looming U.S. Retirement Crisis?
I knew this would happen someday. We did this topic about a year and a half ago, in December 2013!. Oops. It was a good meeting and my intro post had some nice links, many of which I’ve reproduced...
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Monday’s Mtg: Inequality’s Causes and Effects
[Note: This will be our first meeting at the PANERA CAFÉ at 5620 Balboa Ave.] It has been almost two years since President Obama declared that “a dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward...
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Monday’s Mtg: Is Big Finance Finally Tamed?
After seven long years, the most destructive financial crisis since the Great Depression is beginning to fade into memory – and myth. We haven’t talked about it in a while (2010 bailouts, 2012 EU...
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Monday’s Mtg: Do We Need More or Less Regulation of Business In America?
This one was Dean’s idea, and I think it’s got a lot of potential. Dean said he wanted us to explore the arguments that having “more” or “less” government regulation of business would solve a lot of...
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