Citizen Wealth « Wade Rathke: Chief Organizer Blog

Domestic Workers Pushback as Citizen Wealth Advances

Tegucigalpa What are the odds that as we talk about achieving living wages and income security as a central theme of Citizen Wealth that in successive days there are surprising stories of domestic workers winning or holding on to higher wages in both Brazil and Saudi Arabia?

Workers and Expats Both Hungry for News and Change

San Miguel de Allede The two groups that assembled to hear me speak about Citizen Wealth and ACORN International’s organizing and campaigns at the Workers University of Mexico (Universidad Obrera de Mexico) less than a kilometer from the Zocalo in Mexico City and then last night in the patio of the Center for Global Justice [...]

Unions Stepping Up in Wisconsin, Egypt, and Around the World

Mexico City This evening I speak at the Workers’ University of Mexico (Universidad Obrera de Mexico) about my book, Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign for Working Families. It will be hard not to make the point about unions, even weakened and beleaguered, and the vital role they are playing around the [...]

“We know the way to Tahrir Square.”

San Pedro Sula Landing in Honduras I felt lost in a dark seam of time. No blackberries were working. The news was trailing the heat and humidity of the city. Finally able to connect in mid-afternoon, it appeared Mubarak’s last play had been trumped on the street, and he was gone.

Speaking that night to twenty [...]

Elizabeth Warren’s Two-Income Trap

New Orleans With the passage of Dodd-Frank and the advent of the coming Consumer Protection Finance Agency there was a huge hubbub from business and others opposing the appointment of Harvard Law Professor and bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren to run the agency. Supposedly she was opposed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the bank bailout [...]

Reich’s Reverse Income Tax

New Orleans Finishing up my busman’s vacation at home over the last week or more, on a whim it seemed like a no-brainer to walk literally to the next block and finally figure out a way to get better use of my neighborhood library and show some real love to this breed [...]

H&R Block, HSBC, & the end of RALs

New Orleans Refund Anticipation Loans or RALs are a product that have preyed on lower income worker families since their inception and promotion by the big tax preparers, H&R Block, Jackson-Hewitt, and Liberty, as well as smaller fry who could get access to credit. Negotiating with these companies could get depressing when I worked [...]

Shoestring Philanthropists and Charitable Deductions

New Orleans Parade magazine is still an insert feature in my hometown paper. Last Sunday a copy was shoved my way marking a story about a “shoestring philanthropist.” I like that term. I’m a huge sucker for these stories, because while billionaires get the features in big newspapers and magazines, surveys and real [...]

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