New Orleans The weather forecast included both thundershowers and a tornado warning, but when asked if we should go ahead with the often scheduled and postponed press conference to release our study on hospital pricing transparency, the decision was easy: go! So, there we were in front of Ochsner-Baptist Hospital, a major unit …
Category: Financial Justice
Sanctions and Crony Capitalism
Carlsbad There’s a lot of back and forth in the news about whether the sanctions being employed fiercely by the western world as a weapon to pressure Russia over its invasion of Ukraine will work. The theory would be that sanctions on close associates of Russian leader Putin among the rich oligarchs, military, and …
Equal Pay Day Calls for Raising the Minimum Wage
New Orleans The Louisiana legislature joined the chorus and declared, Equal Pay Day. The day, acknowledged by some, notes the number of days in the year that it has taken women to do the work necessary to be paid the same as men. Irony is unknown to most legislators, but, trust me on …
Wells Fargo Denies Loans to African-Americans
New Orleans Wells Fargo is in the news yet again and not in a good way. This shoe, now dropping hard, is not about them lying about new accounts, their boiler room operations, or any number of headlines over recent years that have forced resignations of their top executives. This time, it’s just …
There is No Free Labor Market
New Orleans Finally, it appears that economists are catching up with the on-the-ground reality when it comes to workers and the factors that push down on their wages. Arguments that there is a free labor market, universally mobile and propelled by little more than self-interest, have always been specious. Rationalizations that low wages …