ISAIAH J. POOLE
Conservative Unemployment Roadblock Will Cost States Millions

The latest bit of obstruction being staged by a Senate conservative, done in the name of limiting federal spending, is going to end up costing cash-strapped states millions of dollars as well as potentially causing millions of workers to lose their unemployment benefits.

LEO GERARD
Q&A with Manufacturing Business Expert Richard McCormack

Leo W. Gerard and Richard McCormack discuss how essential manufacturing is to the U.S. economy, how "Politicians don't get it," and what happened when politicians no longer understood that a solid economy rests on manufacturing products of real value.

DAVE JOHNSON
Whirlpool: Mexican Workers Paid $70/Week Can't Buy Refrigerators

Whirlpool is closing a plant in Evansville, Indiana, and moving the jobs to Mexico, where the workers will be paid $70 per week.

BILL SCHER
The Week In Blog: A Bipartisan Chat About The Bipartisan Summit

The partisan gulf was not just present in the summit room yesterday, but liberal and conservative bloggers also had completely different takes on what transpired. Liberals slammed the inability of Republicans to engage in serious discussion, while conservatives tried to tag President Obama as "arrogant" and condescending. The latest edition of "The Week In Blog" is up at Bloggingheads.tv where conservative commentator Matt Lewis and I break down the blog reaction to the summit.

ALEX LAWSON
Social Security Works for Women

Since January 31, 1940, when Ida May Fuller was issued the first monthly retirement check in the amount of $22.54, Social Security has worked for women. Social Security is neutral with respect to gender - individuals with identical earnings histories are treated the same in terms of benefits. But, with longer life expectancies than men, elderly women tend to live more years in retirement and have a greater chance of exhausting other sources of income.

RICHARD ESKOW
Financial Reform: Reconciliation or Ritual?

The pheremonic scent of compromise is inducing euphoria in the nation's capitol once again. Not that there's anything wrong with compromise, if it results in policies that work. But we've just pulled ourselves back from the brink of financial meltdown, and tens of millions of households are experiencing their own economic catastrophes. This is no time to value process over outcome. The danger is that the desire to appear bipartisan may prevent us from creating a system that protects us from either collective or individual economic disaster.

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