The University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Folbre

Columnist responds to Folbre’s “Nice Gals” blog

Nancy Folbre, UMass Amherst Economics Professor

A columnist responds to an April 26 Economix blog posting in the New York Times by Nancy Folbre where she discusses the issue of salary disparities between men and women and how that played a role in the recent economic meltdown. Folbre says the linkage between high pay and productivity seems to be fraying in our society, and instead people are reaping large rewards for aggressive and cynical opportunism that isn’t very socially productive. She also points out that women tend to be less aggressive and Machiavellian in business with negative impact on their pay rates. Folbre suggests creating a pay system that actually rewards productivity and penalizes bullies and cheats. (Salon.com, New York Times, 4/26/10)

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UMass Economics Wolff

Wolff: Greece parallels developments everywhere

Richard Wolff

According to Richard Wolff, UMass Amherst economics professor emeritus, what is happening in Greece will parellel financial crises to come in other capitalist economies like Ireland, Spain and Portugal.

Greece, Again: Demystifying “National Debt”
by Rick Wolff

With too few taxes flowing to the state from employers and workers to finance its programs for both of them, the state must borrow the difference between tax revenues and programs’ costs.  By borrowing, the state escapes, at least temporarily, the dilemmas of its position within capitalism’s class struggles.  It postpones the day of reckoning until it can no longer borrow its way out of those dilemmas.  Now, the global crisis of capitalism has brought Greece that day of reckoning, just a little sooner than everywhere else.