We need to be honest about the state of workers and the workplace in the United States of America: in many cases, the situation for millions of individuals and families is demoralizing, unhealthy, detrimental to the social fabric, and sometimes downright dangerous. We have seen in this series how US workers have virtually no job […]
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The American Workplace 5: Wages, Savings and Debt
How is your dollar doing? A look at some statistics about wages, savings and debt in the US is instructive. If you are not doing terribly well financially, you are not alone – and there are ways out of our collective problems, if we are willing to look seriously at ideas from other nations and […]
Past Lives
You may wonder why a blog post entitled “Past Lives” is listed under the Future category! That’s because the related topics of past lives, reincarnation, karma and pre-birth decisions are explored in my book, Paranormal, and are intimately related to the survival of our souls after death. The evidence from scientific instruments and investigations, reputable […]
The American Workplace 4: Work and Overwork
Work – overwork – the dignity of work. In this fourth installment of my series on the American workplace, I want to challenge the pervasive American notion that working excessively is a virtue and that not working practically around the clock means that one is a “slacker.” I also want to put the issue into […]
The American Workplace 3: Bullying
One of the uglier secrets of many American workplaces is the phenomenon of bullying. According to the Workplace Bullying Institute, workplace bullying is defined as “repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators. It is abusive conduct that is: “Threatening, humiliating, or intimidating, or “Work interference — sabotage […]
The American Workplace 2: Paid Leave
In our previous blog, we discussed job security and the absence of national legislation in the US ensuring it. In Europe and many other nations, as we saw, there is national legislation. However, the US does not have nation-wide laws that mandate paid time off for workers – sick leave, vacation time and holidays, and […]
The American Workplace 1: At-will Employment Continued
Over the next few weeks, I will be addressing issues having to do with the American workplace. Because work is such a vital part of most Americans’ lives, and because Americans spend so much of their time in the workplace, it is an issue of social justice: how people are treated, and how workplace practices, […]
Retirement Challenges and the Common Good
Baby-boomers are at or nearing retirement. It is becoming a sad fact that many of us will not be able to retire when we originally planned to, nor will we be able to retire comfortably, despite having worked for 40 or more years, saving as much as we could, following the rules, and trying not […]
Utopian Images in the Bible: Lessons for Us
Many years ago when I was in divinity school, my favorite professor, the late Dieter Georgi , spoke to us in his classes about utopia. He saw utopia everywhere in Scripture. Dieter as a 15-year-old German was drafted by Hitler’s Navy and survived the bombing of Dresden; he lived his whole life with a sense […]
“Socialisms” and Harnessing Capitalism for the Common Good
While I am not an economist or political scientist, I am a US citizen and believe that it our responsibility as US citizens to know about different socio-economic systems and to be engaged in discussions about civic, economic and social issues. Whether we know it or not, these systems deeply affect our everyday lives. Especially […]