Stories by Les Leopold

Les Leopold is the executive director of the Labor Institute in New York, and author of How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Hedge Funds Get Away with Siphoning Off America's Wealth (J. Wiley and Sons, 2013).

Is the White House Open for Hedge Fund Business?

Posted on: Jun 10, 2013, Source: AlterNet

How the insider trading game is played in government...and at the White House.

Is Cutthroat Capitalism Pushing a Growing Number of Baby Boomers to Suicide?

Posted on: May 10, 2013, Source: AlterNet

American baby boomers are taking their own lives like never before.

The Rich Have Gained $5.6 Trillion in the 'Recovery,' While the Rest of Us Have Lost $669 Billion

Posted on: May 3, 2013, Source: AlterNet

It's no accident.

Making a Million Bucks an Hour: How Hedge Funds Get Away With Siphoning Off America's Wealth

Posted on: Apr 5, 2013, Source: AlterNet

Don’t say anything remotely truthful.

Why Is Socialism Doing So Darn Well in Deep-Red North Dakota?

Posted on: Mar 29, 2013, Source: AlterNet

North Dakota's thriving state bank makes a mockery of Wall Street's casino banking system -- and that's why financial elites want to crush it.

Welcome to Ayn Rand Planet: Why the Rich Prosper from the Stock Market While We Get Screwed

Posted on: Mar 11, 2013, Source: AlterNet

On Planet Rand, the stock-market boom is a wonderful thing precisely because it rests upon the recent rise in corporate profits.

Are Big Banks a Bunch of Organized Criminal Conspiracies?

Posted on: Feb 27, 2013, Source: AlterNet

The record of deceit and deception that has surfaced in just the past two months points to yes.

Just What Do Hedge Fund Honchos Do For a Million Bucks an Hour?

Posted on: Feb 22, 2013, Source: AlterNet

Les Leopold's new book reveals that hedge funds make their super-profits by doing what the rest of us would call cheating.

What It's Going to Take to Claw Back Middle Class Wealth from the 1%

Posted on: Feb 6, 2013, Source: AlterNet

When unions decline, inequality soars and we all lose.

4 Secretive Ways Wall Street Extorts You

Posted on: Feb 5, 2013, Source: AlterNet

Wall Street execs continue getting richer off the backs of regular Americans.

The 6 Economic Facts of Life in America That Allow the Rich to Run off with Our Wealth

Posted on: Dec 5, 2012, Source: AlterNet

Do you ever wonder why it takes the average family 47 years to make as much as a hedge fund honcho makes in one hour?

8 Reasons Wall Street Greed Is the Cause, and the Solution, To Phony Fiscal Cliff Crisis

Posted on: Nov 30, 2012, Source: AlterNet

Big Finance is once again getting a free pass.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney Both Believe Crazy Idea That Government Doesn't Create Jobs

Posted on: Oct 29, 2012, Source: AlterNet

Citizens of a modern democracy demand the work the public sector performs.

8 Facts That Prove Our Govt. Is Not Going Broke

Posted on: Oct 8, 2012, Source: AlterNet

The Republicans are out to shred our social safety net -- and they're using debt as their excuse.

5 Obscene Reasons Why Richest Americans grow Richer As Middle-Class Declines

Posted on: Sep 28, 2012, Source: AlterNet

The super-rich have learned a new lesson: it is far better to take than to make.

Shocking Report Explodes 5 Myths About American Education

Posted on: Sep 18, 2012, Source: AlterNet

We're number one? Hardly. The entire idea of American exceptionalism should be called into question.

Crazy Country: 6 Reasons America Spends More on Prisons Than On Higher Education

Posted on: Aug 27, 2012, Source: AlterNet

Dollars doing to prisons will soon outpace dollars going to higher education in every state of the union.

Why Europe's Laws On Vacations Are Better Than Your Wildest Dreams (and How Badly Americans Get Screwed)

Posted on: Jul 3, 2012, Source: AlterNet

We work ourselves to death, while people in other countries take holidays, get family leave and have paid sick time during vacations.

How the Federal Reserve Is Manipulating Our Kids Into Loving Wall Street

Posted on: Jun 25, 2012, Source: AlterNet

A Fed-sponsored competition brainwashes teens into putting the capitalist titans of Wall Street on a pedestal.

Don't Look Now -- Banks Are Still Ruining America: 6 Harsh Lessons from the JP Morgan Fiasco

Posted on: May 15, 2012, Source: AlterNet

JP Morgan Chase is part of an entwined system of too-big-to-fail institutions that are ripping us off.

What If the Greedy Rich Paid Their Share? 8 Things to Know About Wealth and Poverty in the US

Posted on: Apr 17, 2012, Source: AlterNet

We're far from poor -- we just have a wildly lopsided distribution of wealth that makes us seem poor.

How Hedge Fund Vampires Use Insider Info to Extract Their Dishonest Fortunes

Posted on: Mar 27, 2012, Source: AlterNet

The transformation of Washington into an information feeder arm of Wall Street will continue until an outraged public builds a mass movement to counter Wall Street.

A Single Hedge-Fund Hustler Makes More Than 85,000 Teachers: Why Are Our Priorities So Messed Up?

Posted on: Mar 23, 2012, Source: AlterNet

This obscene distribution of income is what we get for failing to rein in Wall Street.

5 Ways Wall Street Is Putting the Squeeze on American Students

Posted on: Mar 13, 2012, Source: AlterNet

The damage Wall Street inflicted on our educational infrastructure is growing.

9 Kick-Ass Things Obama Should Do In a Second Term

Posted on: Feb 16, 2012, Source: AlterNet

The chances are rising for an Obama second term. But what do we really want him to do?

6 Shocking Ways Capitalism Is Failing Working America

Posted on: Jan 31, 2012, Source: AlterNet

Without a dramatic rethink, our "free-enterprise" system may never again provide enough decent jobs for those who need them.

Vampire Hedge Funds Are Sucking Greece Dry

Posted on: Jan 17, 2012, Source: AlterNet

If Goldman Sachs is a vampire squid, as Matt Taibbi so aptly named it, then hedge funds are like piranhas or sharks, eager to strip the financial carcass to the bone.

7 Ways to Really Take the Ax to Wall Street

Posted on: Jan 4, 2012, Source: AlterNet

We're talking about how to save democracy from the plutocratic rule of elite financiers. It's time to think big.

How Can the World's Richest Country Let Children Go Hungry? 6 Tricks Corporate Elites Use to Hoard All the Wealth

Posted on: Dec 21, 2011, Source: AlterNet

America is filthy rich, but the money is hidden away by the 1 percent while poverty rises all around.

Why Are We Forced to Worship at the Feet of 'Mythical' Financial Markets Controlled by the Elite?

Posted on: Dec 20, 2011, Source: AlterNet

We are told to appease the market gods or face eternal financial damnation.

Don't 'Occupy the Democratic Party' -- Four Lessons From the Populist Movement

Posted on: Dec 13, 2011, Source: AlterNet

History suggests that it will take significant hard-core organizing lasting years if not decades to create the infrastructure for a new movement.

6 Shocking Revelations About Wall Street's "Secret Government"

Posted on: Nov 30, 2011, Source: AlterNet

Top officials willfully concealed the true extent of the 2008-'09 bailouts from Congress and the public.

Five Ways that Financial Elites are Destroying Democracy

Posted on: Nov 21, 2011, Source: AlterNet

Is democracy compatible with a financial system run by billionaires? Maybe not.

Occupy Wall Street Is Not a Spectator Sport: 5 Ways the 99 Percent Can Contribute to the Movement Right Now

Posted on: Nov 8, 2011, Source: AlterNet

How can the rest of the 99 percent demonstrate our outrage? Here are five things we can do, without parking a tent in the street.

The Shocking, Graphic Data That Shows Exactly What Motivates the Occupy Movement

Posted on: Oct 23, 2011, Source: AlterNet

The corporate media may obsess about what Occupy Wall Street is all about, but these images should make it clear.

Nomi Prins on 'Black Tuesday' and Occupy Wall Street

Posted on: Oct 19, 2011, Source: AlterNet

Nomi Prins' new novel is about the 99 percent of us who get screwed by the big boys, and about the kind of courage it will take to reclaim our country.

10 Things to Know About Wall Street's Rapacious Attack on America

Posted on: Oct 6, 2011, Source: AlterNet

But now Americans are fighting back and there's no telling where Occupy Wall Street can lead.

How Dracula Hedge Funds Are Sucking Us Dry

Posted on: Jul 8, 2011, Source: AlterNet

What notion of economics or ethics justifies the fact that it would take the average family more than 35,000 years to earn as much as the top hedge fund managers earn in one year?

Apple, Google, Microsoft Sitting on 58 Billion in Overseas Profits, Blackmailing Us to Avoid Taxes

Posted on: Jun 23, 2011, Source: AlterNet

How does it feel to have the jobs gun pointed at your head? Because that’s what this is: a stickup.

Obama's Favorite Banker Jamie Dimon Bitches About Regulations, Has Short Memory

Posted on: Jun 13, 2011, Source: AlterNet

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon hopes we’ll forget that we bailed out his bank along with all the other big players on Wall Street.

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