For any economy, there are two basic factors determining how many jobs are available at any given time. The first is the overall level of activity - with GDP as a rough, if inadequate measure of overall activity - and the second is what share of GDP goes to hiring people into jobs. In terms of our current situation, after the Great Recession hit in full in 2008, US GDP has grown at an anemic average rate of 1.3 percent per year, as opposed to the historic average rate from 1950 until 2007 of 3.3 percent.

For any economy, there are two basic factors determining how many jobs are available at any given time. The first is the overall level of activity - with GDP as a rough, if inadequate measure of overall activity - and the second is what share of GDP goes to hiring people into jobs. In terms of our current situation, after the Great Recession hit in full in 2008, US GDP has grown at an anemic average rate of 1.3 percent per year, as opposed to the historic average rate from 1950 until 2007 of 3.3 percent.

I think it is inevitable that leftist forces in the US would be divided, if not balkanized, to some extent. Among the full range of people who are committed to social and economic equality and ecological justice - i.e. to some variant of a leftist vision of a decent society - it will always be the case that some will be more focused on egalitarian economic issues, others around the environment and climate change, others on US imperialism, militarism and foreign policy, others on race and gender equality, and still others on sexual identity.

Student debt in the US has exploded in the past decade. One of the reason is that the private costs of attending college have risen sharply, with public higher education funding having been cut sharply. Average public funding per student was 15 percent lower in 2015 than in 2008, and 20 percent lower than in 1990. The burden of the public funding cuts has been worsened by the stagnation of average family incomes. By 2014, this figure had nearly doubled, to 35 percent of median household income.

The profits of oil, coal, and natural gas companies will have to yield to the imperative of sustaining life on earth.

The fossil fuel industry will inevitably have to experience major cutbacks and, over the longer term, near-total demise. There is simply no choice in the matter if we believe the research produced by climate scientists. The profits of oil, coal, and natural gas companies will have to yield to the imperative of sustaining life on earth.

One measure for promoting both stability and fairness across financial market segments is a small sales tax on all financial transactions - what has come to be known as a Robin Hood Tax. This tax would raise the costs of short-term speculative trading and therefore discourage speculation. At the same time, the tax will not discourage "patient" investors who intend to hold their assets for longer time periods, since, unlike the speculators, they will be trading infrequently.