Economist Dean Baker points out that speculation by the big banks and investment houses is the cause of much of our financial woes and that a financial speculation tax would be well worth implementing as a means of curbing that practice. He explains why such a tax is needed. [Read more…]
Felix Salmon tells us what happened, comparing two cases, one in which Goldman Sachs sided with the defendant, the other in which they were part of the prosecution, and the big differences in the outcomes. Can you guess which case resulted in the harsher punishment? He concludes: [Read more…]
Workers in the fast food industry are going on strike across the country demanding that their wages be increased so that they can live on them. It is long overdue that the minimum wage be doubled to somewhere around $15 per hour. That would do more to end poverty than many of the anti-poverty programs that currently exist. [Read more…]
As Ben Bernanke ends his term as the chair of the Federal Reserve in January 2014, there has been intense speculation amongst Fed watchers as to whom president Obama will choose to replace him, and the betting is that it will be either Janet Yellen, deputy chair of the Fed, or Obama advisor Lawrence Summers. [Read more…]
Most if us live within our means and keep some sort of rough budget of what we can afford and it usually works to keep spending in check. It is tempting to think that that is what keeps us out of debt, and one of the easiest traps that those of us who are not poor can fall into is thinking that the poor get into financial trouble because they suffer from a lack of that kind of planning. [Read more…]
The chances of comprehensive immigration reform being passed by the US Congress have waxed and more recently waned with splits clearly emerging as various factions within the Republican party have struggled to decide whether it is a good thing or not. [Read more…]
The Daily Show takes a close look at the banking sector in the US where, unlike in many countries, the banks seem to be more like crime syndicates than staid financial institutions.
In the first clip, the show discusses yet another revelation about how the banks and ratings agencies colluded to play fast and loose with other people’s money while they got rich, knowing that what they were doing was corrupt and likely to cause a collapse. [Read more…]
Carmen Reinhart has written yet another defense of the discredited study that she and fellow Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff wrote. This one takes the form of an open letter to Paul Krugman, one of her harshest critics in academia. She says that it was not their fault if policymakers misread their statements about the impact of debt reaching 90% of GDP and arrived at an alarming conclusion that resulted in them pursuing the debt-reduction austerity programs that have caused such hardship around the world. [Read more…]
Introducing iRS from Apple, its new corporate tax evasion product, with all the sleek simplicity and hip commercials that you have come to expect from this company.
Political scientist Robert Dahl said in 1971 that “a key characteristic of a democracy is the continued responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals.” The part I italicized emphasizes the key point, that a democracy involves more than enabling all citizens to vote freely in fair elections. While that is a minimal requirement, democracy also requires that political influence be distributed equally. [Read more…]