On a new survey which finds that hedge funds and traders of stocks and bonds are predicted to see bonuses drop by as much as 10 percent from last year.
The bottom half of American households now controls less than 5 percent of our total net worth. Our republican founders could not have imagined a distribution of wealth so concentrated, nor a democracy so threatened by the rule of property.
But the direction of all my work, at bottom, is toward a new family economy, something I believe we can achieve only by fundamentally reformulating American politics around ideas of community wealth and family economic protection. This is a politics that leverages families and communities against market compulsion using the resources and regulatory power of a conservative or "subsidiary" welfare state-one that supports and protects traditional social structures but does not usurp their functions or alter their God-given purposes.
Today, children of wealthy parents are the ones who disproportionately attend college. Meanwhile, student financial assistance at the federal, state and university level has shifted away from a needs-based approach, leaving low-income and moderate-income students sitting at home.
The Electoral College is provided for in the United States Constitution. The filibuster is not. In fact, the word doesn't appear in any of our founding documents. Its derivation is from the Spanish filibustero, meaning "pirate" or "freebooter." In the legislative context, a filibuster is the use of delaying tactics to block legislation. It is a mechanism available only in the Senate.
The moral question is, who owns knowledge? Or who should own knowledge? Put another way, if most of our wealth comes from inherited knowledge — not what we do "today" — then isn't this part of our wealth, this knowledge, something which rightly should belong to everyone as a common inheritance?
As President Obama takes office, and the nation reflects on the historic moment and its significance, Demos Senior Fellows John Schwarz and Lew Daly remind us that America is more than just “common blood, or race, or ethnic background or religion.” America is about freedom, they argue, and its up to government to help establish the conditions for economic independence that have become central to the ideals of American freedom.
All over America, there were plenty of reasons to celebrate women last month: August marked the 88th anniversary of the 19th Amendment's ratification, which gave women the right to vote. Women's Equality Day, which was on August 26, commemorated that victory. There are now more women in the U.S. Congress than ever (88) and 2008 was a year when a woman came within a hair's breadth of becoming a major ticket presidential nominee.
Demos' Public Works Senior Program Director, Michael Lipsky and Demos Fellow Nicole Kazee argue that small business interests have been hijacked by powerful interest groups that do not full represent the views or interests of small-business owners. So then, who speaks for small business?
Fifteen years after NVRA passed Congress, many states are still ignoring their duty to low-income voters. Recent research and field and field investigations have indicated that states throughout the country are neglecting their responsibility to offer voter registration at public assistance offices.
In remarks recently delivered at a community ministry in Zanesville, Ohio, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged to revive George W. Bush’s “faith-based initiative.” It was to be Bush’s signature domestic policy, increasing the role of smaller faith-based providers in government social service programs. The surprising announcement strengthened Obama’s claim to a new kind of politics, even as he sharply contrasted his own faith-based vision with Bush’s “photo-op” version.
John Kerry's defeat in 2004, assumed by many to be the product of perceived Democratic deficiencies in "moral values," gave this conversation renewed energy. And while some in the "new values" camp pointed to the importance of a specifically religious morality, others urged the Democrats to focus on a secular but morally demanding vision of the common good.
Michael Lipsky and Dianne Stewart, Senior Program Director and Director of Public Works at Demos, argue it takes effective government to restore opportunity. After decades of government-bashing, we need to win back support for what we do in common.