Attorney General Eric Holder made it official in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee: Some banks are so big that criminal prosecution poses an unacceptable danger to the U.S. and world economies. This is not Holder's opinion alone. In the past, the Justice Department has consulted with the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to assess the consequences of criminal prosecution. This is a government-wide problem.
During an appearance on CNBC yesterday, Charlie Munger, deputy to billionaire investor Warren Buffett, had some harsh words for high-frequency trading, the practice used by huge financial firms to trade stocks in milliseconds. “Take the rapid trading by the computer geniuses with the computer algorithms,” said Munger. “Those people have all the social utility of a bunch of rats admitted to a granary.”
At least one CEO at a big retail company wants to see the minimum wage increased. In fact, he’d like the minimum wage to go even higher than President Obama has proposed.
Emmett Pinkston served in the military for 30 years, first in the Marines, then in the Air Force, then in the Army. He helped coordinate security for President George W. Bush during the G8 Summit on Sea Island, Ga., in 2004, and worked as an intelligence analyst in Iraq from 2005 to 2007, some of the deadliest years of the war.
It's time to ensure that workers, no matter what their immigration status, have the same rights, and that their status isn't used an excuse to justify abusive behavior.
Ever wonder why the government seems fine with cutting unemployment benefits and welfare programs? Part of the answer may be that the rich vote more than the poor.
Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has come out swinging against a proposal to allow voters in his state to register on Election Day. Coloradans currently must register at least 29 days ahead of time, and Gessler is dusting the cobwebs off a well-worn bogeyman in an attempt to keep it that way. In a recent op-ed in the Denver Post, Gessler wrote:
The U.S. political system is increasingly gamed against Americans of modest means — a situation exacerbated in recent years by major changes in the nation's campaign laws.
I attended the oral argument in the Voting Rights Act case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and I came away even more convinced that the Court should uphold the contested parts of the law.
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires that covered states "preclear" their proposed election law changes with federal officials. Nine states plus parts of seven others are "covered," and many of these areas are in the South.
The U.S. political system is increasingly gamed against Americans of modest means — a situation exacerbated in recent years by major changes in the nation's campaign laws.
That's the overriding takeaway from a new report slated for release today by Demos, a left-leaning nonprofit public policy group "working for an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy."
President Obama and some members of Congress have made waves recently with calls for voting reform. But your access to the ballot probably depends more on what’s going on at the nearest statehouse.
With state legislative sessions well underway, lawmakers across the country have unleashed a raft of bills tweaking their states’ voting systems. Here are a few issues to keep an eye on.
Today, the Supreme Court heard argument in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a case challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Brenda Wright, Vice President for Legal Strategies at Demos, released the following statement:
While much of the country’s attention is focused on the need for job growth, a new report to be released Monday, March 4 by national public policy organization Demos reveals the ways in which the use of credit history in hiring acts as a significant barrier to employment and may lead to discriminatory hiring practices, particularly for people of color and the long-term unemployed.
Young adults are pulling back on credit-card debt for similar reasons, said Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a public policy research organization. It found that Americans age 25 to 34 cut their credit card debt in half between 2008 and 2012.
All around them, young adults are seeing signs of financial distress -- job insecurity, foreclosures, high college costs. That's making them think twice about applying for loans, she said.
A new report from a Wisconsin state agency makes clear that Same Day Registration is not just a low-cost way to make voting more accessible. It can even be a budget-saver.
The report from the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board dealt a blow to advocates of repealing the state’s Same Day Registration policy. It pegged the cost of such a change as high as $14.5 million. Some of the costs are one-time expenditures, but many will be ongoing.
In the aftermath of the financial crisis, plenty of Americans have seen their credit scores tank. But can that really affect your ability to get a job? Yes, because employers increasingly are relying on workers' credit histories in screening applications.
Same Day Registration is a proven reform that can substantially increase voter turnout among eligible voters -- particularly among those with traditionally lower rates of voter participation -- without compromising the integrity of elections or substantially increasing costs.
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Tuesday that next term it will hear McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a challenge to limits on the amount of money that a single person may contribute to all federal candidates and parties over a two-year election cycle, known as aggregate contribution limits.
Despite millennials' lingering reputation as financial delinquents, it turns out not everyone drowning in credit card debt has a newly-printed college diploma and a stack of student loan bills.