On the eve of a march to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, labor and civil rights activists are calling on President Barack Obama to honor King with an executive order that would raise wages for as many as two million workers.
One of the most poignant calls came Wednesday from Alvin Turner, a veteran of the famous 1968 Memphis garbage workers strike. Recalling a recent face-to-face meeting with Obama, Turner said “he told me personally he was working hard for the little man. If he don’t sign, he’ll disappoint me badly.”
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, is pushing the idea that being poor and living on government benefits in America is actually living high on the hog.
When Walmart broke the bad news to shareholders last week about declining same-store sales and cuts to their profit and sales projections, the company offered a glib explanation. "The retail environment was challenging," asserted Walmart Stores President and CEO Michael Duke. Company executives pointed to weather conditions and the January payroll tax increase to justify the disappointing sales, but larger questions about why consumers weren't buying were never addressed.
It’s high drama and riveting politics these days as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation’s most thoroughly red-state retailer, charges deep into blue-state territory in its efforts to expand beyond its comfortably established realm in rural America and suburbia by moving into the often hostile territory of inner cities.
In 1965, in a nation torn by racial strife, President Johnson signed an executive order mandating nondiscrimination in employment by government contractors. Now, as President Obama has observed, the nation is divided by a different threat: widening income inequality.
The United States spent around $3.6 trillion last year, on products, services, and employment, including contractors. Which companies benefited from these lucrative deals with our government? And what were our conditions on their performance? Shouldn't we, as the taxpayers that are funding these purchases, be able to expect the beneficiaries of these contracts to act in a way that reflects our values?
Americans are taking advantage of greater credit availability without a heavy reliance on plastic, a trend economists say bodes well for a healthy recovery in consumer credit.
The Federal Reserve reported Wednesday that consumer borrowing, excluding mortgages, surged ahead by $13.8 billion to $2.8 trillion in June, a 5.9 percent annual rate increase. Non-revolving credit, the category that includes student loans and auto financing, shot up $16.5 billion for the month, offsetting a $2.7 billion decline in credit card spending.
The next big campaign finance case to go before the Supreme Court began in February 2012 in the grand ballroom at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel during the "Ronald Reagan Banquet" at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
The next big campaign finance case to go before the Supreme Court began in February 2012 in the grand ballroom at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel during the "Ronald Reagan Banquet" at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Picking a new chairman of the Federal Reserve may be the most important nomination a president can make. The next Fed chair will play an instrumental role in determining the future trajectory of America’s straggling recovery, and determining how financial regulation gets implemented.
I am of course glad to see President Obama focus the country on what he correctly identifies as the most pressing national problem, the crushing of the middle class. The solution he laid out in his address at Knox College, a middle-out economics which sees the middle class as the engine of the economy, is both good economics and a powerful political message. It is what progressives and Democrats need to keep emphasizing over and over again, both rhetorically and in their legislative agendas.
I am of course glad to see President Obama focus the country on what he correctly identifies as the most pressing national problem, the crushing of the middle class. The solution he laid out in his address at Knox College, a middle-out economics which sees the middle class as the engine of the economy, is both good economics and a powerful political message. It is what progressives and Democrats need to keep emphasizing over and over again, both rhetorically and in their legislative agendas.
“Job security, with good wages and durable industries. A good education. A home to call your own. Affordable health care when you get sick. A secure retirement even if you’re not rich.”
Today President Obama will give a major economic address in Illinois, the first in a series of speeches designed to refocus the national conversation on job creation and the struggling economy.
Whatever growth in GDP or reductions in unemployment, most Americans think the economy stinks. According to a new CBS poll, more than 60 percent of people polled rate the economy as "bad." And well they should: For the vast majority of Americans, economic gains during the recovery have almost entirely gone to the people at the very top.
And you thought the government didn’t have a jobs program. It does. The problem is that the pay and benefits are lousy, and in many cases the working conditions ain’t so great either.
Financial markets, now heavily dependent on technology, need to be safeguarded against cyberattacks, natural disasters and the more prosaic scourge of human error that can cause massive disruptions, according to experts and a federal panel.
Without a doubt, the big banks should be broken up; the need is even more urgent than it was in 2007 or 2008. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas – hardly an Occupy Wall Street affiliate – titled its 2011 Annual Report "Choosing the Road to Prosperity: Why We Must End Too Big to Fail – Now."