Demos is a national, non-profit, non-partisan public policy, research and advocacy organization committed to building an America where democracy is robust and inclusive, with high levels of electoral participation and civic engagement. To that end, the Demos works to reduce barriers to voter participation and engagement, with a particular focus on participation by traditionally disfranchised communities.
A class action lawsuit was filed against Walmart in Chicago last week, alleging that Walmart cheated its part-time and temporary workers of earnings and deprived them of mandatory rest breaks by requiring them to come in early and work through their lunch breaks.
The money is the story. The money is the only story. The money was not the only story ever since this campaign began, which was 15 minutes after the past one ended, but it became the only story on January 21, 2010, when the Supreme Court reversed a lower-court decision in the case of Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, thereby demolishing almost a century of state and federal laws aimed at controlling the system by which we finance our political campaigns.
Small business owners, it turns out, are like everybody else. They are Democrats and Independents as well as Republicans. A few make a lot of money; others not nearly so much.
Tomorrow’s GDP numbers will likely show a growth rate around 1.9 percent. Economists predict that an increase in consumer spending will be what helps boost this quarter’s GDP growth rate, which is higher than last quarters’ increase of 1.3 percent. The quarterly GDP release is also a time when we again ask, what exactly are we measuring?
Several developments in the past three years suggest that the case for upholding section 5 against constitutional challenge has been strengthened compared to the situation in 2009.
Happy Food Day! The Center for Science in the Public Interest has designated October 24 as a day “to address issues as varied as health and nutrition, hunger, agricultural policy, animal welfare, and farm worker justice.” It’s a good idea, and to mark the occasion, I’d share an organic apple from my CSA if I could.
The new Gilded Age is roaring down on us – an uncaged tiger on a rampage. Walk out to the street in front of our office here in Manhattan, look to the right and you can see the symbol of it: a fancy new skyscraper going up two blocks away. When finished, this high rise among high rises will tower a thousand feet, the tallest residential building in the city.
The credit reporting industry has given us plenty to complain about: credit reports too often contain errors, the errors are fiendishly hard to fix, reports and scores are not accessible enough to consumers, and credit information is increasingly being used for a variety of extraneous purposes, among numerous other problems (for the full bill of complaint, see my paper
The last presidential debate not only continued the silence on climate change, it also advanced the false narrative that we have to choose between economic growth and action on climate change. While the candidates focused on how to keep gas prices down, increase energy independence, and create jobs, they never addressed how we can use our energy plan to fight climate change. By refusing to address climate consequences, both candidates reinforce the idea that we either focus on economic growth or we focus on the environment, but not both.
Judging by all the complaints about the Dodd-Frank Act, you might think that Washington over reacted to the financial excesses of a few years ago and that the Feds can now ease up on Wall Street.
In fact, though, bad behavior among America's money men -- and yes, those doing wrong are typically men -- continues onward at a furious pace. Consider just the past month at the SEC:
Other outside dark money groups get the press, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce gets results. That's because the Chamber, the biggest lobbying organization in the country, doesn't disclose its donors, among whom are the most powerful companies in the country. Those corporations use the Chamber's to anonymously funnell money into competitive races. In the beginning of October alone, they've spent almost $5 million dollars on political races. But that's not the source of their unmatched influence.
Lorraine C. Minnite, a Rutgers University political scientist and a senior fellow at Demos, a liberal think tank, looked for a turnout effect in a 2009 paper she co-authored with Columbia University political scientist Robert S. Erikson. They didn't turn up definitive evidence, concluding, "our data and tools are not up to the task of making a compelling statistical argument for an effect."
When it comes to climate change, there is one area in which the U.S. leads all other nations. Our media gives more time and attention to climate deniers than any other country. The study looked at five other countries besides the U.S.- Brazil, China, France, India and the UK- to see how leading newspapers in each country dealt with climate skepticism. It found that coverage of climate skepticism is mostly limited to the U.S. and to the U.K.
A new report out by the Citizens for Tax Justice offers further evidence of just how screwed up and porous our corporate tax system has become.
Big companies are making boatloads of money overseas and then often piling it up in tax havens. Which means that not only are they not paying U.S. taxes on these profits -- since taxes can be deferred until cash is brought home -- but nor are they paying taxes to foreign governments.