Back in March, I wondered why states would willingly lose hundreds of millions of dollars annually to Internet sales tax. After all, the amount of money left on the table is staggering:
In a presidential campaign of substance, one great question that the candidates -- and nation -- could debate is this: How much does economic success stem from individual initiative and talent, versus the collective support offered by society?
If individuals are all-important, smaller government and fewer public supports might make sense. But the opposite is true if it is society that structures opportunity.
One of the main arguments against the Keystone XL pipeline is the damage that would be done to surrounding areas in the case of oil spills, particularly to sensitive environmental areas like the Ogallala aquifer. And, it turns out Keystone's opponents are right to be worried.
It's hard to read statistics about how much most Americans have in retirement savings without seeing that this country is heading toward a major social crisis. As a new study by Senator Tom Harkin noted on Friday:
Half of all Americans have less than $10,000 in savings, and nearly half of the oldest Baby Boomers are at risk of not having sufficient retirement resources to pay for basic retirement expenses and healthcare costs.
It's no secret that many large employers pay near-poverty wages even as they rake in record profits. They get away with this thanks to a weak labor market and even weaker unions, which now speak for less than 8 percent of private sector workers.
The newest GDP release shows an increase of 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2012, down from a 1.9 percent growth in the first quarter and three percent growth in 2011. But, as Demos continually asks in our Beyond GDP work: What exactly is GDP measuring?
Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a civil rights law protecting people with disabilities from discrimination in public spaces and work places, among others. In 2010, nearly 1 in 5, or 56.7 million, Americans had a disability, according to a report released by the Census Bureau yesterday.
Earlier this summer, New Mexico suffered through record-breaking forest fires that consumed over 170,000 acres. It marked the second consecutive year of record-breaking fires. As a new report released by Demos today shows, increased forest fire risk and intensity is just one of the many impacts that New Mexico will face from climate change.
Here are the things that are standing in the way of small businesses hiring more employees in order of priority: economic uncertainty, uncertainty over what Washington is going to do next, lack of sales, requirements of the healthcare bill, too much regulation. In fact, 29 percent of small business owners listed economic uncertainty as the number one obstacle to more hiring, 22 percent listed lack of sales, and just 8 percent said it was too much regulation.
People who think about breaking the law often engage in a risk-benefit analysis, looking at how big the gain is from cheating against the possible downsides of getting caught.
Too often, on Wall Street, that calculus has favored cheating: The rewards can be astronomical and the penalties can be relatively minor. Witness how many key figures in the subprime mortgage disaster -- in which investors were routinely misled about the health of such securities -- walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation and have faced no criminal charges.
As early as today, the Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives will be bringing H.R. 4078, the so-called “Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act” up for a vote. Like so much of what passes for legislation in Congress these days, this legislation is more a statement of philosophy than a thought out piece of policy.
Thank you for this opportunity to submit testimony regarding the damage that Citizens United and the rise of Super PACs has done to our system of democratic government. In the text below I will discuss why rules that govern the role of money in politics are important to our democracy; the impact of Citizens United and related decisions on our electoral system; and what Congress can and must do to promote the core American value of political equality.
As we pointed out a few weeks ago, man-made climate change will make extreme weather events much more likely going forward and we are facing a pretty serious one now. More than half of the continental U.S.
In case you haven't been paying attention, a concerted effort has been underway for more than a year to depict low-income workers as tax freeloaders. Most taxes are paid by the rich, the argument goes -- the "job creators" -- while workers at the bottom are paying less and less.
As part of a commitment to measure well-being and happiness alongside GDP, Britain’s Office of National Statistic conducted a wellbeing population survey that compared happiness and anxiety levels by several demographic factors, including sex, age, and ethnicity. The study included four subjective well-being questions:
Work as a hotel housekeeper isn’t an easy job under any circumstances. For more than 400,000 predominantly female and immigrant workers, the work means lifting heavy mattresses, stretching to clean high surfaces, and often scrubbing bathroom floors on hands and knees. Full-time workers earn just $21,000 a year, on average.
The days between the Fourth of July and Bastille Day on the 14th are known for fireworks on both sides of the Atlantic. This year, more rockets and firecrackers than usual were going off, but they were inside hearing rooms in the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress. Barclays bank announced that it had been fined more than $450 million by regulators from both countries, and its CEO, Robert E. Diamond Jr., and COO, Jerry del Missier, both resigned. The fines were part of a settlement that granted Barclays immunity from potentially worse punishment for its manipulation of interest rates.
How will Marissa Mayer’s pregnancy play out? Will the new Yahoo chief executive find that it’s not so easy to power through a maternity leave? Or will she spend just a few short weeks at home — working all the while, as she promised in an interview — and thus set the bar high for future pregnant executives of Fortune 500 companies? What should the new “it” mom-to-be do?