There is crazy and then there is this: Tea Party activists have taken to calling local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy a vast UN-led conspiracy to deny property rights and create “A one world order.” Uh, what?
Just when you were prepared to believe that the natural forces of The Market were finally going to put Americans back to work, the CBO reported Tuesday that unless we pump more money into the system, the national unemployment rate will in fact increase over the next two years. Today's better than expected job numbers shouldn't lead us to believe that this warning is wrong. As we have seen before in the past three years, things can get better before they get worse.
The gist of this viral video, "S*!# New Yorkers Say," is true: We're hardly for want of opinions.
So when a New York State committee comes out with horribly gerrymandered districts that are being voted on in the next few months, you’d think there would be some public hearings to get feedback.
It was unsurprising to hear, as we did Tuesday, that Claremont McKenna College had lied about its students’ SAT scores to boost its position in the U.S. News & World Report annual ranking of colleges. University officials are famously obsessed with these rankings, and this is not the first time that a school has admitted fudging data.
How much would I like to see New York raise its minimum wage? Let's put it this way: in 2001 as New Yorkers fought to increase the minimum from its then-abysmal level of $5.15, I dressed up in a too-large ostrich costume and paraded outside a strip mall in the Bronx. The goofy attire part of a demonstration in front of the district office of then-State Senator Guy Velella (later convicted on corruption charges, now deceased) and it would take another four years and substantial political maneuvering before a minimum wage increase was finally enacted over the veto of Governor Pataki.
This is the second interview in the Black History Month series Perspectives on Black Politics in the Age of Obama. It has been selectively edited for print, but the full audio will be available at wbai.org. It is being published as a joint HuffPost Politics and Black Voices project.
This is the first interview in the Black History Month series "Perspectives on Black Politics in the Age of Obama." It has been selectively edited for print, but the full audio will be available at wbai.org. It is being published as a joint HuffPost Politics and Black Voices project.
The New York Times' columnist David Brooks is smart enough to know that inequality is a serious problem in America and you won't find him defending the right's inequality deniers -- those who argue that big income gaps are mostly a statistical illusion or don't matter because everyone can buy whatever they want at Walmart.
Late last year, a federal judge overturned an SEC settlement with Citigroup in which the company was fined over $200 million for financial misconduct -- yet admitted no wrongdoing.
The fifth annual MetLife survey of American value ideals shows a significant shift from prioritizing achieving professional success and material wealth to having a greater sense of personal fulfillment, particularly among younger generations. Millennials preferred a sense of personal fulfillment over having enough money by a margin of 28-20. Nearly a third of Millennials surveyed thought it was more important to have close family and friends than a roof over their heads.
Not long ago, it seemed the stars were aligned for President Obama to mount a serious bid for corporate tax reform. I have argued often that this is an area ripe with opportunity for Obama -- not to mention a reviled Congress desperate to show it can get something done.
When voters go to the polls in Florida tomorrow for the GOP Presidential primary, the economy and jobs will weigh heavily on their minds and rightfully so. The state’s unemployment rate is close to 10 percent, down from a peak 12 percent in 2010, and the state was hit hard by the housing market crash.
You’d be hard pressed to find a New Yorker who thinks a full-time adult worker can survive in this state on $7.25 an hour. In a state with as high a cost of living as New York, this would be a laughable concept, if the consequences weren't so serious.
Not long ago, it seemed the stars were aligned for President Obama to mount a serious bid for corporate tax reform. I have argued often that this is an area ripe with opportunity for Obama -- not to mention a reviled Congress desperate to show it can get something done.
The 2011 fourth quarter GDP numbers released today show a 2.8 percent growth in economic activity, due in part to the increase in spending around the holidays. But, what do GDP numbers really show? A new report from Demos, Beyond GDP, looks at the flaws in our dependence on GDP as the sole measure of progress and highlights important economic and social measures that are not captured by GDP.
In the State of the Union address the President sketched out a blueprint that would reduce economic inequality, demanding that wealthy play by the same rules as ordinary Americans. What we didn't hear, though, was a blueprint for attacking political inequality so that the voices of the wealthy stop overpowering those of everyone else here in the world's oldest democracy.