In response to a declining voter turnout rate, California recently implemented big reforms to help boost the turnout rate: online registration, same day registration (SDR), and relaxing the vote by mail deadline. A recent report by the Public Policy Institute of California analyzed the impact of the changes and claims that while online registration and the relaxed vote by mail deadline were worthwhile reforms, SDR might not be.
Pennsylvania has been trying for almost two years now to download a voter ID law Republican legislators passed into something workable on the ground. They’ve failed at every turn because grassroots organizers have consistently exposed the burdens the law imposes on voters, which courts have taken seriously, and because the state has yet to find a way to administer the law without disenfranchisement being a certified outcome.
As long as there have been markets, people have been driven by greed to make irrational investment decisions. When enough people get in on the action, valuations -- the prices of securities -- go haywire, soaring to obscene heights and then crashing in a shower of crushed dreams.
Chasing performance, taking on excessive risk and selling at inopportune times are all as old as capital markets themselves. What is new is the modern regulatory environment and financial innovations such as high-frequency trading. Is today's stock market the same beast it was 20 or 30 years ago? [...]
What I learned from an Al-Jazeera America news segment last night: 16- and 17-year-olds in North Carolina could be arrested and charged as adults, in one of just two states in the nation where this is law.
As more states across the U.S. (and more countries across the world) begin adopting alternative measures they find that while GDP has been increasing, other measures of well-being have remained flat.
Just three days before Kevyn Orr, the emergency manager appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to run the fiscally strapped city, filed thelargest municipal bankruptcy case in history, he signed a forbearance agreement with UBS and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch establishing a process to settle possible claims on default of $800 million of interest rate swaps.
Could Massachusetts become the next state to enact Election Day Registration? If today’s passage by the Commonwealth’s Senate chamber of omnibus voting bill S.1975 serves as indication, it very well could.
During his Senate hearing yesterday, Debo Adegbile, President Obama’s pick for Justice Department Civil Rights Division chief, was asked by Sen. Chuck Grassley if he would block state voter ID laws if confirmed. In his previous capacity, Adegible served as attorney and one-time acting president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which has been in litigation with Texas over its voter ID law for the past three years. Adegbile also twice argued before the U.S.
Voting rights advocates are girding for a series of crucial battles that will play out over the next twelve months in Congress, in the courts, and in state legislatures. Victories could go a long way to reversing the setbacks of the last year. Defeats could help cement a new era in which voting is more difficult, especially for racial minorities, students, and the poor.
President Obama has proclaimed that thanks to the Volcker Rule "never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by a bank that is `Too Big to Fail', " the reality is a bit more complicated.
Though the rule issued today by financial regulators seeks to ban proprietary trading -- essentially gambling with federally insured deposits -- some experts argue that banks will find ways to get around the restrictions to continue engaging in risky behavior. [...]
The much-anticipated final regulations implementing the Volcker Rule will be released today and, almost miraculously, it seems to be significantly stronger than the proposed text publicized more than a year ago. We will all have to await the actual wording since this is an area in which the devil is truly in the details.
But the all-important limitation on insured banks betting on the trading markets with depositors’ money is rumored to do a few key things:
The bill for decades of Detroit's financial decline has now come due.
A federal judge's ruling approving the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history Tuesday sets the stage for an epic legal battle over who will be asked to help pick up the tab, including bond investors, retired city workers, city vendors, state taxpayers, or Wall Street bankers.
In fact, the Volcker rule is already federal law, passed as part of the massive financial sector overall bill known as the Dodd-Frank Act, signed in 2010. But since that time, five separate regulatory agencies, including those that focus on the markets and others on the banks, have been working to come up with a rule that will satisfy all parties.
To the Republican supporters of laws that would treat the poll booth like an exclusive nightclub that asks for photo ID and other qualifications before allowing entry, the answer to why anyone would oppose this is simple: They must not want to vote bad enough.
One of the most simplistic fictions is that corporate elites are spearheading a "class war" all on their own, driving down wages to squeeze out higher profits in the name of greed.
Of course, that's not actually the way modern shareholder capitalism works. Instead, most CEOs and executives -- and the boards who hire and fire them -- wake up every day worrying about how they are going to please you and me. (Assuming you, like me, have money invested in stocks through your 401k or whatnot.)