I haven’t yet seen a good scenario for how the stalemate between the House and Senate on the payroll tax extension will play out. The most common thought was making the rounds yesterday was that the House would give in to the Senate and agree on the Senate-demanded two-month extension but that it would include [...]
Read Post
I think this says it all: This is how they roll. They just don’t believe in voting: House Republicans blocked a Democratic attempt Wednesday to call up the Senate payroll tax bill by quickly gaveling today’s pro forma session to a close. Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) presided over the brief pro forma session, and after [...]
Read Post
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: That $335 Million BofA Settlement: The Good, The Bad, And The Very Ugly OurFuture.Org’s Richard Eskow: “The Obama Administration announced [...]
Read Post
One good thing you can say about 2011 is that it is a year in which lots of wrong-headed undertakings finally came to their ignominious conclusions — including, among others, the Iraq War, the Gadhafi regime, the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, and “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. Also among the train-wrecks is undoubtedly our failed [...]
Read Post
The Obama Administration announced a $335 million settlement deal with Bank of America to settle charges of discriminatory lending practices. Here is, in ascending order of importance, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The Justice Department deserves praise for responding to illegal bank behavior more aggressively than it’s done in the past. So does [...]
Read Post
David Brancaccio’s Marketplace story Tuesday, Decline of Kodak offers lessons for U.S. business traced the decline of Kodak and the loss of Rochester, NY’s good, middle-class jobs to Kodak’s failure to tend its “industrial commons.” This is a national problem. For 2012 let’s resolve to restore our industrial commons and bring manufacturing back to the [...]
Read Post
Today’s GDP report shows slow growth. It isn’t declining growth so technically is not a recession, but not enough growth to lead to job gains. U.S. Economy Grew at a 2% Rate in the Third Quarter, The United States economy grew at an annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department [...]
Read Post
In the day-to-day news about trade problems with China the bigger picture can get lost. America is giving up its competitive position in industries of the present and future and it is costing us. Even the people you would think would defend “free trade” are coming to understand that America is losing its vital ability [...]
Read Post
On Monday, Bank of America (BofA) stocks briefly traded for under $5. Yes, you could buy a share of BofA for less than the noxious debit card fee they tried to force down your throat. BofA is massive, with assets equivalent to 15 percent of U.S. GDP . So why is it trading for the [...]
Read Post
The President has adopted the language of the 99%, and it’s paying off for him. He’s surged from a position slightly behind Mitt Romney in last month’sCNN polling to a 52%-45% lead against the Republican this week. While other factors were involved, his new rhetoric about income inequality and forcing everybody to “play by the [...]
Read Post
