Media

Getting Americans to borrow and spend lots of money can produce a nice economic sugar high, as we saw during the Bush years. But the party can't last forever and, eventually, heavy debt servicing acts as a drag on the economy. After all, the more money that debtors are forking over to banks every month in the form of interest payments, the less they have to spend on everything else.

On Tuesday, the House Financial Services Committee voted out six bills that would make changes to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that could have far-reaching consequences. The bank lobbyists deserve a bonus this year.

Critics of the Affordable Care Act have long been calling it a job killer. First, they claimed, companies would cut jobs altogether because of the mandate that all full-time employees must have health coverage.

If Congress doesn't succeeed in gutting SNAP benefits through the Farm Bill, which now proposes sweeping cuts to food stamps, it seems various state legislatures will do whatever they can to get that job done.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about North Carolina's proposed background checks for SNAP applicants.

For several years, Walmart has placed or tied for last among department and discount stores in the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

The situation for the workers is even less satisfying. Hundreds went on strike on Black Friday last fall. With the backing of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), thousands of Walmart employees have formed an association called OUR Walmart that works with community activists to pressure the company to make changes.

OUR Walmart has stressed the importance of flexible, consistent scheduling and adequate hours.

The banks have systematically figured out how to rip off the government,” Lerner says. 

Part of that ripoff was the LIBOR scandal, which had a “massive consequence on everything,” according to Wallace Turbeville, a former Goldman Sachs employee and current senior fellow at nonpartisan think tank Demos.

Even with a freeze on basic pay rates and unpaid leave days and repeated attacks on the federal workforce, being a federal employee means you have a good, though as of late, a less-lucrative job.

That can’t be said by everyone in the federal workplace.

My name is Roxanne Mimms and I work for a food service contractor at the National Zoo.  I work full time but make barely minimum wage. I’m here because workers can’t live off what contractors pay us.  I’m here because I don’t want my two children to grow up on public assistance.  I’m here because I have dreams – My American Dream is a good job with fair wages to provide for my children, being able to pay my bills on time and save for the future.

In his column today, Ezra Klein makes a very strange, and untrue, assertion. In talking about campaign finance reform, Klein claims that small donors are as problematic as big money. Klein writes: