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Ben Protess made an interesting comparison today in a DealBook article on the rise of CFTC Chief Gary Gensler and the agency's successful work on the LIBOR rate fixing scandal: 

Pennsylvania state court judge Robert Simpson refused to issue a preliminary injunction against the state’s controversial voter ID legislation today, despite allegations that the law was discriminatory and passed for partisan gain.

Ben Protess made an interesting comparison today in a DealBook article on the rise of CFTC Chief Gary Gensler and the agency's successful work on the LIBOR rate fixing scandal: 

New evidence from the New York Fed suggests that New York’s middle class has continued its slow and seemingly inexorable decline. Coauthors Jason Bram and the James Orr unwittingly reach this conclusion in their exploration of the tension between New York’s record number of jobs and its record unemployment rate. In their exploration, they reveal the inadequacy of our economic measures of well-being and expose the problem beneath the surface.

When I was a student, my English-major friends warned me that economists were people who didn’t have enough personality to become accountants. It seemed like a terrible accusation at the time. Today, I worry less about the personality than the efficacy of both professions.

It seems there is little real relief on the horizon.

“If you’re coming out of college with an average number of $20,000 to $25,000 in debt and there’s no job out there, you’ve got a real problem,” said John Quinterno, a researcher who has studied the consequences of student debt.

Social Security turned 77 today. Unfortunately, it's not a happy day for the historic program: new data compiled by the U.S. Treasury Department for Smart Money reports: 

More evidence this morning that the rich are doing swell.

Well, that was quick.

One day Standard Chartered bank and its powerful allies are complaining that New York's bank regulator, Benjamin Lawsky, has overreached and saying that, at most, they had laundered only $14 million for Iran. The next day -- as in today -- Standard Chartered is agreeing to pay a $340 million civil penalty to settle Lawsky's suit and agreeing, explicitly, that Lawsky's original figure of laundered funds -- a whopping $250 billion -- was correct.