Media

Recently there’s been a brouhaha stirring over 401(k) retirement accounts. In a report entitled, The Retirement Savings Drain—The Hidden and Excessive Costs of 401(k)s—research firm Demos makes some startling claims about our beloved retirement accounts.

One aggravating element of today's economic debate is how conservatives oppose stimulus spending even as they trumpet the economic record of past Republican presidents.

We hear so many depressing stories of Dodd-Frank rules that haven't yet been written, or are being held up by court challenges, that it is easy to forget that powerful parts of the 2010 reform act are already in effect.

While that may sound like good news, it may be masking underlying problems, researchers have found in a new study.

New York, NY – Leaders in the U.S. Senate recently introduced a bill that would help significantly shift the direction of the financial sector toward the common good by ensuring that independent directors, not industry executives, regulate the big banks. Introduced on May 22 by Senator Bernie Sanders, with co-sponsors Senator Barbara Boxer and Senator Mark Begich, “The Federal Reserve Independence Act” (S.3219) would prohibit banking industry executives from serving as directors of the twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks.

Portability, ownership and innovation are three key features of 401(k) plans that make them worth keeping. That was the case laid out by Paul Schott Stevens at a "town hall" meeting in Los Angeles this afternoon. The remarks lay out a defense of the mutual fund-heavy savings vehicle even as the plans have come under attack for the fees charged by mutual fund firms. 

A main obstacle to economic growth is that consumers don't have much money to spend, which is why the U.S. government needs to engage in more stimulus spending -- an imperative that was dramatically underscored by last Friday's bleak job numbers.

This afternoon, two New York state lawmakers, Senator Michael Gianaris and Assemblymember Brian Kavanaugh, introduced legislation that would empower the voters of New York by providing more access to the ballot and giving the voter registration system a much overdue 21st century makeover.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts from their treasuries to influence elections, states have passed a variety of innovative measures to regulate corporate cash in elections, a new report by the Corporate Reform Coalition shows.