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A compelling vision of free, high-quality preschool for every child in New York City helped to propel Bill de Blasio into the mayor’s office.

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? [...]

The “Procurement Act" allows President Obama to pass an executive order to raise the pay for federal contract workers.

Details are sketchy about the new retirement plan that President Obama proposed in the State of the Union Address last night, so it's too early to offer any verdict. What causes concern, though, is that the Obama administration has previously floated retirement schemes that would double down on America's failed experiment with individual private accounts that are the cornerstone of the 401(k).

Republicans didn't just respond to the State of the Union, they responded four times. The problem is that a lot of their talking points don't stack up with reality. 

1) Taxes Are Too High on The Rich

In fact, taxes have become less progressive since 1960:

Will Wilkinson is tired of arguing about inequality. He writes,

President Barack Obama will announce during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address that he's raising the minimum wage for workers under federal contracts to $10.10 per hour, an administration official told The Huffington Post.

If Congress won’t act on jobs and the economy, President Obama promises that he will—a message he’s expected to push in Tuesday’s State of the Union. The problem is, there’s not much the president can do his own. 

In Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Obama will announce his intention to issue an executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10.