Media

For fans of conservatives’ favorite teller of “hard truths,” the Path to Prosperity budget proposal released by Rep. Paul Ryan this week must have been a disappointment.

Middle-income Americans age 50 and older are now carrying more credit card debt on average than younger people, according to a 2012 study released by Demos. This is a reversal of the findings from the Demos survey which took place in 2008.

The economy plummets. You lose your job. Soon, you start to find it hard to make ends meet. You start putting things on your credit card. Then you fall behind in your card payments. All the while you’ve been desperately looking for a new job. Little do you know that being behind on credit card payments may stand between you and a job – the very thing that could get you back on the road to financial health.

This morning the Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on the nomination of Richard Corday  to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. On the merits, Cordray should breeze through.  The politics, however, are destined to be thornier.

Increasingly, states and municipalities are stepping in to fill the federal void on regulating and banning fracking. California has at least eight bills looking to regulate and/or tax fracking operations. Vermont became the first state to ban the practice.

High Frequency Trading (HFT) is a method used by financial institutions wherebystocks are traded in fractions of a second. The traditional means of buying and selling required bankers to manually decide whether or not something was a good investment in the (semi) long run.

Opponents of income redistribution often argue that taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots is at odds with individual rights. 

But here's a simple fact: There is no surer way to lose all your individual rights than to be dead.

And evidence keeps mounting that people with lower incomes die earlier. In effect, one result of inequality that the all-important right of living is enjoyed more by some members of a society than others. 

Opponents of income redistribution often argue that taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots is at odds with individual rights. 

But here's a simple fact: There is no surer way to lose all your individual rights than to be dead. And evidence keeps mounting that people with lower incomes die earlier. In effect, one result of inequality is that the all-important right of living is enjoyed more by some members of our society than others.