Media

Sequestration is a heavy blow to regulatory agencies. For the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), among many others, the $85 billion in cuts is the next step in deregulation, which accelerated in the 1990s, especially in the financial arena.

Here's a plain fact: record disinvestment in higher education at the state level leads to record tuition hikes. In 2012, the trend escalated with the biggest single year jump on record.

When a crew that calls themselves the "Systemic Risk Council" speaks, it's a good idea to pay attention. After all, the last time people pooh-poohed deep seated problems within the financial system, trillions of dollars vanished into thin air and millions of people were thrown out of work. 

David Callahan's points about the inequality-widening effects of technological change add up to a strong argument that wealth taxes should play a bigger role in the progressive project of reducing inequality.

If you've got debt and die tomorrow, don't assume it will disappear. Chances are, it will eat into the assets you may be planning to leave your heirs and may even wipe out your estate.

You may have seen a big outbreak in the academic literature and business media of defenses of liquidity for liquidity’s sake, evidently prompted by increased interest in and in the EU, implementation of transaction taxes as a way to tame speculation and secondarily raise revenues.

Attorney General Eric Holder made it official in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee: Some banks are so big that criminal prosecution poses an unacceptable danger to the U.S. and world economies. This is not Holder's opinion alone. In the past, the Justice Department has consulted with the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to assess the consequences of criminal prosecution. This is a government-wide problem.

During an appearance on CNBC yesterday, Charlie Munger, deputy to billionaire investor Warren Buffett, had some harsh words for high-frequency trading, the practice used by huge financial firms to trade stocks in milliseconds. “Take the rapid trading by the computer geniuses with the computer algorithms,” said Munger. “Those people have all the social utility of a bunch of rats admitted to a granary.”

At least one CEO at a big retail company wants to see the minimum wage increased. In fact, he’d like the minimum wage to go even higher than President Obama has proposed.