Media

Talk about biting the hand that bails you out of bankruptcy. AIG shareholders have brought suit against the federal government because the bailout deal had a “punitive” interest rate of more than 14 percent and diluted the holdings of existing shareholders due to the government’s large stake in the company. In short, they are suing because they didn't like the terms of the deal that saved the insurer from bankruptcy.

Back in the spring, we pointed out that the previous 12 months from May 2011 - April 2012 was the hottest on record. Then, in July, we highlighted how over 3,000 temperature records had been broken within the first 10 days of the month.

Demographic changes of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, and working women & young voters in 2012.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In response to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) commitment to consider a proposed rule to require disclosure of corporate political spending, the Corporate Reform Coalition will hold a press call on Tuesday, January 8th at 9:30 am to discuss this positive development, share expert analysis, and urge the agency to move swiftly to complete the rule-making this year. 

Last year, in 2012, the U.S. government spent about $841 billion on security -- a figure that includes defense, intelligence, war appropriations, and foreign aid. At the same time, the government collected about $1.1 trillion in individual income taxes. (And about $2.4 trillion in revenues overall if you include payroll, corporate, estate, and excise taxes.) 

Bank of America yesterday padded its lead over other mega-banks in the aggregate amount of settlements paid out over the last three years by announcing two multi-billion dollar agreements in a matter of hours. Since the end of 2008, it has incurred $43.5 billion in payouts, an amount that exceeds the annual GDP of Lithuania, an admittedly small but industrious nation.

As my colleague David Callahan discussed here last week, the current issue of The Atlantic includes an article written by Frank Partnoy and Jesse Eisenger entitled “What’s Inside America’s Banks.” The authors make the point that the financial health of the big banks is, at best, obscure because of the inadequacy of financial statement disclosure. This is, without doubt, an accurate criticism of the mega-banks that dominate the financial system.

The public sector lost another 13,000 jobs in December, bringing the post-recession job loss total for federal, state, and local governments to more than 600,000. Those job losses — many of which have hit teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public safety officials — have had a devastating impact on the economic recovery.

For every five workers who were hired in the past three months, one was laid off by government.