Media

Henry Ford famously decided in 1914 to pay many of his workers the then incredible sum of five dollars a day, which was substantially higher than the prevailing wage at the time.

There have been a number of news stories about the closing of Hostess’ factories and plans to liquidate the company in the wake of the refusal of one of its unions to accept reductions in pay and benefits and other concessions. It appears as though this will leave Hostess’ 18,000 workers without a job by the end of the year.

Baby boomers are the first generation in American history to be entering retirement saddled with debt, including unpaid balances on credit cards.

The financial crisis in 2008 that sent the economy into a recession crippled many baby boomers’ retirement accounts, forcing many to stay in the workforce or significantly alter their retirement lifestyle plans. Now, the oldest of the boomer generation are receiving Social Security checks alongside notices from bill collectors.

The financial industry is coming under growing scrutiny for its shady involvement in student loan debt.

The price paid by American families for the reckless greed of Wall Street has been well documented and includes severe losses of household wealth – more than half for African American families and two-thirds for Latino families – due to the decline in housing values and employment.  The Great Recession has had a tremendous negative impact on the public sector also.  While the

NEW YORK -- With $4 trillion in annual revenue, over 15 million employees and projections to be one of the largest sources of new jobs in the next decade, the retail sector plays a vital role in the economy, wielding great influence over the living standards for many Americans.

There are basically two ways to thwart regulatory oversight of Wall Street: One, block new rules or weaken existing rules; and, two, make sure that whatever rules exist are not fully enforced.

The finance industry and its allies in Congress are pursuing both strategies. Yet while the campaign against Dodd-Frank has received much attention, less heed has been paid to how a budgetary attack is undermining the two top watchdogs over Wall Street: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC).

Strike Debt is one of Occupy Wall Street's progeny. They debuted with The Debt Resistors' Operations Manual, a resource to help people dealing with debt and those seeking to circumvent it altogether.

One of the key ways Wall Street is trying to kill financial reform is to subject all of the new rules to what it calls “cost-benefit analyses.” This seductively sounding concept is, however, a sham; the industry only wants its costs considered and nothing else. When they say “cost benefit analysis,” they mean a one-sided, biased “industry cost only” analysis.