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One of the strongest arguments against implementing a cap-and-trade scheme is that it is difficult to structure a program in a way that will meaningfully decrease greenhouse gas emissions due to pushback from entrenched interests. For instance, greenhouse gase emitters want the cap on gas emissions to be high and many credits to be given away, which doesn’t really do anything to decrease emissions but keeps credits fairly cheap to purchase and decreases costs to emitters.

One of the most shocking aspects of the foreclosure mess has been the rogue behavior of mortgage servicers. In case you're new to this sorry story, mortgage servicers are the middlemen who handle, well, the servicing of mortgages once money has been lent to a homeowner by a bank. In effect, banks have outsourced the persnickety business of collecting mortgage payments, managing property tax escrow accounts, making sure that homes are insured, and all the rest.

Oh, and if a homeowner can't make payments any longer, mortgage servicers handle the foreclosure process.

American workers continue to give more and get less in our tepid recovery. The Labor Department released its second quarter productivity report yesterday showing workers contributing more hours and effort, even as their wages have stagnated and overall employment (and underemployment) stalled. The report finds that “nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 1.6 percent annual rate during the second quarter of 2012,” which entails “increases of 2.0 percent in output and 0.4 percent in hours worked.” 

Think of technology replacing workers and what comes to mind are low-skilled workers who are bumped aside by relatively simple machines: Subway clerks replaced by Metrocard machines, toll workers rendered obsolete by E-Zpass, banker tellers replaced by ATMs, assembly line workers replaced by robots, and so on.

At the beginning of July, we noted that even though just a few days had passed in the month, thousands of heat records had been matched or surpassed.

Yesterday I wrote about the hypocrisy of Mitt Romney and Tommy Thompson for bashing the Obama Administration's decision to grant states more flexibility around TANF -- when Republicans, including both Romney and Thompson -- called for such flexibility during the Bush years.

On Monday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a new jolt of momentum to the growing push for new measures of progress going “beyond GDP.” In prepared remarks for the 32nd general conference of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW), held this week in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Bernanke noted the failure of conventional market indicators in capturing the severe household impacts of the Great Recession and the continuing distress for many families and individ

A little-noticed CBO report yesterday, part of their Monthly Budget Review, found that the US has raised substantially more revenue this year than the last, while federal spending remained about the same. Whereas last year, the budget totaled $1.1 trillion by July, this year it’s only $975 billion. The deficit’s been cut by an unexpected spike in tax revenue.

The United States has two problems when it comes to jobs: There aren't enough jobs, as we all know; and a great many jobs are lousy -- a problem we hear about far less. A lousy job is one with low wages, minimal benefits, and few opportunities to move up.

About a fifth of jobs in the U.S. fit this description. And given how many workers that is -- people who work but are barely making it -- turning bad jobs into good jobs is arguably as important as creating more jobs.