Media

In its bombshell of a report “Discrediting America,” the nonpartisan public policy research group Demos sums up the problem for black and Latinos:

Credit reports largely mirror racial and economic divides, with African Americans and Latinos disproportionately likely to have lower scores. In turn, these communities are more likely to be offered high-priced loan products, which may contribute to more defaults, maintaining and amplifying historical injustice.

Let's say you're a member of the upper class. You work as an investor or a banker or an entrepreneur or a highly paid professional (like a doctor, lawyer, or accountant) or a business owner in some industry like retail or transportation. Or maybe you don't work at all, but live off your stocks and bonds. Which economic scenario looks more attractive to you, strictly in terms of how it will affect your bottom line:

Warren Buffet, the second richest person in America, has spent years complaining about how tax policy favors billionaires like himself. Now, with another big fight over revenues looming in Washington, Buffett is once again calling for tax hikes on the wealthy -- penning an op-ed in today's Times entitled "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich."

Today’s Republican Party is turning out to be the worst friend business could imagine, led by politicians who don’t understand the modern economy, and, worse, are ready to blow it up on principle.

This spring, as a GOP beholden to the Tea Party geared up for brinksmanship on the debt ceiling, lobbyists for Wall Street and corporations begged Republican leaders to back off. These pleas were ignored, and now a few trillion dollars in shareholder equity, wealth owned primarily by the top 10 percent of the richest Americans and corporate executives, has gone poof.

A commission appointed by the Massachusetts legislature is considering the creating a state Partnership Bank to boost the local economy by increasing community development lending. 

Boston, MA - Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit -- covering Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island -- issued a decision upholding Maine's campaign finance disclosure provisions, which had been challenged by the anti-gay marriage National Organization for Marriage.  In response, Lisa Danetz, Demos Senior Counsel, issued the following statement:

A big reason why financial crimes are so hard to prosecute is that authorities often lack witnesses who can testify in detail about such crimes. That means prosecutors must rely on others forms of evidence -- like documents and emails. But even a pretty damning paper trail just doesn't have the punch of an individual pointing their finger and unloading all the sordid details. Also, without an insider to explain the labryinth of a typical securites fraud, it can be hard for prosecutors to ever even assemble such a trail.

In the wake of the S&P downgrade, the Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it would keep short-term interest rates near zero for two years. This was a departure from the Fed's previous language, which did not offer a specific timeline. These rock-bottom rates can't continue indefinitely, and the Fed has the power to raise them at any time. As well, further downgrades of the U.S. credit rating could work to push interest rates up.