The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) includes 26 indicators to give a broader picture of the sustainability of growth. It is a better measure than GDP.
WASHINGTON DC — Today, Demos applauded Leader Pelosi and Representative Sarbanes for co-sponsoring H.R. 20, The Government by the People Act, new legislation aimed at raising the voices of all Americans in the political process and allowing congressional candidates to run competitive campaigns by relying on small dollar contributions.
“Everyone should have an equal say in our democracy through the principle of one person, one vote—not one dollar, one vote,” said Heather McGhee, incoming President of Demos.
One way to think about politics today is that we have a bunch of public servants making chump change who spend an inordinate amounts of time hanging out with rich people, their noses pushed up against the window of an affluent lifestyle that they can't afford. Bad things happen in this situation.
As more states across the U.S. (and more countries across the world) begin adopting alternative measures they find that while GDP has been increasing, other measures of well-being have remained flat.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes rejected a proposal by Detroit’s Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to pay off a complex financial deal that was originated in 2005 and turned catastrophic for the city during the recession.
Judge Rhodes ordered the city and the banks to renegotiate their settlement which would have paid the banks 75 cents on the dollar. Despite a unanimous city council vote against it, the Emergency Manager is currently pushing the city to enter into another financial deal with Barclays to pay off the swaps termination fees.
NEW YORK -- In response to the final, approved version of the Volcker Rule, Demos Senior Fellow Wallace Turbeville, aformer investment banker and the author of Demos' recent Volcker Rule explainer and The Detroit Bankruptcy report, released the following statement:
The much-anticipated final regulations implementing the Volcker Rule will be released today and, almost miraculously, it seems to be significantly stronger than the proposed text publicized more than a year ago. We will all have to await the actual wording since this is an area in which the devil is truly in the details.
But the all-important limitation on insured banks betting on the trading markets with depositors’ money is rumored to do a few key things:
One of the most simplistic fictions is that corporate elites are spearheading a "class war" all on their own, driving down wages to squeeze out higher profits in the name of greed.
Of course, that's not actually the way modern shareholder capitalism works. Instead, most CEOs and executives -- and the boards who hire and fire them -- wake up every day worrying about how they are going to please you and me. (Assuming you, like me, have money invested in stocks through your 401k or whatnot.)
Modest Pension Benefits Play Little Role in Financial Crisis
DETROIT — In their push for bankruptcy, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and other public figures are incorrectly looking at Detroit’s long-term debt—figures generated using aggressive and in some cases inaccurate assumptions—to the detriment of solving the City’s immediate cash-flow crisis and its long-term structural challenges, according to a report released Wednesday by Demos.
There are few better ways to uncover fraud in an industry than to incentivize insiders to blow the whistle on wrongdoing. And a little known part of Dodd-Frank did just that for the securities industry, creating a new whistleblower program run by the SEC that can bestow huge rewards on anyone who brings to light evidence of fraud that results in a settlement.
The co-chair of the Moreland Commission set up to investigate campaign finance issues in New York, William Fitzpatrick, is a Republican, fiscal conservative, and a recent convert to public financing. Fitzpatrick stated, “If the money's not there, I'm inclined not to spend it.
There aren't a lot of causes that can fire up Americans across the political spectrum, but getting money out of politics is definitely one of them. That's the finding of a recent poll-based memo by the DemocracyCorps.
A majority of Americans see Washington as corrupt, the memo reports, and many blame "moneyed interests" for that corruption -- believing both parties are deeply compromised.
Since Citizens United unleashed a flood of corporate money into federal election campaigns, the public has been justifiably outraged at the ability of large economic institutions to wield undue political power.
The crisis in Washington was always partly a story about money in politics, with big conservative donors pushing GOP lawmakers to an extreme stance with threats of primary challenges to those who didn't fall in line.
Now, even after the bid to defund Obamacare turned into an abject rout for Republicans, these same donors are making good on their threats.