The most difficult and most important fight that progressives need to win is not health care or climate change or immigration reform. It’s far-reaching financial reform.
Chris Dodd, in his swan song (his numbers are horrific for an incumbent), has decided to mount the fight he has never dared wage against his banking buddies. Although Rep. [...]
Archive for the ‘Business’ Category
More important than health care
Posted in Business, News, Politics, tagged chris dodd, financial reform, regulation, wall street on November 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It’s always the “how” that gets you
Posted in Business, Economics, News, Politics, tagged banks, too big to fail, bob herbert, antitrust law on October 20, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Bob Herbert has an admirable column arguing that “too big to fail” companies should be dismantled. I agree! So does a wide spectrum of folks from Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan to lefty economist Joseph Stiglitz.
The problem comes from, well, how do you do it? I mean, how do you break up JP Morgan Chase [...]
There probably won’t be a bank run, but…
Posted in Business, Economics, Idiots, News, tagged FDIC, sheila bair, banking, crisis, bank run on September 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The FDIC sure isn’t looking hale these days. With the failure of 95 banks so far this year, the corporation’s fund is depleted, and Sheila Bair is asking for an advance from banks.
Instead of paying the usual annual rate, the FDIC wants an advance of about $36 billion in order to prepare for the coming [...]
Do I want my medical care to be like the post office? Hell, yes!
Posted in Business, Columns, Health/Medicine, Politics, Reality has a well-known liberal bias, tagged health care, health policy, medicare, post office on August 9, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Recently, liberal commentators have expressed bafflement at conservative contentions that government-run health care (which the current Finance Committee plan is not, but lies are par for the course) will be run as inefficiently as the Post Office, with at least one libertarian commentator referring to the plan as “Post Office health care.” There’s ample commentary [...]
“If you aren’t outraged, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Posted in Business, Economics, Politics, tagged markets, paul krugman, speculation on August 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Krugman’s column has some great grafs, but I’d like to point out just two:
And there’s a good case that such activities are actually harmful. For example, high-frequency trading probably degrades the stock market’s function, because it’s a kind of tax on investors who lack access to those superfast computers — which means that the money [...]
Internet radio saved (for now)
Posted in Business, Music, Politics, tagged internet radio, pandora, performance rights act, royalties, webcasting on July 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Well, it looks like webcasters and SoundExchange (the organization that collects royalties for artists) have reached a deal that will save webcasts temporarily by forcing them to pay 12-14 percent of their revenue (and more for larger webcasters) to artist royalties. So Pandora lives, but there’s a twist:
Westergren told the blog that Pandora will begin [...]
Jobless recovery or end of recession?
Posted in Business, News, tagged economy, jobless recovery on June 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Calculated Risk has a new post up about the possibility of a jobless recovery, but the most striking data comes from Jeff Frankels, who points out that recessions typically end when total hours worked rebound.
The graph is quite convincing:
The blue areas indicate recessionary periods, while the red line indicates total hours worked by employed and [...]
Dog bites man, Part 129842
Posted in Business, Politics, tagged dog bites man, Media, national companies, Tax havens on May 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In light of President Obama’s new plan to crack down on corporate tax havens, the business lobby has surprisingly not warmed to the idea. In fact, these corporations believe that it will be — shock of shocks! — bad for business!
How weird.
I am pretty tired of the mainstream media essentially acting as little more than [...]
