"Words that make actions speak louder."
Momentum is building for putting a historic conference between the House and Senate online and on live television, as they debate the future of financial reform. This is the time to contact Senators and Representatives to support this critical step toward open government – and a stronger, fairer, safer economy. Yesterday we asked conservatives to […]
BP, Massey Energy and Tesoro all have hauled out plaques celebrating safety achievements to deflect allegations of corporate recklessness in the aftermath of explosions in April that killed 47 of their workers. Though each of these corporations accepted awards for safety statistics, not one has taken responsibility for workplace deaths. The disconnect between safety awards […]
On the one side there are millions of people needing jobs and millions more “underemployed,” the economy is still mired in a very, very slow recovery that is a recovery only in the technical sense, an increasing wave of foreclosures that has reached into the “prime” loans and 1 out of every 7 mortgages has […]
In March I wrote about the closing of the Toyota NUMMI plant in Fremont, California.. Today there is good news! The Green Manufacturing Revolution comes to the rescue, and Toyota is teaming up with electric car maker Tesla to reopen the plant and make all-electric sedans. In a stunning deal, Tesla Motors announced late Thursday […]
Here are the words they used for health care reform (or the buzzwords their consultants told them to use): “Secret”! “Backroom”! “Behind closed doors”! “Dealing”! Or, as one especially unsubtle pol put it, “secret backroom dealing”! These right-wing politicians and activists had a zeal for open government when they demanded that the House and Senate […]
Thursday night’s passage of Wall Street reform by the U.S. Senate is an event to be celebrated, but several key issues remain in play as the House and Senate seek to iron out differences between their respective versions of the legislation. And while the final bill will provide regulators with important new tools to fight […]
Turning conflicts of interest into “win/win” situations can be a form of brilliance. Pretending those conflicts don’t exist can be a form of indifference. That’s why it was troubling to hear the President say today that financial reform “is not a zero sum game where Wall Street loses and Main Street wins. As we’ve learned […]
The most courageous vote yesterday in the Senate was cast by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who refused to let the Senate sign-off on an unnecessarily weak Wall Street reform bill. Cantwell has been trying to fix a fatal loophole in the derivatives language which prevents regulators from enforcing new rules on the secretive shadow markets […]
Monday the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) begins in Beijing. (See the Treasury Dept fact sheet on the S&ED.) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will attend, and meet with their counterparts. As I have been writing about, China has been cheating. It isn’t fair trade and it isn’t free […]
Things have been moving pretty quickly lately in the interlocking worlds of politics and financial reform. While there is a lot we don’t know, here are three statements we can probably make with a high degree of certainty: 1. If the banks had been on the ballot yesterday voters in both parties would’ve voted them […]