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via CNN As anti-Wall Street protests continued across the country, several hundred people gathered Thursday in the nation’s capital in a scheduled anti-war demonstration that also adopted new overtones in decrying economic disparities. Demonstrators first congregated in the shadow of Congress, at its height filling about half of Washington’s Freedom Plaza, which is about the … Continue reading
via Jake Malooley, Time Out Chicago The sign made only a brief appearance this morning on windows of the Chicago Board of Trade Building, but the message lingers. Four pieces of white paper pasted up in as many windows of the historic 141 West Jackson Boulevard building, declaring in dark marker, WE ARE THE 1%. … Continue reading
Four states have announced that they will be raising their minimum wage rates for 2012, led by Washington state, which will become the first in the country with a minimum wage over $9 per hour. The 37-cent bump in Washington will hike the wage to $9.04, or $1.79 per hour more than the federal minimum … Continue reading
Starbucks Corp CEO Howard Schultz, decrying a lack of leadership in Washington, said his chain of coffee shops is helping to launch a nationwide fund designed to stimulate U.S. job creation. Starbucks introduced on Monday the “Create Jobs for USA” fund in partnership with Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), a group of private financial institutions that … Continue reading
Protesters camped out in Manhattan’s Financial District on Sunday, a day after more than 700 of them were arrested during a demonstration against what they view as corporate greed. Police start making arrests on New York’s Brooklyn Bridge during Saturday’s march by Occupy Wall Street. Protesters speaking out against corporate greed and other grievances attempted … Continue reading
In a tense showdown above the East River, the police arrested several hundred demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street protests who took to the roadway as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday afternoon. The police did not immediately release precise arrest figures, but said it was the choice of those marchers that … Continue reading
NEW YORK — Police confronted protesters in a heated exchange on the Brooklyn Bridge, where thousands of Occupy Wall Street marchers snarled traffic and blocked both sides of the expanse Saturday. Police made arrests but would not release the number because the protest is continuing, NBC New York reported. Protesters speaking out against corporate greed and … Continue reading
Bank of America announced Thursday it will charge its debit card users a $5 monthly fee beginning in early 2012, provoking fury from a senior Democrat. The bank, the largest in the nation by assets, blamed its decision on the so-called Durbin Amendment, a provision of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law put into place by … Continue reading
Nearly three-quarters of Americans say they support President Barack Obama’s proposal to tax households making $1 million or more at the same or higher rate as middle-class households, according to a recent poll from website Daily Kos. The poll found two-thirds of Republicans also support the so-called “Buffett Rule” – named after famed investor Warren … Continue reading
If 2,000 Tea Party activists descended on Wall Street, you would probably have an equal number of reporters there covering them. Yet 2,000 people did occupy Wall Street last Saturday. They weren’t carrying the banner of the Tea Party, the Gadsden flag with its coiled snake and the threat “Don’t Tread on Me”. Yet their message was clear: … Continue reading
The surprise defeat in the House Wednesday of a special funding measure to keep the federal government functioning past Sept. 30 was a sharp rebuke of the GOP leadership that controls the chamber and a testament to the fragility of the majority itself. The rejection of the measure resurrected the specter of a government shutdown … Continue reading
President Obama’s proposal for a new tax on millionaires echoes a call in many countries struggling with budget deficits and overwhelming debts to make the wealthy pay more. Britain and France have imposed new taxes on their highest earners — and Italy, Spain, Greece and Japan are considering similar moves, despite some protests. Whether the … Continue reading
President Barack Obama is back in the good graces of progressives. For now. Hours after Obama delivered a fiery speech demanding that the wealthiest Americans “pay their fair share” in taxes as part of his $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan, MoveOn.org launched a new television ad on Monday hammering in the president’s message and ripping Republicans … Continue reading
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt called on Washington to think big about solutions for the nation’s struggling economy calling the current emphasis on cutting spending instead of new stimulus “ludicrous.” The economy would need “not just something like the jobs bill, but also significant government stimulation in terms of buying power and investment,” said Schmidt on … Continue reading
Republican opposition is solidifying to President Barack Obama’s $447 billion job creation plan, and his pending proposal to raise taxes on millionaires is already under GOP fire. “If we’re just going to do class warfare and get tax increases out of this, then I don’t think much will come of it,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) … Continue reading
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned today that public frustration over joblessness in the U.S. is in danger of boiling over and could lead to riots in the streets if the government fails to create more jobs. “You have a lot of kids graduating college who can’t find jobs. That’s what happened in Cairo. … Continue reading
The U.S. Postal Service appears to be the latest casualty in digital technology’s slow but steady replacement of working humans. Unless an external source of funding comes in, the post office will have to scale back its operations drastically, or simply shut down altogether. That’s 600,000 people who would be out of work, and another … Continue reading
A package of disaster relief funding worth $7 billion was blocked from coming up for a vote by Senate Republicans on Monday, drawing sharp condemnation from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) who lambasted the conservative party for abandoning Americans in need. “Last night, Democrats tried to move forward on a measure that would have … Continue reading
The Census Bureau reports the number of Americans in poverty jumped to 15.1 percent in 2010, a 27-year high. About 46.2 million people, or nearly 1 in 6, were in poverty. That’s up from 43.6 million, or 14.3 percent, in 2009. It was the highest level since 1983. The number of people lacking health insurance … Continue reading
President Barack Obama will take to the Rose Garden on Monday to make a pitch for his jobs creation plan and announce he is sending it to Congress later that evening, the White House said. Obama will be joined by teachers, veterans, small-business owners and others who would benefit from the American Jobs Act’s passage, … Continue reading
Armed with worrisome poll data and seeking to maintain the legislative upper hand, Congressional Republicans who have spent the balance of the year pouring buckets of criticism on the Obama administration are shifting to a more restrained approach as they ponder how to respond to the president’s jobs plan. Back from a summer break in … Continue reading
President Barack Obama’s promise Thursday that everything in his jobs plan will be paid for rests on highly iffy propositions. It will only be paid for if a committee he can’t control does his bidding, if Congress puts that into law and if leaders in the future — the ones who will feel the fiscal … Continue reading
The Obama administration is seeking to broaden access to a two-year-old refinancing program that has helped far fewer homeowners take advantage of low interest rates than initially expected. President Obama announced the effort Thursday night as part of his package of measures to spur job creation, saying it would help “responsible homeowners” by reducing their … Continue reading
The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely … Continue reading
On a bright spring day in a wisteria-bedecked courtyard full of earnest, if half-drunk, conference attendees, we were commiserating with a fellow journalist about all the jobs we knew of that were going unfilled, being absorbed or handled “on the side.” It was tough for all concerned, but necessary—you know, doing more with less. “Ah,” he … Continue reading
The Brandt Standard 