Families hoard cash 5 yrs after crisis Associated Press ...An Associated Press analysis of households in the 10 biggest economies shows that families continue to spend cautiously and have pulled hundreds of billions of dollars out of stocks, cut borrowing for the first time in decades and poured money into savings and bonds that offer puny interest payments, often too low to keep up with inflation...
Revere Copper chairman blasts trade negotiations Observer Dispatch ...The agreement will do nothing to curb border adjustable taxes or prevent currency manipulation, said O’Shaughnessy — chairman of Revere Copper Products in Rome and co-chairman of the Coalition for a Prosperous America – practices that put United States’ manufacturers at a huge disadvantage...
“Trade Facilitation” and “harmonization” mean getting sick from food Trade Reform ...“Trade facilitation” is a euphemism. Its re-branding a strategy of underfunded and failed border inspections. It means you can bring in unsafe food without testing. You can bring avoid duties by trans-shipping your product through another country, or mis-labeling your containers, because Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) won’t check...
Canadian-Based Company Sues Canada Under NAFTA, Saying That Fracking Ban Takes Away Its Expected Profits techdirt ...Free trade critics say a $250-million damage suit being pursued as a result of Quebec's moratorium on fracking is proof Canada needs to be careful in negotiating trade pacts around the world. That's because TPP and TAFTA/TTIP, as well as Canada's bilateral treaty with Europe, CETA, all have ISDS clauses in them -- at least as far we know, given the obsessive secrecy that surrounds their negotiation...
Buy Low, Sell High New York Times ...Now that housing prices are coming back, investors who bought at fire-sale prices are able to flip those houses for big profits...
Blackstone, big investors slow their $800 million Tampa Bay home-buying binge Tampa Bay Times ...After an $800 million binge on Tampa Bay homes, big investors are finally catching their breath, pulling back on buying due to rising prices and market doubts, a Tampa Bay Times analysis has found...
Notices of default spiked in days before Homeowners Bill of Rights kicked in Las Vegas Review-Journal ...Banks, title companies and processors used September’s waning days to mount a record-setting foreclosure push before a Homeowners Bill of Rights took effect Tuesday...
Inside the GOP: Report on focus groups with Evangelical, Tea Party, and moderate Republicans Democracy Corps ...while few explicitly talk about Obama in racial terms, the base supporters are very conscious of being white in a country with growing minorities. Their party is losing to a Democratic Party of big government whose goal is to expand programs that mainly benefit minorities. Race remains very much alive in the politics of the Republican Party...
A Truth Slips Past MSM Gatekeepers heteconomist.com ...the public debt is a fiction and the debt ceiling a sham...
Economist: "There's Absolutely Nothing Resembling A Debt Crisis In The US" The Real News ...the debt-crisis debate is really not about the debt crisis per se; it's about the Republicans' efforts to destroy the minimal welfare state that we already have and the minimal benefits that are already provided the government...
Getting Older, Growing Poorer (opinion) New York Times ...budget proposals to cut Social Security’s cost-of-living benefit, ill advised in any case, would be especially unwise and untimely...
Government Caught Lying About Spying Again The Big Picture ...The government is spying on essentially everything we do. “Spies … can now, for the first time, monitor everything about us, and they can do so with a few clicks of a mouse and – to placate the lawyers – a drop-down menu of justifications“...
Police: Man on fire at National Mall dies The Hill ...The fire came a day after Capitol Hill was put on lock down after police opened fire on a woman who attempted to break through a security barrier near the Capitol...
Another Koch connection in Scott Suder saga The Cap Times ...Critics of Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Legislature's Republican leadership have made a hobby out of finding evidence of the Koch brothers' influence over conservative politics in the state. In the case of Scott Suder's recent activities, it hasn't been difficult...
Mandel's ties to donor revealed Dayton Daily News ...Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel wrote two letters advocating for Suarez Corporation Industries’ business interests in California at the same time that company founder Ben Suarez was raising $100,000 for Mandel’s campaign for U.S. Senate, according to records released by Mandel’s office to the Dayton Daily News...
