In December, the Federal Reserve approved new rules curtailing some -- but by no means all -- of the more egregious practices of the credit card industry. But, surprisingly, the rules are not scheduled to go into effect until July 2010. Why this 18-month long delay before making the banks clean up their acts? To hear the credit card companies tell it, curbing such practices as raising interest rates on pre-existing balances is no easy feat. American Express CEO Jud Linville calls compliance with the new rules "an enormously complex undertaking" and Citi Cards Executive VP John Carey warns of dire consequences, "not the least of which might be serious inconvenience for our cardmembers." You mean more seriously inconvenient than cardmembers having their interest rate jacked up to 29.99 percent if they miss a single payment?
What the far-right appears to suggest is that ideas that are supported by 82% of Americans are criminal acts of tyranny, and an eventual tax increase of pennies on the dollar for the wealthiest 2% is worthy of opposition by revolutionary means.
Try them, and let a jury decide. We know ours is not a nation of cowards. What will our leaders do?
Toilet paper may not be the sexiest environmental issue, but it really is one of the most important.
During the election there was a lot of talk of not using a hatchet when a scalpel is needed. It seems as if Citibank just brought out their hacksaw and blunt hatchet.
Jindal's speech is easy to dismiss, but the potential power of his misleading message must be taken seriously.
If President Obama does continue to draw down, we will be more secure, and our military will now have a chance to repair the damage done to it by the previous administration.
Isn't it time that we green-ed homeland security? I'm not talking about cops wearing recycled Kevlar recharging their Tasers via solar panels.
Whether it is 16 months or 19 months or 23 months, whether the residual force is 10,000 or 50,000 troops, the president's new plan will create a surge of new veterans coming home in 2009 and 2010. We need to be ready.
It's been fascinating watching the once imperious Republican machine staggering around the very institutions in which they only so recently swaggered.
This week, just like the stock market (funny how that goes), Republicans hit yet a new low.
I've avoided satirizing, opinionizing, or otherwise making public noise about the Middle East. So this is not an opinion, or a satire. Just a question.
If you looked at Jindal's eyes and listened to his voice in the speech, you can sense the hollowness. True emotions travel. Manufactured emotions remain static.
Before we get scared about the prospect of nationalization, let's remember: nationalization already pervades far more than the banking industry -- it's all around us.
For entrepreneurial journalists, imagining a town without a newspaper isn't necessarily a bleak vision. In fact, a zero-paper city looks like an opportunity to leap headlong into a journalistic future we've all been preparing for anyway.
The company has just started its fifty city U.S. and worldwide tour. Even if you have seen them before -- no matter what age or sex or race you are, take a hint from the Obamas.
There were few powerful women in mid-19th century America who more vigorously pressed the case first for abolition and then for the education, housing, and welfare of freed African-American slaves than did Mrs. Lincoln.
The proliferation of stories in international media and in global forums about the Guantanamo-like problems in the country's immigrant detention system are again tarnishing the U.S. image abroad.
Like the million-plus people in this country over the last two months, I'm newly unemployed.
