If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
It did not begin with the subprime disaster in 2007, nor the crash and burn of Lehman in 2008, nor are we able to blame any bubbles, be they dot.com or other. This Economic War began with the Asian Financial Crisis back in 1997.
When virtually every global financial institution is exposed to one other in today's world of free flowing capital markets, where do you hide when bankrupt borrowers like Greece default?
A large debt burden makes life tough for graduates. Buying a home, starting a family or starting a small business may not be options for some student loan borrowers, even if they have a job.
If we as Americans accept the idea that the only hope for our future rests with the rich and the multinationals, and that we must abandon the fundamental principle of equality of opportunity, then perhaps we need to take another look at the American Dream.
The latest budget proposal to raise the age of Medicare eligibility is a proposal to increase health care costs to our children and grandchildren by $2.7 trillion. The idea that this cut is being presented as somehow helping our children is a sick joke.
On Thursday September 8, at the first meeting of the Congressional deficit cutting Super Committee, Sentator John Kyl (R-Arizona) set the tone for the...
A decade after 9/11, where have we been, where are we now, and where are we going?
In August, the Federal Reserve imposed a cap on the fees banks can charge retailers every time customers swipe their debit cards. Why is that important? In addition to banks, consumers may be the biggest losers.
With a new class of students starting college this month -- replacing a class that just graduated into a historically bad job market -- there's no better time for another installment of our "Majoring in Debt" series, which examines the mountainous student debt college graduates are facing, how it will affect their futures, and what it will mean for the future of America. When I was 16 and living in Greece, I saw a magazine article about Cambridge and was overcome by a desire to study there. And I was lucky enough to get in. In the years after graduating, pretty much every break I got could be traced back to that experience. But, increasingly, graduating from college no longer means putting your education to work for you -- it now means being a virtual indentured servant to your education. Instead of propelling you into the future, more and more it means trapping you in the past.
As an average, working-class, white American male who is neither left-handed nor a great athlete, the options for scholarships available to me have always been slim.
Carolyn Hennesy is not a starving artist. Yet she is as frightened of debt as some people are of snakes. The idea of debt leading to having the things she worked so hard for taken away has scared her into implementing fiscally responsible strategies.
Secretary Panetta's role is to be accountable only to the young men and women who serve us, not to the defense complex.
"I'm bored," she whined, reaching for the only bottle of whiskey on the table that still had anything left in it. "Let's do something interesting." "Like what?" Boehner said. "Legislating?"
For the first time, the student debt level has exceeded the overall American credit card debt level.
It seems like everyone, from blue-chip execs to members of congress, is throwing around words like million, billion and trillion without any comprehension of what they really represent. Why is it so hard to wrap your head around these big numbers?
Just because we've got the debt ceiling debate behind us doesn't mean we're finished with economic masochism. The president was last seen trying to pivot to a jobs agenda, but the "fiscal consolidation" crowd is never far behind. This bodes ill. What we need right now is an ambitious jobs plan -- and not just on paper but at work in the economy. Meanwhile, we should hold off on the fiscal consolidation and austerity measures for a few years. This won't make any difference to the long-term deficit, but it will certainly make a lot of difference to working families.
