The International Monetary Fund is accustomed to rallies outside their Washington, D.C., headquarters during their annual meetings. What was different this past weekend was that the activists on the outside and several high-profile government and financial industry speakers on the inside were calling for the same thing: a financial transaction...

Rhonda Straw is one of millions of Americans who do important work every day but still have a hard time saving for retirement. As a home health aide, Straw administers medication, changes bandages, and performs other vital services to the elderly and disabled. With an hourly wage of only $9,...

Republicans seem to have something against tax increases. I get that. But it's still not crazy to think we can win some important revenue battles during Obama 2.0. And given this country's pressing needs -- from repairing our infrastructure to rehiring teachers -- it would be crazy not to try....

Over the last three months, the Fix the Debt campaign, led by more than 100 big company CEOs, has unleashed a firestorm of ads, blanketing political news web sites and entirely plastering the Capitol South Metro station used by most Congressional staffers.

In late October, the Institute for Policy...

Members of Congress who received good marks in an Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) report card on inequality fared well in the election.

The report card awarded "A+" grades to 12 House members for doing the most to narrow America's economic divide over the past two years....

European campaigners for a financial transaction tax have done some awfully goofy things over the past three years.

At one French demonstration, they stripped down to their skivvies to emphasize the small size of the tax (0.1% on trade of stocks and bonds and 0.02% on derivatives...

Want to know how your reps on Capitol Hill rate on inequality? Check out a new Congressional Report Card for the 99 Percent issued by my organization, the Institute for Policy Studies.

We based the report card on 40 bills (24 in the House and 16 in...

It seems vice presidential contender Paul Ryan needs some help identifying the most extreme examples of tax privilege. He has repeatedly promised to close enough loopholes that benefit the rich to pay for the massive tax cuts in his budget plan. But when it comes to the specifics, the Wisconsin...

The former Countrywide Financial chief is back in the news. You remember, the subprime king with the perma-tan?

When I saw his name in the headlines again I hoped to finally find news of a criminal indictment. Steal a Snickers bar from the 7-11 and you could face jail...

Not everybody in the financial industry is like Jamie Dimon. They do not all think the financial system is running like a charm, aside from a few "isolated incidents" like a $2 billion trading loss.

No, it's important to remember that the financial industry is not monolithic....

A Canadian mining company has cleared a major legal hurdle in their quest to exploit gold in El Salvador. In a celebratory press release, the firm, Pacific Rim, quoted lawyers from two Washington, DC law firms that are representing it in the case.

I guess having one...

At a point in the election season when politicians of the same party tend to sweep their differences under the rug, two senior Democrats have sent a strong letter to the Obama administration on a subject unknown to most American voters.

This is the issue of capital controls --...

People who care about helping companies raise capital to innovate and create jobs don't drive our contemporary Wall Street. "High-frequency" traders do.

A decade or so ago, these computer-driven, warp speed traders didn't even exist. Now they make up about 55 percent of all U.S. stock trading and a rising...

The conservative presidential candidate has decided he can't win unless he raises taxes on the financial sector. No, I'm not talking about Mitt Romney, but this isn't a belated April fool's joke either.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has rushed through Parliament a new tax on securities trades, hoping it will...

I've been trying to get the Obama administration to come out of the Dark Ages on the subject of capital controls for three years. The light, however, seems to be shining only outside Washington.

I know capital controls aren't exactly issue No. 1 on Americans' minds. But these tools...

I had the opportunity to testify on inequality before the Senate Budget Committee last week. No one seems to recall the last time the committee devoted a whole hearing to this issue. So you can add this to the signs of the Occupy movement's impact on our political discourse.

With patriotic fanfare, the Obama administration announced this week that it would ban new uranium mining projects around the Grand Canyon. At a ceremony at the National Geographic Society in Washington, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the ban was "the right approach for this priceless American landscape."

The small country of El Salvador has dared to stand up against powerful international gold mining companies. And now they're dealing with the blowback.

One of the companies salivating over El Salvador's gold is suing the government for their failure to bow down and grant a permit for a proposed...

So now we really need to figure out what "sequestration" means. A month ago I thought it had something to do with carbon dioxide or jury duty. Today we know it could determine the future of our economy.

With the supercommittee throwing in the towel on deficit negotiations, sequestration will...

Talk about piling on. Bill Gates, the Pope, Michael Moore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1,000 parliamentarians, 1,000 economists, the world's major labor leaders, Occupy Wall Street protesters, Oxfam and other major development groups, thousands of nurses, the World Wildlife Fund and other major enviros... It might...