Neoliberals and conservatives will get to trot out their favorite phrase, “trade war.” And to be sure, there’s a jobs vs. environment question to be asked about this latest move by the Obama Administration. But the Commerce Department has moved ahead with slapping high tariffs on Chinese solar panels: The United States on Thursday announced [...]

The big protest today in North Carolina had nothing to do with marriage equality. It was against Bank of America. While the issue of civil rights is incredibly important, so too is the issue of a runaway financial sector controlling the US economy and running it into the ground. And it tends to get Americans [...]

The Senate completed work on a two-year surface transportation bill, which costs $109 billion and will provide clarity to local infrastructure projects. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, extolled the measure, passed on a bipartisan vote of 74 to 22, as “a jobs bill in the true sense of the word.” “I hope [...]

I think my disgust over federal housing policy is just about complete. As you know, we’re still waiting for the actual terms of the foreclosure fraud settlement, more than one month after the announcement. But more information has dribbled out, not much of it to the good. Michael Hiltzik rounded up some of the more [...]

Protesters have gathered outside a meeting taking place in Chicago today between officials with the Obama Administration and some state Attorneys General or members of their staff, aimed at reaching agreement on a low-ball settlement with leading banks over foreclosure fraud.  The proposed settlement would give homeowners a pittance in exchange for a broad release [...]

Chatter increased over the weekend on a long-awaited foreclosure fraud deal between top banks and state and federal regulators, led by the Justice Department and HUD. Yves Smith provides additional details today, including a Constitutional issue over servicers providing modifications on investor-owned mortgages without their consent, a violation of the takings clause of the 5th [...]

I brought up one of my chief problems with the possible foreclosure fraud settlement, the fact that AGs have already tried a settlement that mandated banks to deliver loan modifications to borrowers, and they flat-out didn’t do it. But Sen. Sherrod Brown offers up another problem. It turns out that, under the settlement, the banks [...]

Ten years ago, China joined the World Trade Organization, promising to reform and liberalize its command economy. Ten years later, very little has changed. The U.S. says that China has intensified state intervention in its economy despite reform commitments it made on joining the World Trade Organization 10 years ago. The office of the U.S. [...]

Ten Democratic Senators, led by Sherrod Brown (D-OH), have written to financial regulators expressing their opposition to the recent move of Bank of America derivative exposure from Merrill Lynch to their federally insured subsidiary. By putting the derivatives under the FDIC, this puts taxpayers on the hook for potentially massive losses (the notional value of [...]

John Boehner has declared the China currency bill, which passed the Senate with rare bipartisan support and 63 votes, “dead on arrival” in the House. Apparently the interests of multinational corporations to keep their labor costs low trumps the interests of out-of-work Americans. This House Speaker knows where his bread is buttered. Just to bring [...]

Yesterday, we learned that Harry Reid moved up a vote on a bill targeting China’s alleged currency manipulation ahead of the American Jobs Act. Improving the balance of trade with China, which forcing a revaluation of the yuan would accomplish as a kind of monetary stimulus, would have a greater economic and jobs impact than [...]