The Colorado Independent

Friday, February 10th, 2012

Posts Tagged Wall Street

Obama in Denver promises action, with or without Congress

By | 10.26.11 | 1:25 pm

DENVER– As anticipated, President Obama this morning detailed his plan to use an executive order to ease the burden of student loan debt that presently presses down on tens of millions of Americans. Speaking in shirt sleeves and drawing on his own struggles with student debt as a young man, husband and father, Obama told the energized crowd in an event center hall on the downtown university Auraria Campus that he was determined for the foreseeable future to act wherever possible to relieve economic distress in the country without going through the gridlocked Congress.

Tea Party king Erickson grits teeth, concedes Occupy movement basically right

By | 10.17.11 | 8:52 am

First came the broke unemployed drummers and poets, then the debt-ridden students, then the retired couples whose pensions and real estate holdings have withered, then the tourists, then, slowly, the journalists. on Friday, the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has been thrumming along gathering force and supporters across the country and around the world for more than a month now, won a reluctant endorsement from a chief critic, Tea Party blog king Erick Erickson at Red State.

Anti-regulation U.S. Chamber of Commerce pouring record sums into lobbying

By | 01.28.11 | 1:18 pm

The Obama years have so far been a predictable boom-time for the army of anti-regulation lobbyists paid by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that the Chamber spent $276 million over the past two years lobbying against, among other things, health care reform, environmental protections and Wall Street regulations. The Chamber is the number-one spender on lobbying this year as in years past, but it is outdoing itself, setting records in its own outrageous largess. In just the last three months of 2010, the Chamber spent $50.9 million on lobbying at the federal, state and grassroots levels. That’s a step down from last year, when in the last financial quarter as health and financial industry reform were being discussed in DC, the Chamber spent $79 million from October through December to defeat or water-down Democratic legislation.

Bush tax cut debate cast in light of new Wall Street bailout documents

By | 12.06.10 | 9:47 am

A video of Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is making the rounds this week. In the clearest language to come out of Washington on the topic, Sanders powerfully states what he sees as at stake in the battle over extending…

Financial reform in peril: With regulatory law passed, many obstacles remain

By | 10.05.10 | 10:38 am

Soon after Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) came to Washington in 2002, a fellow member of the House Financial Services Committee told him to pick an arcane financial issue — any issue — and to make it his pet topic. Miller chose mortgage finance. He knew little about it. Banking lobbyists peppered him with data, but he had difficulty getting much information from independent sources.

Post-bailout Wall Streeters: As entitled and whiney as Saddam’s Baathists

By | 09.27.10 | 7:31 am

This American Life, the National Public Radio show that documents contemporary U.S. realities through personal stories, gave us an episode on whiners Friday. Slate conservative politics reporter and former Washington Independent writer Dave Weigel talks about Christine O’Donnell, the anti-masturbation…

Questions linger on Consumer Financial Protection Bureau leadership

By | 09.17.10 | 8:49 am

This morning, President Barack Obama plans to officially announce that Elizabeth Warren — Harvard Law professor and the current head of the Congressional Oversight Panel over the Troubled Asset Relief Program — will head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau…. sort of.

Financial reform activists lobby the lobbyists

By | 05.18.10 | 8:44 am

WASHINGTON– On Monday, with Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) promising a final vote on financial regulatory reform in the next few days, rather than weeks, thousands descended on K Street in Washington, D.C., to lobby the lobbyists.

Senate votes in a landslide to audit the Fed

By | 05.13.10 | 8:17 am

WASHINGTON– On Tuesday, the Senate voted in a landslide to approve the Audit the Fed amendment to Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform proposal. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the author of the amendment, has directed the Government Accountability Office to publish a report on the Federal Reserve’s books by Dec. 1, 2010, reviewing in a way that “does not interfere with monetary policy” but does let the American people know the names of the recipients of the more than $2 trillion in taxpayer assistance doled out by the nation’s central banking system.

Washington versus Wall Street: A citizens’ guide to the regulation debate

By | 04.27.10 | 10:30 am

WASHINGTON– Monday evening, Republicans in the U.S. Senate voted against Sen. Chris Dodd’s American Financial Stability Act, which seeks to reform regulation of the financial sector. It was only one round. There are many to come. Democrats only need one crossover to move the bill forward and the GOP line on the bill has already evolved, as Republican spin artist Frank Luntz’s “bank bailout” false talking point has failed to winover Americans, who overwhelmingly back reform. Bonus-loving Goldman Sachs has run out of sympathy on struggling Main Street.

Older Posts »