In this podcast, Reid Cramer, director of the Asset Building Program at New America, describes the new dynamics of inequality that emerged in the wake of the Great Recession and have given rise to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Without dramatic changes to the housing market and policy efforts designed to get families out from under the overhang of debt, significant wealth inequality will persist for years to come. This is particularly apparent when recognizing the staggering growth of the racial wealth gap. Today, November 17th, marks the two month anniversary of the protests, which should be applauded for initiating a national conversation about equality, mobility, and opportunity.
This is the third column in a series by Bruce Jentleson, Professor at Duke University, and Jay Pelosky, Principal of J2Z Advisory. It originally appeared on the Huffington Post.
CASA of Oregon, Neighborhood Partnerships, and NeighborWorks Umpqua hosted Rebuilding the Path of Opportunity: An Oregon Asset Builders' Conference on November 9-10. Rachel Black presented "Recovery and Resiliency" at a plenary exploring the landscape of policy options to expand savings opportunities among lower-income households from the local to the national level. In the presentation, she gives a federal policy perspective and argues that helping households build financial resiliency through savings should be a core part of the economic recovery agenda.
The second season of The Walking Dead premiered last week to ratings high enough to raise William Seabrook—the journalist who imported zombies to the United States with the 1929 novel
It's an incredibly uncomfortable scene. Michael Scott returns to the class of student to whom he made the pledge 10 years earlier that if they graduated from high school, he would pay for their college. Now as they anticipate this promise being fulfilled, they perform a song to demonstrate their appreciation:
Occupy Wall Street is a carnival. Both detractors and supporters say so. The most amusing part of the show is watching the rush to join it. When Deepak Chopra and Suze Orman endorse the cause, you have to wonder about its revolutionary bona fides. Democrats have also flung themselves in the direction of Zuccotti Park—but in their pursuit of the movement they may damage themselves and hinder the protests’ potential to do tangible good.
By Daniel Alpert, Westwood Capital; Robert Hockett, Professor of Law, Cornell University; and Nouriel Roubini, Professor of Economics, New York University
October 10, 2011
Notwithstanding repeated attempts at monetary and fiscal stimulus since 2009, the United States remains mired in what is by far its worst economic slump since that of the 1930s.1 More than 25 million working-age Americans remain unemployed or underemployed, the employment-to-population ratio lingers at an historic low of 58.3 percent,2 business investment continues at historically weak levels, and consumption expenditure remains weighed down by massive private sector debt overhang left by the bursting of the housing and credit bubble a bit over three years ago.
This is the second column in a series by Bruce Jentleson, Professor at Duke University, and Jay Pelosky, Principal of J2Z Advisory. It originally appeared on the Huffington Post.
Is the American Dream of opportunity and increasing prosperity out of reach for the average American worker? What is happening to the American middle class? If the labor market ‘polarizes’ into low- and high-income jobs, what does this mean for continuing inequality in America? What does it mean for the American social contract, and the American Dream?
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