LABOR, ECONOMY & THE CLIMATE - page 40

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday again declined to raise interest rates. The central bank’s Board of Governors said in a press release that its Federal Open Market Committee “today reaffirmed its view that the current 0 to 0.25 percent target range for the federal funds rate remains appropriate.” “Inflation has continued to run below the Committee’s longer-run objective,” the Fed noted. Last month, in a quarterly survey, 13 out of 17 Fed governors said that a rate increase should occur this year. The median projected… Keep Reading

Speaker of the House John Boehner is likely to be out of job and back in Ohio by the end of the month, but not before delivering a parting shot at the forces that ran him out of Washington. Power brokers on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are throwing support behind a two-year budget deal that would keep the government open and its bills paid through 2017. The agreement would take off the table the sort of fiscal brinksmanship that for years right wing legislators… Keep Reading

Two Republicans and two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee called on federal regulators to probe possible collusion by the three main suppliers in the market for saline, “a critical input to the United States healthcare system.” Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Monday asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate alleged antitrust violations by Baxter, Hospira, and B.Braun. There has been a shortage of saline in the US since 2013. “While prices tend to increase during… Keep Reading

The Social Security Administration isn’t “evolving” as quickly as certain policymakers and the Supreme Court when it comes to addressing the needs of Americans in same-sex marriages. More than 120 Democratic Representatives and Senators on Monday called on Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Carolyn Colvin to take responsibility for failing to update computer systems in the wake of historic Supreme Court decisions that validated gay and lesbian marriages across the nation. The glitches have resulted in lingering discrimination, the lawmakers claimed. They said that “for some… Keep Reading

The Commodity Futures Tradining Commission in November will propose rules that would force financial firms to adopt internal policies designed to mitigate the risk of computerized asset trading. CFTC chair Timothy Massad said Wednesday that the proposals would likely impact—but not be designed for—high-frequency traders. “We will not attempt to define high-frequency trading specifically,” he said from a conference at the New York Fed on the US Treasuries market. Massad noted that the proposals would focus on “malfunctioning algorithms” and deficient internal safeguards. “I expect that… Keep Reading

Are Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush smarter than a 9th Grader? Secretary of State John Kerry says “no.” The top US envoy said lawmakers who claim they can’t assess climate change because they aren’t scientists don’t show much evidence of having been to middle School. “I mean, it’s incomprehensible that a grownup who has been to high school and college in the United States of America disqualifies themselves because they’re not a scientist when they’ve learned that the… Keep Reading