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☆ Why Prices, Inflation Are Still Soaring: Corporate Price Gouging
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

While many of the problems that helped trigger the upward spiral have abated, prices are still high and getting higher. The idea that companies are taking advantage of disruptions to push price increases on consumers has many names — greedflation, excuseflation, price gouging, corporate profiteering — but the gist is the same. Supply-chain issues and other disruptions made sense as drivers of higher prices, Chris Becker, a senior economist and the associate director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, told me. "Working people are suffering thanks to corporate greed, so we need to enact tougher rules to ensure corporations pay a price when they price gouge." Working people are suffering thanks to corporate greed, so we need to enact tougher rules to ensure corporations pay a price when they price gouge.

☆ Lawmakers led by Democrats urge the Fed to halt rate hikes ahead of Wednesday's announcement
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Chelsey Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON — A group led by several prominent Democratic lawmakers is calling on the Federal Reserve to halt rate hikes to avoid risking too much damage to the economy. The lawmakers called on the Fed to suspend rate hikes to "respect" its dual mandate and "avoid engineering a recession that destroys jobs and crushes small businesses." The benchmark federal funds rate is the highest since 2007 after nine consecutive rate increases by the Fed since last year. They also cited the lowest year-over-year consumer price index in nine months, a resilient labor market and a 3.5% unemployment rate, including the lowest rate for Black Americans on record, as proof that further rate hikes are unnecessary. Successive rate hikes would "needlessly" threaten that progress, they argued.

☆ Opinion | Why I Don’t Worry About Nuclear Waste
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Madison Hilly | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

On a visit to the site of the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown in Japan in February, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York did something refreshing: She discussed radiation exposure and nuclear waste without fanning fear. So it’s no surprise that many Americans believe nuclear waste poses an enormous and terrifying threat. We must stop seeing nuclear waste as a dangerous problem and instead recognize it as a safe byproduct of carbon-free power. The countries that have cleaned up their electricity production the fastest have generally done so with hydroelectric power, nuclear, or a combination of the two. The International Energy Agency believes it’s so crucial that global nuclear capacity must double by 2050 to reach net-zero emissions targets.

☆ Telling Dianne Feinstein to resign is sexist and 'unprecedented,' women Democratic senators say
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

But Democratic women in the Senate say gender is playing a role in how her absence is being handled. But women Democratic senators told Insider at the Capitol on Wednesday that they believe sexism is at play and that the chamber's longest-serving Democrat is being held to an unfair standard because she is a woman. More recently, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was recently absent from the chamber for six weeks as he sought treatment for clinical depression. "I think it's important for Senator Feinstein to do what is what is best for her," said Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. "I just believe that it's not somebody else's assessment to make; it's her assessment to make," said Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.

☆ There's another legal route Biden can use to cancel student debt, and the Supreme Court's latest move shows the justices could be open to it
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The Supreme Court rejected an appeal to halt debt relief for borrowers who say they were defrauded. The Higher Education Act has been floated as another way for Biden to pursue his debt-relief plan. The Supreme Court is already considering whether Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers is legal. Activists and students protest in front of the Supreme Court during a rally for student-debt cancellation in Washington, DC, on February 28. Still, along with the lawsuits against broad debt relief, the payment pause is also being challenged — leaving millions of borrowers in financial limbo.

☆ Lawmakers seek details on ‘unusually cozy’ ties between tech executives and SVB
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Democratic lawmakers sent letters to 14 of the largest depositors at Silicon Valley Bank, seeking details about the lender’s “unusually cozy” relationships with its well-heeled clients. Silicon Valley Bank was known to cater to the tech startup world. But Warren and Ocasio-Cortez, citing media reports, raised concerns about whether the bank’s relationships went beyond industry standards and potentially hastened its collapse last month. SVB reportedly provided lower-interest-rate mortgages for tech start-up founders whom other banks wouldn’t lend to, according to the New York Times, while sponsoring industry ski trips, conferences, and fancy dinners, the lawmakers wrote. “Silicon Valley Bank’s unusually cozy relationship with its clients increased the threat of contagion when the bank went under,” said Senator Warren in a statement.

☆ Chicago mayoral election live results: Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas face off in runoff election
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas are facing off in the Chicago mayoral runoff election. The winning candidate will succeed Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who was the third-place finisher in the initial Feb. 28 mayoral election behind Vallas and Johnson, respectively, missing her chance to compete in the runoff. Garcia came in fourth place in the February mayoral election; in 2015, he was also a mayoral candidate, forcing then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff election, which he eventually lost. According to the Illinois State Board of Elections, Vallas raised $6.4 million in the lead-up to the initial February mayoral election and has raked in at least $10.9 million since March 1. Johnson raised nearly $4 million before the February election and has taken in at least $5.8 million since March 1.

☆ Premarket stocks: How big of a problem is greedflation?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

“Executives at SVB and Signature [Bank] took wild risks and must be held accountable for exploding their banks,” Warren said. Republican Senators say the Fed’s focus on climate change led to banking turmoilRepublican Senators repeatedly insinuated on Tuesday that the recent US banking turmoil came as a result of the Federal Reserve’s focus on climate change. In his opening statement, Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the ranking member of the banking committee, called the Fed’s focus on climate change a waste of time. It’s what our supervisors do all the time.”In an interview with Montana Public Radio in 2014, Daines said that “the jury’s still out” on whether climate change is real. The public reasonably expects supervisors to require that banks understand, and appropriately manage, their material risks, including the financial risks of climate change.”

WASHINGTON, March 28 (Reuters) - Lawmakers are expected to put top U.S. bank regulators on the defensive over the unexpected failures of regional lenders Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank when they testify before Congress on Tuesday. Regulators have vowed to review their rules and procedures after the twin failures while insisting the overall system remains sound. Tuesday's hearing at the Senate Banking Committee will give lawmakers the chance to press watchdogs on what went wrong on their watch, and push preferred policy prescriptions. They just didn't," said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, at a banking industry conference last week. Some Democrats, including major bank critic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have also argued a 2018 bank deregulation law is to blame.

☆ First came bank failures. Now comes the House hearing
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( Krystal Hur | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

New York CNN —Federal regulators are being called to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. What lawmakers are saying: Elected officials want a review of what happened at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank earlier this month, as well as stricter regulations to prevent it from happening again. Regulators on March 12, just days after SVB collapsed, announced a guarantee of all deposits at the bank and Signature Bank. What to expect: It’s unclear what will come of the hearings on SVB and Signature Bank. Wednesday: The House Financial Services Committee’s hearing on the banking crisis continues for a second day.

☆ These 13 Democratic senators joined with Republicans to roll back banking regulations in 2018. Progressives say that contributed to Silicon Valley Bank's collapse.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Progressives are blaming the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on a 2018 rollback of banking regulations. The bill was championed by Republicans — but it couldn't have passed without Democratic support. These 13 current members of the Senate Democratic caucus helped Republicans pass the law. Silicon Valley Bank reported $212 billion in assets in the final months of 2022, placing it just under the higher threshold. Here are the 13 members of the Senate Democratic caucus that supported the bill:

☆ The tech industry avoided an ‘extinction-level event,’ but it’s not unscathed
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —For much of the weekend, Silicon Valley scrambled to find a way through what one prominent tech investor described as an “extinction-level event for startups” after the collapse of a top lender in the industry. “You can feel the collective *sigh*,” Ryan Hoover, a tech founder and investor wrote on Twitter Sunday. SVB’s collapse also risks changing how the world, and prospective recruits, think of Silicon Valley. The bank worked with nearly half of all venture-backed tech and healthcare companies in the United States. President Joe Biden emphasized in remarks Monday that “no losses will be borne by the taxpayers” related to the government’s intervention for Silicon Valley Bank.

☆ These 14 Democratic senators broke with Biden and voted against striking down the DC criminal code
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Most Democratic senators voted for a GOP-led resolution overruling recent changes to DC's criminal code. The 14 who voted against the resolution framed it in part as a show of support for DC statehood. Just 14 Democratic senators voted against the resolution. Ahead of the vote, DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson even attempted to withdraw the criminal reform legislation in an attempt to prevent a Senate vote. Here are the 14 Democratic senators who voted against the resolution:

☆ Bernie Sanders says Marianne Williamson will run a 'strong campaign' and raise 'very important issues' in 2024
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Bernie Sanders told Insider that she'll run a "strong campaign and raise very important issues." Sanders has said he supports Biden in 2024, but his praise for Williamson contrasts with other Democrats. Williamson — a self-help author, spiritual leader, and 2020 presidential candidate — is currently the only well-known Democrat to officially launch a presidential campaign. "I'm sure she's going to run a strong campaign and raise very important issues." Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, by contrast, was firm in her support for Biden when asked about Williamson's campaign.

"If the totality of the data were to indicate that faster tightening is warranted, we would be prepared to increase the pace of rate hikes," Powell said. Republicans focused on whether energy policy was restricting supply and keeping prices higher than needed, and whether restrained federal spending could help the Fed's cause. As of December, officials saw that rate rising to a peak of around 5.1%, a level investors expect may move at least half a percentage point higher now. With a 50-basis-point rate hike now in play, Brown said a strong monthly jobs report on Friday would likely lead to "calls for a 6% terminal rate," nearly a percentage point higher than Fed officials had projected as of December. How much remains unclear, but Powell said the focus will remain more squarely on how inflation behaves.

☆ Lawmakers Call for Broad U.S. Probes of Financial Conflicts by Federal Officials
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Brody Mullins | Rebecca Ballhaus | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo: Eric Lee for The Wall Street JournalTwo Democratic lawmakers are requesting recommendations for how ethics rules and regulations in Washington can be strengthened. WASHINGTON—Two Democratic lawmakers called on the executive branch to root out financial conflicts-of-interest among top government officials. In letters sent to eight federal agencies Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington asked that internal investigators launch probes into conflicts of interest and review the effectiveness of the agencies’ rules.

☆ A growing group of lawmakers think TikTok is 'digital fentanyl' and want to ban it. Many others remain skeptical.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Some members of Congress have begun pushing to ban TikTok in the US. "I'm a little less enthusiastic about an all-out ban of it," said Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. "I'm an incrementalist on a lot of things, and I would be on this as well," said Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on social media and the internet's impact on children. Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, another committee member, said she's most concerned about how social media platforms are impacting kids.

Feb 16 (Reuters) - Two U.S. lawmakers have sent letters to the country's top egg companies seeking answers for why egg prices have ballooned to record highs in recent months, according to copies of the letters seen by Reuters. The letters were sent Thursday morning to the CEOs of Cal-Maine Foods (CALM.O), Hillandale Farms, Rose Acre Farms, Daybreak Foods, and Versova Management. But a farm group recently asked federal regulators to investigate whether egg companies were price gouging. The lawmakers said the spike in prices raises concerns about anti-competitive conduct and requested information on executive compensation, profit margins, avian flu impacts, and whether companies have communicated with one another about egg prices. The lawmakers requested responses by March 1.

2 Democrat, told CNN when asked if party leaders should stay out of the race. “I’m just not worried about folks who may not like this approach,” Sinema told CNN on Thursday. On Monday, he wouldn’t say if he believes Democratic leaders should try to knock her off in 2024. Like Sinema, party leaders are now watching Manchin closely as he weighs whether to run in 2024. “I worked very closely with Sen. Sinema – two years now to get stuff done,” Kelly said.

New York CNN —Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the failed crypto exchange FTX, has agreed to testify before the Senate Banking Committee next week as questions and confusion swirl about the collapse of his companies. One of the key questions prosecutors are likely to probe is whether FTX misappropriated customer funds when it made loans to Alameda. “I didn’t knowingly commingle funds,” he told The New York Times last week. The Times said the issue is part of a broadening inquiry into the collapse of FTX, and it’s not clear whether prosecutors have determined any wrongdoing by Bankman-Fried. In a statement to the paper, Bankman-Fried said he was “not aware of any market manipulation and certainly never intended to engage in market manipulation.”

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried: US lawmakers want answers from FTX founder
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

New York CNN —Lawmakers are demanding that Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the failed crypto exchange FTX, appear before the Senate Banking Committee next week over “significant unanswered questions ” surrounding the collapse of his companies. FTX was one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world until last month, when it faced a sudden wave of customer withdrawals that it couldn’t cover. One of the key questions prosecutors are likely to probe is whether FTX misappropriated customer funds when it made loans to Alameda. The Times said the issue is part of a broadening inquiry into the collapse of FTX, and it’s not clear whether prosecutors have determined any wrongdoing by Bankman-Fried. In a statement to the paper, Bankman-Fried said he was “not aware of any market manipulation and certainly never intended to engage in market manipulation.”

☆ Lawmakers Want Answers From Silvergate About FTX Transfers
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( David Benoit | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Lawmakers are demanding information from Silvergate Capital Corp. about transfers of customer funds between Sam Bankman-Fried ‘s collapsed trading firm, Alameda Research, and his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX. In a letter to the bank Monday, Republican Sens. John Kennedy of Louisiana and Roger Marshall of Kansas, along with Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, said an Alameda depository account at Silvergate “appears to be at the center” of the transfer of FTX customer funds to the trading firm. Failure to detect this “scheme,” the senators said, could mean the bank broke anti-money-laundering laws.

☆ The effort to ban members of Congress from trading stocks is mostly dead — at least for now
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Time has largely run out in this Congress to ban lawmakers from trading stocks. On Monday, he told Insider in a statement that he would "keep pushing to get this debated on the floor and get it passed." Democratic senators formed a working group, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's blessing, to draft legislation to ban stock trading among lawmakers. In the Senate, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told Insider that it was "not yet" time to declare the effort dead, pointing to ongoing discussions. "I support a stock ban for members of Congress," he told reporters in September.

☆ How an arcane 96-year-old law stopped the rail strike
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

The Railway Labor Act was passed in 1926 as one of the very first labor laws in the nation. Because of the law, the House was able to vote Wednesday to impose unpopular contracts on four rail unions whose members have already rejected the terms, followed by a vote by the Senate vote late Thursday that did the same. The Railway Labor Act, passed in 1926, is the reason Congress could intervene this week to block a strike by freight railroad unions. But under the Railway Labor Act, management can fall back on hopes that Congress will give them the deal it wants. When he served in the Senate, Biden voted against an earlier effort to impose a contract on the rail unions to keep them on the job.

☆ Ron DeSantis just announced he has a memoir coming out soon. Here's what we learned from his first book, a scathing take on Obama
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

DeSantis wrote the book during the Tea Party movement and before he ran for Congress. He did so throughout his 2011 book, "Dreams from Our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama." According to NPD BookScan, which tracks retail sales of US print books, "Dreams from Our Founding Fathers" sold 125 copies through July of 2022. In one section of the book, DeSantis wrote that Obama lacked the humility of George Washington, the first US president. Obama, DeSantis wrote, "garnered flattering media coverage by a press thoroughly enamored with his progressive politics."

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