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Economy


When staff writer Sasha introduced Consumerism Commentary readers to Mint.com in 2007, I began to think about the power of massive consumer financial data. As more people signed up for this online service that connects directly to users’ credit card accounts and bank accounts, Mint.com, or any other similar services, would be able to analyze more accurate spending data than government surveys that rely on self-reported data, and possibly even industry surveys.

Now with 13 million users, Mint.com has penetrated mainstream culture beyond just techies, who love tracking information online, and personal finance lovers, who look for any tools available to help them manage their money. Of these 13 million users, 2 million have opted in to this program, allowing Mint.com to aggregate their transactions anonymously.

The company has now used the transaction data from this sample size of 2 million to produce what it’s calling the Intuit Consumer Spending Index. Intuit is the software company that now owns Mint.com. From the first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2013, overall spending is up 9 percent, from $3,870 per month to $4,220 per month. Intuit announced its new index recently.

Because Mint.com categorizes every transaction and knows where its users live, the analysis of the data behind the index can go into much more detail. For example, in the District of Columbia, spending has increased 30 percent over the time period, much more than the 9 percent national average. Why has spending increased so much in the nation’s capital? The report from Intuit doesn’t say specifically, but the underlying data might have some clues.

The index can also describe spending by category within each state or nationally, and the information exists to explain why spending within a category has changed. For example, spending on groceries has increased 17 percent over the time period.

While an increase in food prices may contribute to some of that increase — although inflation is taken into account when calculating the index to reflect real changes in spending, not nominal changes — the transactions categorized as groceries indicate that more spending has shifted to boutique grocery stores like Whole Foods. 19 percent of grocery shoppers shifted to Whole Foods while spending at Safeway decreased by 3 percent over the same time period.

Mint.com also knows the ages of the 2 million users who have opted in to aggregation by sharing their personal demographics. For users aged 26 to 31, spending on healthcare increased 45 percent from 2009 to 2013, and the same consumers are also spending more at restaurants — an increase of 40 percent. The report also highlights different spending patterns between men, who spend more on entertainment, alcohol, and restaurants, and women, who spend more on clothing.

I had several concerns about the Intuit Consumer Spending Index.

  • Is the 2 million user sample representative of the nation’s total population?
  • What is the possibility that many of the transactions are categorized incorrectly?
  • For people who use checks, how can Mint.com know the recipient of the payment?

Intuit handles the first problem my normalizing its sample against the government’s Current Population Survey. For example, if people aged 18 to 24 comprise 25 percent of Intuit’s data but only 10 percent over the overall population, Intuit’s data is weighted to reflect the actual composition of the population. Intuit performs the same reweighting along all its demographic measures.

One way the company tries to focus on accuracy by ignoring transactions over $100,000, which are often recorded as mistakes, not actual spending, and by validating their data against Census Retail Sales data. That doesn’t help in categories where people don’t typically pay with credit or debit cards, like spending on cars — maintenance, auto loan payments, etc.

Unfortunately, the raw data used to create the index does not seem to be available. I suppose that’s understandable, as Intuit is a business enterprise, not a government entity, but it doesn’t allow any deeper analysis by economists — or financial writers. We have to rely on the information Intuit chooses to disclose in its press releases and reports. The company’s team does seem to be accessible, so I’m confident that I can relay any questions to the company’s own economists should there be any, and if I wanted to write about spending in a specific category or in a specific location, I could get the data from Intuit to use in a story.

It’s probably been a few years since I’ve logged into the Mint.com account I created when the service became open to the public. It took me a while to log in because I couldn’t remember which email address I used to sign in — and I discovered by searching my email archives that it’s an email address I no longer use or have access to. After logging in, I saw that most of my accounts haven’t been updated in two or three years. I track my spending and investments with the desktop version of Quicken, so Mint.com never appealed to me much.

Checking my account profile, I see that at some point I provided basic demographic information about myself — now outdated — so in some way, my inaccurate data, both inaccurate demographics and missing transactions, was included in the aggregation that resulted in the Consumer Spending Index. According to the methodology, my information was likely just ignored, like many users who haven’t visited the website enough for there to be meaningful data.

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In his State of the Union address to the United States Congress and the television-viewing audience around the world, President Obama called for an increase in the federal minimum wage as a way to reduce poverty. If you believe that business owners have a right to pay whatever the market will bear, minimum wages, whether endorsed by the federal government or the state, are unacceptable. If, however, you believe that left unchecked, businesses are in a position of power over employees who need jobs and can take advantage of that power, a minimum wage of some form is necessary to help balance that relationship.

The federal minimum wage and its law protects most, but not all, workers. In some cases, state minimum wage laws pick up where the federal law stops, in other cases, state laws supersede the federal law, and in yet others, the state depends on the federal law for its citizens.

Who qualifies for federal minimum wage

You’re covered by the federal minimum wage law and other provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act if the following are true:

  • You work for a federal, state, or local government agency.
  • You work for a hospital or health organization.
  • You work for a school, public or private, for-profit or non-profit.
  • A company that sells more than $500,000 a year.

You could also be covered by the federal law if you work at a company whose business involves interstate commerce or domestic service. Domestic service includes a variety of jobs, such as cooks, janitors, housekeepers, nurses, gardeners, and regular babysitters.

State laws vary, but a state’s minimum wage could apply to a broader set of occupations.

If you have a position with a salary rather than an hourly wage, or you have a position in management, you might be exempt from minimum wage laws, like the overtime provision. Once my position at a former company in the financial industry surpassed a certain level, I was no longer eligible for overtime. A raise and a promotion resulted in an effective pay decrease because I had been working so many hours in addition to the normal workday.

Who earns minimum wage

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has organized statistics related to workers earning minimum wage throughout the country. Half of minimum wage workers are under 25 years old. This age group contains a wide variety of types of families, though. This includes teenagers working at their first job during high school, living with their two-income-earning parents within middle-class communities, but it also includes heads of young households in poorer communities for whom their minimum-wage work is the only form of income.

If you work part-time, 35 hours a week or less, you’re more likely to earn minimum wage than full-time workers. The biggest group of Federal minimum wage earners — and those earning less — work in the service industry, mostly in food preparation and service. It’s typical for servers to officially earn less than minimum wage, relying on tips from customers to reach the required minimum wage.

In total, 3.8 million Americans were earning wages at or below the federal minimum wage in 2011. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that this figure is a low estimate, because it does not include salaried workers, who can still be earning an income that is equivalent to an hourly wage at or below the federal minimum.

What we don’t see on these figures are workers earning just cents above the minimum wage. Large companies might pay workers slightly above the minimum wage, not much to make much of a difference in people’s lives, but in order for the company to avoid the appearance of paying its workforce wages that would keep its workers in poverty or near poverty. It’s a method of staying out of the statistics. Walmart, for example, pays its sales associates an average of $8.81 per hour according to independent research.

This average is higher than the federal minimum wage; in fact it’s significantly higher. But it’s still not enough for a full-time Walmart worker (or part-time, like many are, for that matter) to earn enough to live above the federal poverty line for a family of four.

What President Obama is proposing

The State of the Union gives the sitting President a chance to express his ideals and provide some clues about his (or her) political agenda for the upcoming year. Not only does President Obama want to see the federal minimum wage increased to $9 per hour, he would like the wage to be indexed to the cost of living. Here is what he said:

We know our economy’s stronger when we reward an honest day’s work with honest wages. But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong.

That’s why, since the last time this Congress raised the minimum wage, 19 states have chosen to bump theirs even higher. Tonight, let’s declare that, in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty — and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour.

This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families. It could mean the difference between groceries or the food bank, rent or eviction, scraping by or finally getting ahead.

For businesses across the country, it would mean customers with more money in their pockets. And a whole lot of folks out there would probably need less help from government. In fact, working folks shouldn’t have to wait year after year for the minimum wage to go up, while CEO pay has never been higher.

So here’s an idea that Governor Romney and I actually agreed on last year: Let’s tie the minimum wage to the cost of living, so that it finally becomes a wage you can live on.

The consequences of a higher minimum wage

The President points out that workers getting paid more means they have more money to spend, focusing on the economic side of the societal issue. For minimum wage families — not middle-class families with a teenager taking a part-time job to pay for his own car insurance — an increase in income will almost definitely be directed towards spending for necessities rather than saving.

With more money to spend among its customers, businesses catering to those with more money in their pockets will be able to justify price increases. And more than just minimum wage workers will have more spending money; an increase in the minimum wage tends to lead to pay increases for those earning somewhat more than the minimum wage, which in turn affects pay increases on a large scale.

Some businesses will have difficulty with this proposal. If a business relies on the availability of cheap labor, an automatic increase of wages, and we could be talking about an immediate raise of 24% from $7.25 to $9 if the new wage isn’t phased in over time (though it most likely would be phased in like the last minimum wage increase), certain business might need to cut back their workforce and increase productivity in order to meet the same level of profitability.

This comes at a time, after an economic recession, in a period where the employment market is still in the process of improving, when businesses are already trying to make the most out their employees without increasing human resources expenses through raises and additional hiring. Requiring the same or more productivity from a smaller workforce causes stress on employees and businesses, and stress results in lost work days and higher medical expenses, and the costs of both can affect a company’s bottom line as much as the wage increase.

Requiring businesses to pay a livable wage is a necessary part of having a society where citizens are able to thrive. Individual responsibility is important, though. I don’t want to have to rely on the government to dictate my wages. In addition to livable wages, as a society we need to encourage as many people as possible to get out of minimum wage situations. Family situations differ, and this isn’t always possible, and the minimum wage is important for those people.

Get an education or get the training you need to work in a career that will help you move towards financial freedom. Don’t have children until you’re financially viable for yourself, at least. These may be luxuries for families whose first and only concern is survival, but moving beyond the first level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Where do you stand on the issue of raising the minimum wage?

Photo: Flickr
IBIS, Bureau of Labor Statistics

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Political theatrics doesn’t stop. I’ve been ignoring the latest issue for as long as possible, but this is so ridiculous I couldn’t go on ignoring it.

Now that pundits have stopped talking about the fiscal cliff, the discussion has turned to the debt ceiling, the artificial limit Congress has put on spending that they have already approved. It’s more reality television-inspired political drama, where the outcome is mostly guaranteed, it’s just a question of who is going to make the biggest fool of themselves before the big season finale.

And what seems to be the foolish solution to the latest cause for tension between Democrats and Republicans has been out in the open, and has even had a Twitter hashtag dedicated to its promotion: The Department of the Treasury should order the U.S. Mint to produce a $1 trillion platinum coin.

The Mint would then deposit the coin at the Federal Reserve, and the government’s books would see a balance increase of $1 trillion, enough to push the debt ceiling discussion back by ten months, according to analysts. The coin would never affect the money supply, and wouldn’t cause runaway inflation, if the coin were to exist only temporarily and would be covered later by issuing bonds as part of the normal economic operations.

With other coins produced by the Mint, like those composed of gold or silver, or standard coins for circulation, the Mint must require a specified amount of metal. A $1 silver bullion round (a more technical name for the coins minted by the government that are held by investors for their value, not by collectors) contains about one ounce of silver. At today’s prices, that one ounce is worth about $30. Dealers sell the bullion for about $35, not for the $1 face value. The government needs to find $30 worth of silver to make each $1 silver coin.

That’s not the case with platinum. The law that allowed the Mint to begin minting coins made of platinum gave the Secretary of the Treasury authority to decide how much metal can go into these new coins. The one-ounce platinum coin currently produced by the Mint for collectors has a face value of $100 and dealers sell it to investors for about $1,750. Using the same formula, a $1 trillion platinum coin would need to contain 10 billion ounces of metal, but that ratio is irrelevant due to the way the law is written. By the law, the Mint can use two ounces — or half an ounce — of platinum, and call it a $1 trillion coin.

They could even call it a $1 duovigintillion ($1 followed by 69 zeroes) coin if they really wanted to solve the debt ceiling crisis for longer.

This is why the idea of minting a $1 trillion platinum coin is ridiculous. Not because it would create runaway inflation, which it wouldn’t. It draws attention to the nebulous concept of money. If it’s so easy to mint a coin of any denomination to increase the government’s balance without using the amount of metal that would be valued the same as the coin’s face value, and use that coin to boost the government’s books, why bother with the symbolism of minting the coin in the first place? If it’s to have actual collateral, what is the point of having collateral that could be valued at whatever the Secretary of the Treasury says it is?

The suggestion to mint a $1 trillion coin also draws attention to the fact that over the last century, the country’s borrowing, which helped enable substantial economic growth, is impossible to pay for without more revenue. This is not about today’s spending. This is not going to be fixed by cutting back government programs. The biggest government expense is debt. Investors have always lent and will continue to lend money to the United States, and the government must pay that money back. By 2020, the government will spend $1 trillion a year on debt repayment alone according to Erskine Bowles, the co-chair of President Obama’s debt-reduction task force.

Discussion of this platinum coin also reminds people that the value of money is in our faith that it has value, not any kind of intrinsic value. The same would be true if the dollar were still on the gold standard, or even if gold or silver were the only legal forms of money. There is no such thing as intrinsic value — the value of anything, whether money or otherwise, is defined by what it can be traded for. Our faith — as consumers and investors — in the government’s relative stability has been good enough to prevent the dollar from crashing in value.

But if the world sees the implementation of the $1 trillion platinum coin idea as a farce — more farcical than the concept of value sustained by faith — then the country would face not just image issues but negative financial consequences. Investors could decide that United States politicians have finally lost their ability to govern with reason and sense, and could stop lending us money. That could still be less damaging than the fallout after the federal government hits the debt ceiling and stops paying back debt, losing the country’s already tenuous credit rating.

The good news, I suppose, is that the alternatives for investors — other countries’ currencies — aren’t so attractive, either.

Do you think the Secretary of the Treasury should move forward with the plan to mint a $1 trillion platinum coin if a deal to raise the debt ceiling isn’t reached quickly? Keeping in mind the debt ceiling is not about government spending on programs or the budget deficit, should the government eliminate the debt ceiling entirely, since it is just a symbolic and we can’t really do anything about the debt the country already has?

For further reading, though I don’t agree with everything stated within these articles:

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Here’s a topic that’s sure to get the public crotchety: politics. Just like I don’t talk about the most intimate details of my personal finances with my friends, I generally don’t discuss politics on Consumerism Commentary. I have friends who consider themselves Democrats, other friends who consider themselves Republicans, and others who prefer not to be pigeonholed with a label. I also find it pointless to argue about presidential candidates’ proposed plans — for just about anything — because as we’ve seen with every election for as long as I’ve been paying attention, whether the winner falls on the left or the right side of the spectrum, the practicalities of running a country deeply divided force policies towards the center.

And Democrat or Republican, politicians in today’s American must cater to those who can fund their campaigns: large corporations, wealthy individuals, and strong unions and organizations that lobby and throw money around in Washington, D.C. The two-party system, for the most part, is a sham. A fiscal conservative who’s a social liberal, for example, could never gain the support of about half the country.

Third-party candidates exist, and voting for them is not a wasted vote as Kevin McKee points out, but it would take significant public groundswell to make a difference. Even if that does happen, one of the two prevailing political parties would simply co-opt the movement’s perspective. For an example of that, remember how the Tea Party had an effect on the mainstream Republican agenda.

As the two biggest political parties answer to the same sorts of masters, during short piece of time that politicians are out of campaign mode and are actually governing, there is little difference in policy. As the recession came to engulf the United States, conservative Republican George W. Bush called for taxpayer-funded bailouts, and that’s likely to have been a similar concept to what a Democrat president would have called for. There may have been some differences in the details in the structure of the bailout, but it would have had the same basic concept. President Barack Obama continued similar policies. Together, the two may have prevented a full-out depression, but hypothetical situations are notoriously difficult to prove.

Policies set by the Office of the President react to the economic conditions surrounding it. There may be slightly different opinions on how to increase economic growth in terms of tax policy, for example, but the rules don’t rely on who is sitting in the Oval Office. Congress has a much bigger role to play in these decisions, and while the President has some influence, it doesn’t amount to much when it comes to everyday economic issues.

The exceptions to this rule can be big, however. With the help of Congress, Obama passed significant healthcare reform; Romney is vowing to dismantle it, but he’ll need to get through Congress first. Presidents also have the power to appoint Supreme Court justices, but that’s more relevant for social issues than it is for economic issues.

I’ve been asked a bit recently about who I’d prefer to see elected in November. From an economic standpoint, I’m willing to go on record saying it doesn’t matter much to me. Any tax law changes promised by the candidates have to get through the Congress, and regardless who wins, the proposed policy will surely be tempered to better address the economic headwinds. I don’t think my taxes will be much different regardless of who is in office. After all, Obama has been interested letting the tax cuts enacted during the previous term expire for as long as he has been in office, but they’ve stayed in place thanks to the prevailing opinion that low rates for the wealthy help stimulate the economy (though it hasn’t been proven to be true), and raising taxes looks bad when you’re trying to win an election, even if the election isn’t for another three years.

Prediction markets are more accurate than so-called experts when forecasting the winner. It’s still a few weeks out, but Obama’s strongly predicted to win with a 70% chance. That’s a huge advantage. There are articles that provide advice on which investments will be hot depending on who wins the election, so if you are focused on the short-term for your investing, you might want to look for suggestions about what to invest in under a Democratic presidency, but you may not need to. The good news for investors is that the stock market has performed better with Democratic presidents, despite the reputation for Republicans being better for business. I think it’s just a correlation, not causation, but that type of statistic hasn’t stopped most people from investing based on past performance.

Will Mitt Romney help the economy more than a second term of Barack Obama? It’s a question without an answer. Despite campaign promises, both would temper their policies towards the center of the political spectrum in order to work effectively with a divided Congress and a divided nation. Both would listen to very similar advisers; with economic advisers, most hail from Wall Street and big financial firms. Neither president would have control over the Federal Reserve Board or Congress. And while we can predict election results, we can’t predict other things that might affect the nation’s economy, like natural disasters or foreign entanglements.

Both presidents would have difficulty passing new tax laws that dramatically shift from the status quo, but when the Office does have a dramatic effect, it’s usually not along partisan lines. The Glass-Steagall Act that contributed to the financial collapse by allowing businesses to grow to the point of systemic interdependence was repealed under Clinton, who campaigned as a liberal against the power of big businesses. The conservative George W. Bush did more than any other president in recent years to interfere in the private sector, contrary to the general Republican stance of non-interference in free markets. Democrat or Republican, the overall economic policies reflect the needs of the overall economy, and if the country needs to continue moving its wealth into overseas military operations, there’s little hope for domestic economic growth.

I would focus my attention on the non-economic policies of both candidates if the personal choice is not already ideological. Preparing for what looks like an inevitable Obama victory based on prediction markets won’t be much different from a personal financial standpoint than preparing for a Romney victory.

Photo: Political Graveyard
The man in the photograph is our eleventh president, James K. Polk, all but forgotten to history if not for the song by They Might Be Giants.

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Take Advantage of Economic Cycles

by William Cowie
For Sale Space 640

This is a guest article by William Cowie. William is committed to helping people let the economy work for them, and writes at Drop Dead Money. A few days ago, Flexo asked a great question: Are you better off now than before the recession? To better understand the implications of the question, take a look ... Continue reading this article…

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Recovery From the Recession: Are You Better Off Now?

by Luke Landes
Broke money empty pocket

It’s easy for me to turn the pages of my life back to December 2007, at the very beginning of the recession that featured the failure of Wall Street, tightening of the credit market, and damage to worldwide wealth in real property and in the stock market. All I need to do to determine my ... Continue reading this article…

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Is Going Public Ever a Good Idea for a Company?

by Luke Landes
Peet's Coffee

Facebook recently went public. Mark Zuckerberg and the other owners might not have wanted to open the company up to a wide pool of investors, but the company had grown so large in terms of the number of private shareholders that it would have needed to release its financial statements publicly anyway. Through this process, ... Continue reading this article…

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Were the Recession Era Bail-Outs Worthwhile?

by Luke Landes
AIG

The Treasury Department of the United States has released its latest analysis of the various bail-outs enacted during this and the previous Presidential Administration, and not surprisingly, the outlook is good. The government frames the analysis of its own policies in terms of investment return. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) housing programs and the ... Continue reading this article…

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Tavis Smiley: Poverty Is a Threat to Democracy

by Luke Landes
Tavis Smiley

Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West have been working hard to bring the issue of poverty into the consciousness of the citizens and political discourse of the United States. As a team, Smiley and West have been touring city to city, speaking to audiences concerned about the increasing wealth gap in this country. Their book, ... Continue reading this article…

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The Next Credit Crunch

by Luke Landes
Captain Credit Crunch

There are signs that the economy might be in more trouble in the near future. One of the symptoms of the recession was the credit crunch. Banks and other lending institutions tightened up their previously loose standards for extending credit, and in order to prop up their own organizations financially, banks held on to the ... Continue reading this article…

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Government-Reported Inflation

by Luke Landes
Helium balloon inflation

Over the twelve months ending with March 2012, the increase in the consumer price index (CPI-U) as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, often referred to as the inflation rate, is 2.7 percent (2.3 percent if you exclude food and energy). While these numbers are below the historically-cited norm for inflation, 3 percent, the ... Continue reading this article…

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The End of the Cent (in Canada)

by Luke Landes
Cents

In 2011, the United States government lost over $60 million through the minting of pennies. One-cent pieces now cost the government 2.41 cents, each, to produce. When the American cent was introduced in 1793, a typical annual salary for a teacher may have been about $60, so a cent would represent 0.016 percent of this ... Continue reading this article…

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Taxpayers Earned $25 Billion on Treasury’s Mortgage-Backed Securities Bail-Out

by Luke Landes
United States Treasury

At the height of the recession, President George W. Bush and the congress authorized a bail-out of banks and investment companies headed for failure. In a similar plan to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government authorized the Treasury moved forward with the plan to stabilize the financial industry, and to an extent ... Continue reading this article…

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How Do You Preserve Your Money?

by Luke Landes
Money Bags

Preservation of capital is an important aspect of any financial plan, but in today’s economy, this is impossible without taking on some risk. At one time, you could confidently place any money you might need within one year in a high-yield savings account and be relatively confident that your money could buy at least as ... Continue reading this article…

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Three Banks and One Insurer Fail Fed’s Stress Test

by Luke Landes
Citi Checking Account Piggy Bank

After the recession, the Federal Reserve developed a stress test for banks and financial firms too big too fail. The stress test looks at the financial condition of these corporations and simulates a new recession. Under the simulation, based on a worst-case scenario, not an actual economic forecast, banks pass the test if the companies ... Continue reading this article…

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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to Streamline Regulations

by Luke Landes

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking suggestions from the public about how the government organization can streamline the variety of regulatory responsibilities they’ve inherited from other oversight groups. leave your comments with the CFPB here. The industry and much of the public are never fans of over-regulation, and the CFPB intends to reduce regulations ... Continue reading this article…

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Local Currencies to Replace the Dollar in Communities

by Luke Landes
Dollar currency

It may be illegal for states to print money for commerce, but local communities have no such restriction from the federal government. And in some communities, local currencies have been successful, at least in gaining the support of some retailers and consumers. There’s no law of nature that says that an economy functions best when ... Continue reading this article…

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Director, Richard Cordray

by Luke Landes
Richard Cordray

As many Presidents of the United States have done, President Obama avoided confrontation with Congress by appointing an individual to direct a government organization while lawmakers were on recess. Yesterday, the President appointed former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to the long-delayed position of director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Now that this ... Continue reading this article…

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The 3/50 Project: Help Your Local Economy

by Emily Guy Birken
Bakery

This is a guest article by Emily Guy Birken, author of The SAHMambulust. In this article, Emily explains and reviews the 3/50 Project, a movement designed to boost local economies. The presents have been given out, the wrapping paper has been cleaned up, and Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Small Business Saturday from American Express ... Continue reading this article…

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Occupy Wall Street Protests: Money is Power

by Luke Landes
Occupy Wall Street Protest

As every fourth graders knows, the United States Constitution begins, “We the people…” In the years following adoption of the Constitution, there have been movements to include more classes or types of human beings into that “people” represented by the federal government. The basic rights guaranteed by the core philosophy of the government once applied ... Continue reading this article…

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