Where is the Money Going?
City and County Governments Losing Half Million Jobs
Bad economic times have forced local governments to shed jobs, making it tougher for struggling Americans to receive city and county services. Local governments across the United States are expected to eliminate over the next couple of years nearl... read more
Making a Profit from Detaining Immigrants
Cracking down on illegal immigrants not only wins points with angry voters, but also boosts the bottom-line of private prison corporations. With the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency capturing thousands of undocumented workers each ... read more
Navy Celebrates New Spy Plane: “Like Christmas in July”
Naval commanders were delighted to see the arrival of the U.S. Navy’s latest version of the E-2 surveillance plane. Dubbed the Advanced Hawkeye, the plane looks similar to other E-2s with twin propellers and a “dinner-plate-shaped radar dome” that... read more
Coast Guard Fleet Modernization $3.8 Billion over Budget
Already under scrutiny for its response to the gulf oil accident, the U.S. Coast Guard is now reportedly years behind schedule and $3.8 billion over budget in its effort to modernize its fleet of ships and aircraft, according to an investigation b... read more
BP Plans to Save Billions by Claiming Disaster-Related Expenses as Tax Deduction
BP plans to write off nearly $10 billion in oil spill expenses when it pays its corporate taxes to the federal government—an amount that’s about half of what it pledged to spend to help victims living on the gulf coast. In its latest earnings repo... read more
A $2.6 Billion Mystery in Iraq
After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Washington took ownership of a special fund sanctioned by the United Nations that held Iraqi oil sales revenues for the purposes of buying humanitarian aid. American officials with the Coalition Provi... read more
White Women and Latinos Underrepresented in Federal Workforce
White men continue to dominate the ranks of the federal workforce, while white women and Latinos hold fewer jobs than they should compared to their overall representation in the U.S. population. Of the 2.8 million federal workers, 55.9% were men a... read more
Banks Failing at Fastest Rate Since 1992
Banks continue to fail in large numbers across the country, marking the second consecutive year in which more than 100 financial institutions have shuttered their doors. After 140 banks collapsed in 2009, this year has witnessed 103 failures so fa... read more
Retirement Security Not So Secure Anymore
Millions of Americans are not ready for retirement, according to Dallas Salisbury, president of the Alliance for Investor Education and the Employee Benefit Research Institute. The numbers Salisbury provided to AlterNet are startling:
One-thir... read more
Inspectors of U.S. Afghanistan Spending Condemned by Inspectors of Inspectors
The special watchdog created by the federal government to oversee spending in Afghanistan is doing a lousy job, according to other government watchdogs.
At issue is the work of The Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Recons... read more
Austerity Movement Dooms the Nation to Failure: Hale "Bonddad" Stewart
Cutting back on government spending to reduce the deficit is wrongheaded, argues Hale “Bonddad” Stewart at FiveThirtyEight. Stewart says economic austerity plans have proven to be a bad idea in Europe, where the results have been high unemployment... read more
Goldman Sachs Agrees to Pay Largest Bank Fine in History…and Makes it Back in a Day
Officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission are crowing over the fine levied on Goldman Sachs for allegedly defrauding investors in the 2007 Abacus CDO, saying the $550 million penalty is the largest ever handed down against a Wall Street ... read more
AIG to Pay $725 Million to Settle Fraud Claims
AIG is now on the hook to pay more than $1 billion as a result of lawsuits settled in Ohio over the one-time insurance giant’s illegal business practices. The largest of the settlements, $725 million, is owed to three Ohio pension funds that claim... read more
Mortgage Applications Drop to 13-Year Low
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, it’s a great time to buy a house if you have a near-perfect credit record, or to refinance a home loan if you have equity. But for the millions of Americans struggling to get by or just find a job, ge... read more
Gap between Very Rich and Other Americans Greatest Since 1928
The wealth disparity between America’s richest and the poor and middle class more than tripled from 1979 to 2007, based on data that the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities examined from the Congressional Budget Office.
The information led ... read more
GSA Audits Save $160 for each Dollar Spent
Brian Miller really knows how to save the government money. The inspector general for the General Services Administration is so good at his job that over a four-year period, he found ways to save $160 in GSA operations for every $1 his office was ... read more