institute for policy studies

GOP candidates converged in NH to debate who will be the better President. Thom is joined by Daniel Halper, online editor for the Weekly Standard and Jamie Wienstein, deputy editor of dailycaller.com to discuss their take on the debates. Later, Sarah Anderson, Director for Institute for Policy Studies. joins Thom to talk about high-frequency trading and its consequences.

"Everyone from the FDIC to the Pentagon have said that people are doing this as a way of life ... they are trapped in a series of loans," says Kai Wright of individuals and families who've become entangled in the system of payday lending. High-interest loans are being made to the people who need the extra cash most--and who are most unable to repay. As the Republican congress introduces a bill aimed at doing away with financial reform and continues its efforts to stymie the efforts of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, payday lending will continue to be attractive to low-income borrowers, and even more dangerous in the long-term. Is our economy, still reeling from the effects of the sub-prime mortgage explosion, prepared for any more suffering consumers or unscrupulous lending? This weekend, GRITtv headed to Boston with lots of our favorite media makers, activists, and thinkers for the National Conference for Media Reform. Laura was the emcee for the opening plenary, and then stuck around all weekend, talking about money, media and politics with movers and shakers. Check out some of what we saw at the conference! The details of the compromise that finally kept the government open and made deep cuts to the federal budget for fiscal year 2011 are finally beginning to emerge--and they're not pretty. Millions and even billions from education, labor, the EPA--all for what economist Richard Wolff says is a negligible impact on the actual deficit. Is there an upside to this mess? Richard joins Laura in studio, along with strategist Karen Finney from Washington, D.C., to break down the budget plan and the politics behind it. They also offer some solutions for ways to really fix the deficit. Finally, one thing we know for sure about the budget compromise is that there was no reduction at all in military spending. Laura has some thoughts. Distributed by Tubemogul.

But there’s one big obstacle — almost as big as the rest put together — that has no pluses whatsoever, and that we don’t have to be stuck with: the arsenal of senatorial death rays that goes by the quaint name of filibuster. So wrote Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker, and he joins us in studio to discuss the various proposals on the table to end abuse of the filibuster--or end the filibuster entirely. He also discusses the Constitutional basis -- or lack thereof -- of the filibuster, and argues that simple majority rule is the best for everyone.As Republicans take over the House of Representatives vowing to overturn Obama's health care reform, debate rages still among progressives as well about the best way to move forward toward still better health care for all.  A judge in Virginia ruled the individual mandate portion of the bill unconstititional, and the case will likely wind up with the Supreme Court. Jamie Court of Consumer Watchdog says that progressives should cheer the end of the individual mandate; Maggie Mahar of the Health Beat Blog at the Century Foundation argues that the individual mandate is essential to health care reform.

"Plantation" isn't the word for Firestone. Think "state within a state." Firestone originally controlled one million acres—four percent of the country, or nearly 10 percent of arable land. The current government, under Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, renegotiated the concession to encompass 100,000. The company runs the schools, provides housing and water and markets; it even operates the only hospital, one of the few in the country.With all that control, as Nicholas Jahr noted in The Nation, Firestone Tire has been able to run roughshod over workers' rights and health in Liberia, treating its workers, as Emira Woods of the Institute for Policy Studies notes, like slaves for the past 8 decades. But recent labor organizing has seen workers make some hard-won gains; Jahr and Woods join us to discuss.