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Everyone’s Talking About Private Equity in Housing: Here’s What You Need to Know
Private equity firms are major players in the rental housing market. Here’s how private equity ownership works, how it harms tenants, and the organizing strategies and policy responses that could help.
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So-called Ethics Provision in the CLARITY Act Fails to Prohibit Corruption
The long-promised ethics provisions in the CLARITY Act crypto legislation are a fig leaf that don’t cover Trump’s unprecedented crypto corruption or the rampant efforts by crypto billionaires to leverage their power and money to secure favorable legislation.
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Senate Must Stand Up to Crypto Billionaires and Trump Crypto Corruption
Soon, Senators will face a stark choice when the crypto industry’s top priority, the CLARITY Act, comes up for a vote.
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From ‘Finfluencers’ to Nobel Laureates, More Market Watchers are Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: SpaceX IPO Transfers Workers’ Wealth to the 1%
Amidst the hype dominating the news ahead of SpaceXs initial public offering (IPO) and the breathless coverage of Elon Musk’s ascension to trillionaire status following the IPO, there is also a growing chorus of market watchers — including influencers, financial analysts, and even Nobel laureates — questioning the company’s valuation and calling out the IPO’s…
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Private Equity is Behind LA’s Raging Warehouse Fire
Firefighters battled a weeklong warehouse fire at a 500,000 square foot food storage facility in Boyle Heights, CA, a historically Chicano neighborhood in Los Angeles.
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The Latest Tax Code Cheat: Audit Immunity, Conflicts of Interest, and Crypto Grift
President Trump is attempting to give himself a get out of tax jail free card: the Trump Justice Department recently settled an IRS case brought by Trump that gives him, his businesses, and his family (and their businesses) tax amnesty. His family’s crypto businesses—fueled by self-dealing, unethical conduct, and conflicts of interest—have generated billions of…
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Wall Street Wants Your 401(k) to Bail Out Private Markets
The new Trump proposal to deregulate the types of investments workers can make with their retirement accounts is a bad policy idea that looks almost engineered to bail out Wall Street at the expense of everyone else.
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The Carried Interest Tax Loophole Is Even Bigger Than We Thought
The carried interest tax loophole has probably been shielding far more Wall Street profits from taxes than had long been officially estimated. The private equity industry reaps as much as $10 billion a year in tax giveaways through the carried interest loophole. New research from The Budget Lab at Yale finds that closing the loophole…
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Deeply Flawed Crypto Bill Inches Forward in Senate
The latest version of the Senate crypto legislation was released late on May 11, just two days before the bill gets debated and voted on in the Senate Banking Committee. Negotiations on this bill have lasted months, largely behind closed doors and the crypto industry had a front seat at the drafting table. Even many…
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States Can Put the Brakes on Landlord Collusion and Junk Fees
The growing dominance of corporations within the housing sector has contributed to the continued rise of unaffordable rents, junk fees, and other tenant abuses. These excesses have sparked a resurgence of antitrust and consumer protection enforcement actions against extractive Wall Street landlords and the tech platforms that enable them, including the 2024 lawsuit against RealPage.
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Crypto Money Laundering is a Feature Not a Bug that Poses National Security Risks
More criminals, cartels, human traffickers, terrorists, rogue states, and sanctions evaders are using cryptocurrencies to hide and launder transactions and profits than ever.
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Banking Regulators Are Making it Easier for Big Banks to Hide Risks
The Federal Reserve recently weakened the rating system it uses to supervise the country’s largest banks, making it easier for banks to pursue riskier investments that could imperil the financial system. These ratings help determine whether giant financial institutions are considered “well managed.” Banks that keep that label can pursue acquisitions, take on more risks,…
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Trump Administration’s Banking Deregulation Puts Entire Economy at Risk
Financial headlines these days are dominated by chaos and uncertainty. Families across the country face soaring prices that have only gotten worse with the war in Iran. Worries abound over an artificial intelligence bubble, oil price shocks, gyrations in crypto, and rising default rates in the private credit markets. And economists have said that we…
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Surging Crypto Crimewave Should be a Congressional Wake up Call
Last week, the FBI reported that online crypto crime continues to surge and is taking a bigger bite out of people’s pockets than ever.
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AFREF Commentary: 4 Reasons Why We Should Ban the Use of Credit Scores in Property Insurance
While people might assume that insurance companies set their property insurance rates solely or primarily by evaluating the risk profile of individual homes, a homeowner’s credit characteristics are often a bigger driver of the price of homeowner’s insurance. As Federal Reserve researchers put it in a new report, insurers often price rates for “who is…
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